During the early hours of Saturday morning, US forces bombed Venezuela and kidnapped its president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n
This was a clear breach of international law, violating the terms of the UN charter which prohibit interference in and the use of force against sovereign states.<\/p>\n
Yet Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has refused to condemn the attack or even acknowledge its brazen illegality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to get all the material facts together and we simply haven\u2019t got the full picture at the moment\u201d, the prime minister told the BBC\u00a0on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Starmer then wrote on social media that Britain \u201cregarded Maduro as an illegitimate President and we shed no tears about the end of his regime\u201d.<\/p>\n
By contrast, it took him less than 24 hours to call Vladimir Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine a \u201cwar of aggression\u201d.<\/p>\n
Former British ambassador Sir Richard Dalton told\u00a0Declassified\u00a0the government has failed to stand up against \u201cthe law of the jungle\u201d with its \u201ccynical\u201d stance on Venezuela.<\/p>\n
While refusing to condemn Trump\u2019s actions, Starmer insisted there \u201cwas no UK involvement in this operation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Royal Navy personnel have nonetheless been\u00a0embedded\u00a0in the US armada surrounding Venezuela over recent weeks, with the Ministry of Defence refusing to clarify whether they were present during the attack.<\/p>\n
Defence secretary John Healey apparently\u00a0ordered\u00a0them not to take part in strikes on Venezuela and US-UK intelligence sharing was\u00a0reportedly\u00a0frozen in the Caribbean in order to avoid British complicity in breaches of international law.<\/p>\n
This is in sharp contrast with the government\u2019s current position that it cannot adjudicate on the legality of Trump\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
But even if British forces did not directly participate in the military operation, the UK government has been quietly backing Washington\u2019s destabilisation efforts in Venezuela for years.<\/p>\n
Since 2019, Britain has frozen over $2 billion of Venezuelan gold in the Bank of England, sponsored anti-government initiatives, and even set up a secret \u201cVenezuela Reconstruction Unit\u201d to plan for the day after Maduro\u2019s overthrow.<\/p>\n
Starmer is therefore not speaking in abstract terms when he says \u201cthe UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela\u201d.<\/p>\n
Recognising Juan Guaid\u00f3<\/p>\n
Seven years ago, the UK government made the bold decision to recognise a politician named Juan Guaid\u00f3 as Venezuela\u2019s president.<\/p>\n
Guaid\u00f3 had never run for presidential office.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet on 23 January 2019, he\u00a0swore\u00a0himself in as Venezuela\u2019s \u201cinterim president\u201d, using Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution to declare that Maduro had abandoned his post and thereby left an \u201cabsolute vacuum of power\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This vacuum, claimed Guaid\u00f3, would need to be filled by the president of Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly \u2013 a post occupied by Guaid\u00f3.<\/p>\n
Without the support of the US government, Guaid\u00f3\u2019s legal gymnastics would probably not have gotten him very far.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the Donald Trump administration moved\u00a0quickly\u00a0to recognise Guaid\u00f3, and began pressuring the so-called \u201cinternational community\u201d to follow suit.<\/p>\n
On 24 January, Britain\u2019s then foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt visited Washington, attending a \u201cmid-morning meeting with [US secretary of state] Mike Pompeo, and then Vice-pres Mike Pence\u201d.<\/p>\n
During this meeting, Hunt surprised everyone by \u201csuddenly saying that we will consider recognising Guaid\u00f3\u201d, according to former foreign minister Alan Duncan.<\/p>\n
Duncan\u2019s published diaries note how, the next day, Hunt said \u201cwe need to use Venezuela as an issue on which we can be as fully in line with the US as possible, because [Hunt] is out of line on a number of issues such as Syria\u201d.<\/p>\n
Weeks earlier, Hunt had vocally disagreed with Trump\u2019s plans to pull US troops out of Syria.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Duncan\u2019s diary entry continued: \u201cIt\u2019s one of those trade-off moments which we need if we are to handle the Trump administration cleverly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Apparently quoting Hunt, Duncan added: \u201cVenezuela is in their back yard, and it\u2019s probably the only foreign adventure they might just pursue\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hunt thus seemingly viewed recognising Guaid\u00f3 as a means of currying favour with Trump, but Britain also has longstanding interests in the region\u2019s oil reserves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe revival of the oil industry [in Venezuela] will be an essential element in any [economic] recovery, and I can imagine that British companies like Shell and BP will want to be part of it\u201d, Duncan had declared in 2018.<\/p>\n
British firms are also interested in neighbouring Guyana, which has an ongoing border dispute with Venezuela over the oil-rich Essequibo region.<\/p>\n
