Diego Arria on Venezuela, Intervention, and the Limits of Sovereignty

There are echoes of Kosovo in what is unfolding in Venezuela — raising profound questions of legality, sovereignty, and responsibility. As with the capture of Saddam Hussein, it risks becoming the lynching of a guilty man: morally satisfying to some, but legally and politically perilous.

To explore these issues, the day of the US raid, I spoke with Ambassador Diego Arria, Venezuela’s former ambassador to the United Nations and a former president of the UN Security Council during the Balkan wars who was, like many Venezuelans happy to see Maduro gone, but apprehensive about Trump’s intentions.

As Venezuela’s ambassador in the UN Security Council Arria played a significant role in shaping what Kofi Annan later formalized as the Responsibility to Protect and left his mark with the “The Arria Formula” meetings of the Security Council, designed to discuss larger issues. A progressive reformist, former governor of Caracas, and longtime opponent of authoritarianism, Arria is no reactionary outsider to Venezuelan politics although he has been exiled from home for some years and has in fact recently moved from New York to Miami to be closer to the action. He has remained deeply engaged in the opposition all this time.

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