Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 06/Jan 08:41

'Democrazy'

EVEN the lowliest criminal who is subject to deportation is entitled to due process. Donald Trump’s shocking removal of Nicolás Maduro might well be justifiable under American statutes, but the action was manifestly unlawful in all other realms of civilised behaviour. Mr Trump’s chilling move heralded a lawless start to 2026. The start of criminal proceedings against Mr Maduro in a New York court on January 5, does not cure the illegal means by which he was procured and brought to America. An indictment alleging drug trafficking has been unsealed, lawyers have been instructed, pleas have been taken. “I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man,” said Mr Maduro from the dock. All of this occurred under the administration of a US president who himself derides courtrooms and judges and never faced real consequences for the January 6, 2021, insurrection. His purged justice department is accused of breaching the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The prime minister’s distancing of this country from participation in America’s actions, after allowing the secret installation of a radar in Tobago and warning citizens against criticising Mr Trump – lest they never get a US visa – is telling. Not long ago, she decried TT as a “lawless dump.” Yet, the PM has nothing to say about American breaches to the law. Also telling is the PM’s call for Venezuela to be restored to democracy, something Mr Trump appears to not be urgently concerned with. Then too there is Caricom’s muted response to the violation of the tenet of sovereignty. All may fear Mr Trump’s wrath. That Mr Maduro was a dictator does not, on its own, expiate Saturday’s flagrant violation of international norms. On the contrary, what use is democracy if elite American units can abduct a country’s leader in the dead of night, on the whim of the Oval Office? What use are oil rigs and Dragon gas licences if there is no system of cross-border precepts? The Israel-Gaza war and the Russia-Ukraine conflict eroded the rules-based international order. But last week, Mr Trump, who sets his eyes on Greenland, possibly eviscerated it. Today, with no concrete word on when elections will occur in Caracas, the planet looks at a theatre of war shorn of any pretence of governance by charters, treaties and principles; a world in which institutions like the UN, which this week denounced America’s “crime of aggression,” are mere decorations. It’s a world in which what matters is not justice, but power; not democracy, but imperialism; not the comity of nations, but the rule of one. Venezuelans have been freed of Mr Maduro. Now they live under Mr Trump. The post 'Democrazy' appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.