Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) has nullified the National Assembly’s attempt to reinstate the nation in the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), calling the move "an assault on the rule of law and the power of the Venezuelan people."
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TSJ Vice President Juan Jose Mendoza told the chamber that the measure made by the National Assembly, already in contempt of the high court since March 2017, was "absolutely nullified because it lacked legality."
In its Friday ruling the Supreme Court said its decision was based on the fact that Venezuela in May 2013, Venezuela and other countries, including Ecuador, Bolivia and Ecuador, formally resigned from the TIAR before the Organization of American States (OAS).
Mendoza also added that, officially, Venezuela resigned from the OAS, which oversees the treaty, last April due to its complicity with the United States and the right-wing Lima Group against the South American nation.
The TSJ stressed that any action aimed at trying to apply the treaty should be considered an act of hostility to the sovereignty of Venezuela, and an aggression against peace and international law.
On Saturday, President Nicolas Maduro said, "Any intent to apply the TIAR within Venezuela will be considered an act hostile to national sovereignty and an aggression against the territory, the people, peace and international law."
Venezuelan army commanders also rejected the attempt by the National Assembly, headed by the self-declared interim president Juan Guaido supported by the U.S., to try to reinsert the nation in the TIAR. The military described the pact as an instrument of domination and interventionism.
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"This Treaty is precisely an instrument of domination and interventionism that goes against the independence and sovereignty of the people, a product of the already obsolete imperialist doctrines that have done so much damage to Latin America," Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino tweeted after the illegitimate assembly passed the measure last Tuesday.
Of the original 23 American and Caribbean countries that signed the document in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil back in 1947, only 15 states, among them the U.S. and other Lima Group members remain, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, and Peru.
According to the TIAR text, signatory countries will first seek peaceful solutions to internal conflicts, however, "an armed attack by any State against an American State will be considered an attack against all American States."
"Consequently," continues the treaty, "each of these contracting parties undertakes to help cope with the attack, in exercise of the immanent right of legitimate individual or collective defense recognized in article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations."
That TIAR clause brings fear to some who say the 70-year old pact could pave the way for military intervention in Venezuela, an idea being thrown around casually by the U.S. President Donald Trump administration and OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro.
Venezuelan lawyer and professor, Pablo Aure tweeted last May, when the assembly first began to debate the TIAR, that it "will be the instrument that allows the entry of a foreign military coalition" into the country. Guaido, with U.S. help tried, and failed, to take down the governement April 30.
The high court added that the only person authorized to end or ratify international agreements on behalf of Venezuela is president, Nicolas Maduro.
The TIAR has left a bad taste in the mouth of many Latin American signatories after Argentina tried to enforce it during the Malvinas War (1982), but the U.S. overrode the decision and invoked the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), supporting the United Kingdom in the bloody conflict.