Who cares what they can do in this country, regarding Air Defence ? They have no enemy, and virtually no fighters - like New Zealand, not a representative country when dealing with military subjects.
DA50, you should investigate a little bit more the history of the Nobel Price, how it's decided, by which people, for which reasons...
The fact that it has been given to one president simply because he was black, after a year of doing nothing, simply because of his supposed potential, speaks volume. Now regarding Venezuela and Colombia, you should also investigate more...
Also civilian transponders have one mode, when military ones have 4 or even 5... so you don't switch them off like that - and when conducting an intercept, I'm sorry, but the supposed "Air Safety" of the intercepted one is not the main factor. Pretty obvious, not ? An ICAO "recommendation" with all the interference of lawyers we know, will never be considered for long by the generals in charge of Air Defence of any country.
Anyway, airlines pilots are not the ones in charge of designing the interception profiles or procedures, neither is civilian ATC. They are just here to obey and comply with the orders coming from the interceptors, otherwise they will get shot down, as it happened in more than one occasion in history. So if they enjoy playing with their TCAS or following it stupidly and blindly as they are usually instructed to do in their simulators, too bad for them.
There is no right or wrong in the debate, no idea of being legal or not, or gray area - just remember the ones in the back with 30 mm guns and missiles are right, final.
After landing you can fill as much paperwork as you want, it will go to the bin directly - it's not a lawyer office.
And if you are not convinced, just try to cross some areas in the world where you have nothing to do.
And even better, rather than talking between yourselves, try to discuss with some of your colleagues who have been doing the great job before, there are still a few of them remaining in the airlines cockpits.