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Summarised by Centrist
Speaking to Andrew Dickens on Newstalk ZB, former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said the US operation crossed a legal line, saying “Well, it’s clearly a breach of international law.”
However, he argued it was unlikely to trigger broader consequences for international law beyond the Americas.
“The US has always acted fairly unilaterally in Latin America, and the rest of the world tends to turn a blind eye, and I suspect that’s what’s going to happen here,” he said.
For New Zealand, Mapp suggested the low key approach signalled by Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predictable and probably deliberate. Peters has said New Zealand is “concerned” and expects all parties to act within international law.
“Really, we don’t have that many interests in Latin America and we know the US attitudes over many, many decades in relation to Latin America,” he said.
Mapp also warned against assuming the operation ends with the arrest itself, pointing to the bigger test of what comes next and how New Zealand should judge it. “Yes, you can always remove a leader. We proved that essentially in Afghanistan, didn’t we. But look how that turned out.”
He said an exit plan matters more than the headline moment. “And it’s not clear what that would be,” Mapp said.
He added that one factor in the US favour may be local public sentiment. “Probably the majority of Venezuelans actually want this change,” he said.
