Something is wrong

For more than twenty-five years, international law and human rights organizations were ineffective in Venezuela. Its inhabitants spent a quarter of a century pleading with the international community to intervene so that their human rights could be restored. Twenty-five years! What was the response? As the lyrics of a song by Alberto Cortez say: “The alarm spread… regulations were issued.” They looked the other way or were satisfied with issuing documents that invited “dialogue between the parties.” Unfortunately, the current framework that safeguards human rights and international law did not work.

There was no way. There was no means.

It was not for lack of effort on the part of Venezuelans. Between the year 2000 and 2020, they held over 100,000 protests. Yes, 100,000! They demanded their rights, some as fundamental as the supply of water, electricity, or gas, as well as the right to decide how to educate their children, to receive medical care, to respect private property, and to have free and fair elections.

But we had already seen this movie in black and white. The regime's response was the same as we have seen so many times before: the criminalization of protest, the disappearances, the return of political prisoners, unfair trials, and everything that is typical of these issues. No matter how wicked they have been, the Chavistas suffer from a great lack of creativity and have never contributed anything new to the repertoire originating from the largest of the Antilles.

Just like in Cuba during the era of the Varela Project led by Oswaldo Payá, the Venezuelan opposition appealed to all the resources provided by their laws to attempt, by all means, to restore their democracy. And with the same level of success. The decision to participate or not in electoral processes under chavismo was a constant source of internal division. From the activation of the recall referendum against Hugo Chávez in 2003, through electoral participation under arbitrary disqualifications, campaign restrictions, and attacks on their leaders, to engaging in dialogue offers whose agreements were systematically violated by the regime, and ultimately demonstrating the electoral fraud by Nicolás Maduro in 2024, when the National Electoral Council proclaimed him the winner without showing results.

At the international level, abuses were denounced before organizations such as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the United Nations, and the International Criminal Court. In response, the regime ignored or dismissed the warnings, withdrew from the inter-American system, and threatened to do the same at the ICC, where the Venezuelan case has been awaiting a ruling for ten years. Ten years! The same body that acted swiftly against Benjamin Netanyahu, pressured by progressives and the international left.

On January 3, 2026, a turning point is marked that reveals the hypocrisy and inability to enforce the laws and international regulations proclaimed by international organizations and some NGOs.

In that scenario, the only one who decided to act beyond well-intentioned but empty declarations was Donald Trump. He did so because he understands that Venezuela has become a real threat to hemispheric security and to the United States.

Forcing the emigration of nearly eight million people, with the immense social and economic impact this entails for the receiving countries, and infiltrating among those migrants members of criminal gangs and paramilitary groups to create instability in governments deemed non-allies, is a reality. It is a replay of the model of the failed Cuban revolution, on which Chavismo has always relied and which today survives thanks to subsidies from enemies of the United States.

President Donald Trump, after exhausting negotiated avenues, diplomatic resources, and economic and political pressure, opted for an intervention that aims for high efficiency, low cost, and multiple benefits for Venezuela, the hemisphere, and the United States.

The similarity with Panama in 1989 lies in the legal justification based on drug trafficking and crime rather than a formal declaration of war. However, the differences are profound. In Panama, the aim was to dismantle the military forces. In Venezuela, the military structure was deliberately kept intact to prevent the total collapse of a state that was already weakened prior to the intervention.

Trump, based on the premise that the United States is the leader of the region, chose this option to support Venezuela's economic recovery, an essential step to restoring a solid democracy. It is a model quite similar, but not identical, to the one that was successfully applied in the reconstruction of Europe and Japan after World War II. Hence the decision to temporarily leave Delcy Rodríguez as the acting president, in accordance with Venezuelan legal provisions.

It is true that the conditions are different. In Venezuela, there was no war, which makes a crisis designed to mimic the Cuban failure even crueler. Its downfall was orchestrated by a political project that dismantled democracy, destroyed infrastructure, attacked the productive apparatus, forced the flight of skilled labor, and depleted knowledge. One only has to remember the dismissal of 20,000 highly qualified professionals from PDVSA in 2002.

For the good of Venezuela, Latin America, and the United States, we hope that the model adopted in this historic moment is successful. As a lawyer, I would like to state that the international organizations reacted, listened to all parties, and acted in accordance with the law. Unfortunately, the truth is otherwise.

Let's not be naïve either. Venezuela is strategically important. It has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, significant gas fields, the largest gold reserves in Latin America, and abundant iron and bauxite resources.

Additionally, it has a significant endowment of rare earth elements, critical minerals that are increasingly essential for the global economy and advanced technology industry, which is currently dominated by China.

Beyond economic interests, Venezuela matters as an ally and not as a factor of hemispheric disruption. It matters because drug trafficking threatens the lives of millions of Americans. It matters because 30 million people have suffered for nearly three decades under a tyrannical regime.

Before Chavismo, Venezuela was one of the strongest allies of the United States. It was a reliable oil supplier at critical moments, and its energy development relied on the investment and expertise of American companies.

When international organizations fail to uphold their own human rights charters, something is wrong. If International Law is unable to hold figures like Nicolás Maduro accountable, who danced on national television while massacring his people, then something is not right. If the human rights that matter are those of a regime that has kept over a thousand political prisoners and a similar number of missing persons, then something is very wrong.