Australia and the World Past and Present

The recent U.S. foray into Venezuela was not its first into Latin America.

During the Cold War, U.S. actions were aimed at limiting Soviet influence in the region.

After the Cold War, the principal security problem for the U.S. was the flow of drugs coming from the south.

Let’s look at some specific examples.

The U.S. intervened in Guatemala in 1954. The Guatemalan government had nationalised land belonging to the United Fruit Company. President Eisenhower felt that U.S. interests were at risk. Jacobo Árbenz was toppled with covert CIA assistance. Carlos Castillo Armas came to power and civilian rule only returned in the mid-1980s.

John F. Kennedy authorised action against Fidel Castro in Cuba. Cuban exiles were trained by the CIA and then launched the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion. The mission was a disaster for America as Castro’s armed forces quickly dealt with the insurgents. Kennedy was left humiliated. The event contributed to the Cuban Missile Crisis just a year later in 1962.

Ronald Reagan, authorised an invasion of Grenada in 1983. It was a rather tiny operation on a tiny island. The outcome would never be in doubt. Grenada’s Prime Minister was overthrown in 1979 and the new leader, Murice Bishop, was much closer to Castro. U.S. military operations always have had such gung-ho names. In the case of Grenada, it was “Operation Urgent Fury“. It evokes the image of using a sledgehammer to swat a mosquito. The pretext for the invasion was the protection of American medical students on the island.

The U.S. also intervened in Nicaragua. By 1979, the Sandinistas were becoming more influential. In 1981 Regan authorised covert assistance to the opposing Contras. The Reagan administration sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to arm the Contras. Today the country is relatively stable. Amazingly, Daniel Ortega who was a leading figure in the Sandinista National Liberation Front back in the 1980s is still in on the scene and has been President for a long time.

The intervention with the strongest parallels to the recent Venezuelan invasion was probably the capture of Manuel Noriega by U.S. forces in Panama. Noriega had provided a base of operations for the Contras. To that end, he was deemed useful to American interests. However, the American authorities became concerned about Noriega’s involvement in the drug trade and he became a persona non grata. He was arrested in Panama, and was taken to the States where he was tried and convicted. He returned to Panama in 2011 where he passed away in 2017.

It is interesting to revisit the Noriega case and the arguments the American prosecutors put forward in his trial. They argued that Noriega was not a lawful head of state. They suggested that he was a de facto military strongman, and not a legitimate, recognised head of state. Many other countries held the same view. The U.S. had withdrawn recognition of his government before the invasion and instead recognised Guillermo Endara as Panama’s lawful president. Because of that, Noriega did not enjoy head-of-state immunity under international law.

American lawyers argued that head-of-state immunity does not cover private criminal acts. Even if he had been a head of state, US prosecutors argued that immunity applies only to official acts of state (acta jure imperii). Drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering are private criminal acts, not sovereign functions. U.S. courts accepted this distinction.

Prosecutors argued that extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction applied and because drug trafficking was intentionally directed at the United States. Large quantities of cocaine were imported into U.S. territory. U.S. law allows extraterritorial jurisdiction where the conduct abroad has substantial effects in the US, or the accused conspires to violate US criminal law. This is a well-established principle in U.S. federal law, especially for narcotics cases.

Once Noriega was physically in U.S. custody, the courts applied the long-standing rule that how a defendant is brought before a U.S. court does not bar trial, even if the capture was controversial. This principle meant the legality of the invasion itself was treated as irrelevant to criminal jurisdiction.

The Noriega case became one of the most cited precedents on limits of head-of-state immunity.

There is a long history of U.S. interventions in Latin America. In the last few decades, American administrations have been rather reluctant to use military force to pursue national interests.

But President Trump has been more willing to flex the America’s military muscle. He has recently revived the Monroe Doctrine and we can see a more aggressive U.S. foreign policy south of the border.