Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
January 9, 2019
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia are under a common group of dictatorships. The international community deals with each as a separate case as though it was unique and isolated, while the reality shows these are dictatorships integrated into a group controlled by Cuba. In order to regain democracy, it is vital to clearly identify its enemy that is not just a single one local dictator. We must come to terms with the need to recognize and battle a “transnational organized group” that operates over each affected country and over all of these countries as a set.
The acknowledgement of dictatorships by democratic governments, international organizations, and even the press, has been -and still is- sadly slow. The regimes that concentrate all power, repress human rights and individual freedoms in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia -and at one time in Ecuador with Rafael Correa- have been processes that have distorted free and fair elections, have annihilated the Rule of Law, have liquidated the separation and independence of the branches of government, have ended free political association and the freedom of the press in order to impose a system based on despicable laws to give the dictatorship the appearance of legitimacy and legality.
In regard to Cuba, there isn’t a sliver of doubt that it is a 60-year-old dictatorship, but many democratic governments, international organizations, institutions, leaders and news media, do not treat it as a dictatorship and even avoid, as part of their internal policy, using such a label. This enables the oldest dictatorship of the Americas to present itself with features of legality while it expands, sustains, and manages regimes with its criminal methods.
It would appear the existence of political prisoners, political persecutions, commission of crime and concentration of all power in one person -as in Hugo Chavez up to his death- was not enough to see Venezuela as a dictatorship. To the point that there are even those who see Nicolas Maduro as a dictator but not Hugo Chavez. Sadly enough, some Venezuelans and members from the international community claim that Maduro will be “illegal” only if he swears as President on the 10th of January, despite the fact that it is illegal and illegitimate since it took power, as proven by the four OAS’ reports and the Interamerican Democratic Charter (IDC) activated several years ago, the on-going public massacres, videotaped and broadcasted political assassinations, torture, exiles, humanitarian crisis, and its designation as a narco-state and more!
Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s dictatorship in Nicaragua, makes its appearance to the world after April of 2018 with the massacres that have assassinated nearly 500 people, injured more than 2,500, imprisoned thousands and tortured an undetermined number of people. This dictatorship is several-years-old, ever since it committed fraud, controlled all branches of government, ended the Rule of Law, used the Judicial Tribunals to enable for his indefinite reelection, removed opposition members from Congress and more. Now, albeit it is better late than never, there is talk of activating the IDC, and the dictators clamor democracy.
It would appear that all insist to see Bolivia outside of the group of dictatorships and insist in accepting the manipulated election of Evo Morales. Just like in Venezuela and Nicaragua, through misrepresentation, crime, and massacres, Evo Morales liquidated the Republic of Bolivia by supplanting it with a Plurinational State and imposed its constitution that is unmasked by ignoring the results of the 21 February 2016 referendum (21F) that mandated NO more reelection for the incumbent. He is a candidate because tribunals -under his control- enabled him as “his human right” to be reelected indefinitely. Political prisoners, more than 20 massacres, more than 1,200 exiles, hunger strikes, formal complaints at The Hague, the International Court for Human Rights (CIDH in Spanish), the OAS and others, have been, thus far, unable to designate Morales as a dictator, just as they did not do -in a timely fashion- with Castro in Cuba, Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, and Ortega in Nicaragua.
None of these dictatorships is homegrown, they are not local nor autonomous processes, they are -instead- the result of the Cuban dictatorship, along with the Forum of Sao Paolo, the 21st Century Socialism, and the Castroist Chavist doctrine financed with moneys from corruption and narcotics’ trafficking. These are grouped dictatorships controlled by Cuba whose officials are active in Intelligence services, governmental services, torture, repression, international affairs, destabilization and more, in and for the four countries, as was denounced by the OAS’ General Secretary.
Americas’ democracy is confronting a well-structured Transnational Criminal Organization, an enemy who seeks global allies in crime and terrorism to sustain itself. We can no longer afford to continue treating Cuba’s dictatorship disengaged from what is happening in and with the dictatorships in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia and vice-versa and to treat all and each one without acknowledging their nature and integration into a common group. Whoever makes a mistake in identifying the enemy will be defeated.
Published in Spanish by Infobae.com on Sunday, January 6th. 2019
Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.