Venezuela, Martial Law, and the long shadow of US Intervention

By Toby Giongco
Bulatlat.com

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, US warplanes bombed Caracas, Venezuela, and President Nicolás Maduro was abducted and flown out of his own country after months of escalating tensions. Since his election, Donald Trump’s pronouncements have become notorious for their brazen interference in the internal affairs of other nations. From floating the annexation of Greenland from Denmark to openly musing about turning Canada into the 51st state, the most naked expression of US imperialism has now taken shape in the kidnapping of the Venezuelan head of state.

Whether one supports or opposes Maduro is beside the point, the bombing of a sovereign capital and the forced removal of a sitting legitimate president is not liberation. One must remember that the US invasion of Iraq was made in the false pretext of “weapons of mass destruction” and this time it is no different, this time it is a “narco-terrorist conspiracy” as shown in the charges against Maduro. 

Venezuela has been a long target of US hegemonic interests due to its oil-rich nature. Its vast petroleum reserves make it strategically valuable in the time of its cold war with China. Ever since Hugo Chavez’s victory in 1999, the country had nationalized its oil industries against the interests of the foreign oil corporations that had exploited its natural resources for so long. The price of going against imperial interests included the sanctions that strangled its economy, covert operations that were run to destabilize its politics, the anti-government propaganda aimed at delegitimizing the Venezuelan state, and the final nail in the coffin was the United States bombing its capital and abducting its leader.

But Venezuela’s tragedy is not an isolated case; it follows a well-worn pattern of US intervention against nations of geopolitical importance especially in Latin America during the Cold War. The region was marked by successive US-backed coups and covert operations including the overthrow of Chile’s Salvador Allende, attempts at assassinating Cuba’s Fidel Castro and the removal of former CIA asset Manuel Noriega after Washington had lost interest in supporting his dictatorship in Panama. Yet one of the earliest—and still ongoing—experiments in United States–driven semi-colonial control began in the Philippines.

In 1901, the Philippine-American War ended with President Emilio Aguinaldo abducted and our country turned into a colony. The burgeoning American Empire had killed 1.4 million Filipinos during the war and after this, it claimed “benevolent assimilation” over the archipelago. During the Commonwealth period, this colonial domination was repackaged as preparation for self-rule, even as the United States retained decisive control over Philippine foreign policy, military affairs, and economic orientation, embedding structural dependency that constrained genuine sovereignty.

The Second World War exposed the limits of this arrangement. In pursuit of its vision of a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” the Japanese Empire invaded the Philippines, viewing U.S. military bases in the archipelago as a direct threat to its imperial expansion and southern resource strategy. The islands became a brutal battleground between rival empires, exacting immense suffering on the Filipino population. Following Japan’s defeat, the Philippines was granted formal independence in 1946, but the post-war settlement ensured the continuation of U.S. influence through unequal trade agreements, military base rights, and security pacts.

In the Cold War era, the United States intensified its intervention in the Philippines through psychological warfare and security restructuring against communists. Under an anti-communist framework, the CIA conducted psyops against the communist-led Huks including the aswang psyops that exploited local folklore to terrorize communities that served as mass bases for the Hukbalahap. Being a loyal semi-colony, McCarthyite thought also reached the Philippines through the Committee on Anti-Filipino Activities (CAFA) as the Filipino counterpart to the Committee on Un-American Activities. CAFA planted the seeds of red-tagging which today remains as a remnant of Cold War anti-communism.

Under the Marcos Sr. regime, preferential trade arrangements and quota systems tied Philippine agriculture, especially Negros Island’s sugar industry, to the US market, discouraging diversification and entrenching a monocrop economy. Such arrangements had led to the 1980s Negros Island famine, leaving thousands of children malnourished. Throughout the entire Marcos dictatorship, the United States remained a key political and military backer, viewing it as a strategic ally during the Cold War, not wanting another semi-colony to fall under the hands of communist guerrillas.

US intervention does not always mean covert operations, US-sponsored coups, or open military invasion. At times, it appears as “assistance” diplomatic pressure, or the careful management of political transitions to ensure outcomes favorable to American interests. It was former US President Nixon’s approval that strengthened Marcos Sr.’s resolve to declare Martial Law. The United States provided substantial economic and military aid to the Marcos regime throughout its authoritarian rule, effectively financing the dictatorship even as it carried out arrests, torture, and killings of political opponents; this external support was accompanied by large loans from the World Bank and other international lenders that bolstered Marcos’s hold on power. In a final act before the dictatorship ultimately fell, the US helped Marcos Sr. and his family escape accountability by flying them to Hawaii. 

This intervention had its lasting consequences. By shielding Marcos from accountability and propping up his dictatorship for over a decade, the United States distorted Philippine democracy and entrenched a political culture of impunity. The escape of the Marcos family in 1986 facilitated by the US was not an act of neutrality but a final intervention that denied Filipinos justice. 

The Filipino people have every reason to resent, reject, and rally against US interventionism. While there are varying viewpoints on Maduro’s administration in Venezuela, it is up to the sovereign Venezuelan people to exact accountability against him. In our case, the US intervention, after decades of sponsoring Martial Law, had robbed us of the opportunity to rid ourselves of the Marcoses through our own democratic means and processes. 

Opposing US intervention requires a fundamental principle: that no foreign power has the right to bomb a capital, abduct a head of state, or decide the political fate of another nation. Venezuelans alone must determine Venezuela’s future, just as Filipinos alone should have been allowed to determine ours. History has shown us that when sovereignty is compromised in the name of “stability” or “democracy,” it is always the people who pay the price.

Against all forms of U.S. intervention—no might nor military force can manufacture freedom, and no empire—however powerful—can claim moral authority over another people’s history, struggle, and future. (RVO)

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