Vigilantism in Venezuela

 

‘Discretion is better part of valour’, that is one lesson which friend Nicolas Maduro would probably have learnt a little late though. Venezuela is a sovereign nation and has its rights, but then it also has world’s largest oil reserves and apparently even huge deposits of silver. While it may be a blessing, but the boon has actually turned into a bane as when you antagonise the Global super bully and hob-knob with its rivals, or start planning to trade in any currency other than US$, you know you are living dangerously, especially if you don’t have the muscle to protect yourself. 

Venezuela was a relatively stable country known as the global capital of beauty pageants, as their lithesome lasses trumped the other contestants 23 times in the last seven odd decades. Then Hugo Chavez came to power with his Marxist socialist ideology and spate of nationalisations followed, resulting in the American companies being forced to extricate. Having seen something similar at close quarters in Cote d’Ivoire in the first decade of this century, when Ivorians decided to cast their lot with anti-French politicians (their colonial masters), the country plunged into a civil war. Finally the UN Peacekeepers stepped in but it was the French who brokered peace and  the French companies returned to take over from where they left and the country is peaceful. The same script will be replayed here, American businesses will flock to this resource rich nation and all will be well.

Americans are known to have effected regime changes whenever it suits them, the excuses could be weapons of mass destruction to drugs but the actual reason is the threat posed to the hegemony of Petro$. As is well known, after Kissinger convinced the Saudis that oil trade would be in American$ only in return for addressing their security concerns, dollar became the fiat currency and rest of the world had to tow the line. Whenever there was an attempt to get out of this Dollar stranglehold by any country, the ruler was toppled and anarchy followed, be it Iraq, Saddam Hussein or Libya – Gaddafi. Maduro too was toying with the idea of joining BRICS and trading oil in Chinese Yuan, that was the sin he committed for which he has been abducted and brought to the US for standing trial for some supposed drug related offences.

The American actions are in blatant violations of international norms and has invited criticism from the UN as also from China and Russia, but that is mere tokenism as there are no actions which are envisaged by any of them individually or collectively. May be both China and Russia are in a way looking forward to exploiting this precedence in their respective backyards themselves in times to come. There are major lessons for smaller countries here, firstly avoid getting into a confrontationist mode with a bigger power and secondly before aligning with any rival powers weigh the pros and cons. Flirting with Russia and China, knowing fully well that they are not in any way capable for standing up for Venezuela in case of any eventuality should have acted as a deterrent. 

There are lessons for India as well, although we are a much bigger and more powerful nation, the first one being standing up for its own principles. India has always followed the righteous path and weathered many a storm in its nearly eight odd decades of independent existence. Sovereign nations have rights to choose their systems of governance, their allies, their economic model and so on, but more importantly they need to be able to safeguard their interests. If that fails then the sovereignty itself is questionable. India has managed to weather the tariff tantrum by skilful diplomacy so far, addressed the currency issue also by resorting to trades in rupee, rial, rouble or yuan as the case may be. Diplomacy requires deftness and hence we have consciously chosen not to rebut or provoke even some unfounded claims during OPERATION SINDOOR. We need to be on our guard as the global situation is rather volatile and global institutions and watchdogs have more or less become defunct, in an eerie similarity to events pre second world war, when League of Nations collapsed.