In January 2019, Guaid\u00f3\u2019s representative in London, Vanessa Neumann, was recorded saying the \u201cnumber one issue identified by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is that they won\u2019t support us while we continue with the official line, that we want to take back the Essequibo from Guyana\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Neumann thus instructed her fellow adviser to \u201cdrop the topic\u201d of Venezuela\u2019s claim to the region in exchange for Britain\u2019s support for the coup.<\/p>\n
Freezing Venezuela\u2019s gold<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s recognition of Guaid\u00f3 was a key prerequisite for the Bank of England\u2019s decision to freeze Venezuela\u2019s gold in 2019 \u2013 a major British contribution to Washington\u2019s coup efforts.<\/p>\n
According to the former US national security adviser John Bolton, Hunt was \u201cdelighted\u201d to help with Washington\u2019s destabilisation campaign, \u201cfor example freezing Venezuelan gold deposits in the Bank of England\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Bank\u2019s directors were uneasy about the legal implications of freezing a foreign state\u2019s assets, but the Foreign Office worked to ease their nerves.<\/p>\n
On 25 January 2019, Duncan\u00a0wrote\u00a0in his diary that he held a phone call with Mark Carney, then the Governor of the Bank of England, about Venezuela\u2019s gold:<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell Carney that I fully appreciate that, although it\u2019s a decision for the Bank, he needs a measure of political air cover from us. I tell him I will write him the most robust letter I can get through the FCO lawyers, and it will outline the growing doubts over Maduro\u2019s legitimacy and explain that many countries no longer consider him to be the country\u2019s President\u201d.<\/p>\n
In other words, the Bank of England required a robust legal rationale for keeping Venezuela\u2019s gold frozen, and the Foreign Office was happy to provide it with one.<\/p>\n
In May 2020, the Maduro government sued the Bank of England over its refusal to release the gold.<\/p>\n
When the issue moved to the courts, the UK government\u00a0supported\u00a0Guaid\u00f3 by re-emphasising its recognition of him, with the Foreign Office even spending \u00a380,697 to promote his legal campaign.<\/p>\n
This was despite repeated condemnations from UN special rapporteur Alena Douhan on the negative impact of unilateral sanctions on Venezuela.<\/p>\n
In 2021, for instance, Douhan\u00a0noted\u00a0the \u201crepeated refusals of banks in the\u2026 United Kingdom\u2026 to release Venezuelan assets even for buying medicine, vaccines and protective kits\u201d during the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
With each hearing, Guaid\u00f3 and his representatives also incurred substantial costs, with published accounts\u00a0suggesting\u00a0Guaid\u00f3\u2019s team spent over $8.5m on legal fees \u2013 roughly \u00a37m.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, Guaid\u00f3\u2019s UK legal fees were\u00a0paid\u00a0with money which was originally appropriated from the Venezuelan state in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Venezuela Reconstruction Unit<\/p>\n
After freezing Venezuela\u2019s gold, the UK government set up a secretive \u201cVenezuela Reconstruction Unit [VRU]\u201d in Autumn 2019.<\/p>\n
The VRU was\u00a0located\u00a0in the Foreign Office and directed by diplomat John Saville, with three other members of staff attached to it, one of whom was an \u201cexternal consultant\u201d.<\/p>\n
Apparently tasked with planning for the day after Maduro\u2019s overthrow, the VRU met with Guaid\u00f3 in London in January 2020 and \u201chad contact\u201d with other members of his team, including Neumann.<\/p>\n
After the VRU was exposed, the Foreign Office claimed the team had been established to \u201ccoordinate the UK approach to the international response to the dire economic and humanitarian situation in Venezuela\u201d.<\/p>\n
But documents obtained by\u00a0Declassified\u00a0exposed Saville holding meetings in Caracas to plan for UK involvement in Venezuela\u2019s energy sector.<\/p>\n
A whole day of meetings was scheduled for the topic of \u201cUK involvement in the energy sector\u201d of Venezuela, though the full agenda remains classified for reasons of \u201cnational security\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Foreign Office\u00a0funded\u00a0an \u201canti-corruption\u201d coalition in Venezuela to the tune of \u00a3450,000, with the money drawn from the controversial Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following this reporting, the British embassy in Caracas complained internally that: \u201cArticles on our programmes\/operations here (particularly from McEvoy) are particularly sensitive\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Foreign Office is now refusing to disclose which non-governmental organisations it has been funding in Venezuela over recent years.<\/p>\n
It justified this by saying information which \u201cwould be likely to prejudice relations between the United Kingdom and [an]other state\u201d needs to remain confidential.<\/p>\n
John McEvoy is Chief Reporter for Declassified UK. John is an historian and filmmaker whose work focuses on British foreign policy and Latin America. His PhD was on Britain\u2019s Secret Wars in Colombia between 1948 and 2009, and he is currently working on a documentary about Britain\u2019s role in the rise of Augusto Pinochet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the early hours of Saturday morning, US forces bombed Venezuela and kidnapped its president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-379041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}