Seven questions for those who invoke 'legality' to support Nicolás Maduro

The fall of dictator Nicolás Maduro has provoked an attack of hysteria, mainly among the left and the far left.

Only four European rulers condemn Maduro's capture, including Putin and Sánchez
What should the world do if a gang of drug traffickers takes over a country?

Many socialists and communists now invoke "international law" to defend this dictator, completely ignoring all his actions, and specifically those that led to his arrest by the United States, a victim of illegal drug trafficking by the Maduro regime that has already killed more than 200,000 US citizens, death tolls typical of a war. I want to pose some questions to Maduro's defenders:

1. What legality is there in a drug trafficking gang hijacking a country? A hijacking that has aimed to turn the Venezuelan state into a mere front for an organization, the Sales Cartel, dedicated to drug trafficking, and specifically fentanyl, on an international scale.
2. What legality is there in usurping the government of a country through electoral fraud? It is the system used by Nicolás Maduro to remain in power. The far left endorsed these frauds even in 2024, when Maduro hijacked the elections by refusing to publish the results, after the opposition to the dictatorship demonstrated Edmundo González's victory.
3. What legality is there in the murder of more than 10,000 Venezuelan citizens by Maduro's henchmen? These are the death tolls of that brutal regime between 2013 and 2023. You can read the full data here.
4. What legality is there in detaining thousands of people for political reasons and subjecting them to torture and ill-treatment? Between 2013 and 2023, under the Maduro regime, there were 43,003 victims of violations of personal integrity, including 1,652 victims of torture and 7,309 victims of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.
5. What legality is there in forcing almost 8 million Venezuelans into exile? These are people who have had to leave their country because of the unbearable situation of oppression and misery created by the Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela, with the complicity of much of the left in other countries.
6. What legal basis is there for threatening to invade a neighboring country? This is what Maduro did last year with Guyana, refusing to comply with a ruling by the International Court of Justice on the Essequibo dispute.
7. What legality is there in invading a democratic country like Ukraine and massacring its people as Russia has been doing? In case anyone has forgotten, this is an invasion that Nicolás Maduro has supported, since his regime is an ally of Putin's dictatorship.

Under normal circumstances, one country entering another to arrest its president would be reprehensible. It would be reprehensible if Venezuela were a democratic country, if its president had been elected in free elections, and if it respected human rights. Nicolás Maduro is not the legitimate president of Venezuela: he is a usurper who has used his power in that country to torture and murder for political reasons and to profit from killing citizens of other countries through fentanyl trafficking.

Just as some countries decided to stand up to thugs like Hitler in 1939, opposing his crimes and refusing to allow him to seize an entire continent without doing anything to stop it, the United States has done the right thing by capturing Maduro so that he can be held accountable for the enormous damage he has caused. International law is not an excuse to protect criminals like Maduro and allow them to act with impunity, and those who invoke it to defend this dictator are not defending legality, but rather the impunity of a criminal to violate both Venezuelan laws and international treaties that protect human rights.

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Photo: Efe.