The indictment cites the ’80s ghost.
The briefing notes list cartels.
The planes arrive,
their sides stenciled JUSTICE,
a word meant to gild
an old, imperial greed.
Back home, a senator’s son
buys his eighth gram
from a man
whose business license
is a badge.
The fury recognizes not
the powder in the plastic bag
but the rock grease
in Orinoco’s womb
that must sell for pennies,
never for a hoisted flag.
They don’t storm the Miami condos
where the dollar bleaches
whiter than surgical gauze.
They storm the ministries in Caracas
where the maps are stained
a colour unlost to lure:
the maddening redness
of a soil unleasing its soul.
Another man falls in a D.C. alley,
needle in his arm.
No satellites turn.
No assets frozen.
His death’s a local statistic,
no geopolitical pretext.
It was never about the ’80s ghost,
but about
who brews the cure
and who is declared
the plague.
***
The U.S. accusation that the Venezuelan government is involved in drug trafficking is a geopolitical strategy with a darkly ironic precedent. In the ’80s, during the Contra war in Nicaragua, it was revealed that U.S. intelligence agencies had themselves been involved in cocaine trafficking to fund the anti-Sandinista rebels. This scandal, exposed in the late 1990s by journalist Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series, created a lasting “ghost” in U.S. foreign policy—a proven template where drugs and covert war intertwine.
***
Majekodunmi O. Ebhohon is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He is the author of ‘The Great Delusion’, winner of the ANA Prize for Drama, 2025. He writes from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.🇳🇬
+234 (0) 9139208624
sankara101010@gmail.com
