Julian Borger is right to draw attention to growing anxiety in Latin America as the Trump administration ramps up its rhetoric towards Venezuela, and to acknowledge the problematic trajectory of US-led armed intervention since Bush’s war on terror (Mexico raises concerns over US legal justifications for war, 3 April). Greater transparency in the formal legal justifications for military intervention is not just needed at the UN but here in the UK (which is why the public administration and constitutional affairs committee has rightly opened an inquiry into authorising the use of military force).
But with respect to Venezuela, what should be at the forefront of our minds is the human rights catastrophe facing Venezuelans. Their government has engaged in the systematic use of murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence since February 2014, to the extent that they are likely to constitute crimes against humanity.
Neither a continuation of the status quo nor military intervention are acceptable. The international community has many options, including preventive diplomacy, supporting fact-finding missions and referrals to the international criminal court, expanding targeted economic sanctions and embargos. Individual states such as the UK should exercise this responsibility via bilateral and regional trade policy, overseas development assistance and diplomacy.
In Venezuela, the international community has far from exhausted these approaches to protection and prevention, which should become as much of a focus of our energy as shared concerns regarding rumours of military intervention.
Dr Kate Ferguson
Co-executive director, Protection Approaches
• Re your article (‘No avocados in three weeks’ if US closes border, 2 April), the US can always buy avocados from Venezuela, where they have so many that they fall off the trees and rot.
Dr Michael Derham
Senior lecturer in Spanish and Latin American politics, Northumbria University
• While I fully agree with my colleague Malcolm Deas regarding the government’s incoherent strategy towards Latin America (Letters, 27 March), an alternative explanation of Prince Charles’s trip to Cuba is that it’s a personal fact-finding mission to a country that recently dumped its 87-year-old head of state (who’d been around since the 1950s) in favour of a youthful 58-year-old. HRH may be a tad older, but we know he boasts the sculpted torso of a youth.
Alan Knight
Emeritus professor, St Antony’s College, Oxford
