Exposing the Corruption of America’s Dictatorships

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
may 23, 2017 

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The investigation of corruption in Brazil reveals the existence of a regional corruption scheme setup by a political decision with the objective of taking and retaining the government. Accomplishments of Brazilian justice and news media have yielded proof to the world that members of the Sao Paulo Forum activated a scheme to generate illicit money to fund the achievement of leftist political goals and line their leaders’ pockets. This international corruption cartel encompasses the regimes of; Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, partner governments who coverup their crime with their total power. Proof exists in Brazil and with it this line of corruption of America’s dictatorships’ must be exposed.

Democracy is the only system that can guarantee transparency and an effective fight against corruption because it embodies among its essential features; respect for basic freedoms, the division and independence of branches of the government and the existence of the Rule of Law. Only with these conditions can there be; freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom to openly investigate those in positions of authority and hold them accountable and transparent, freedom to have prosecutors and judges independent from government interference, clear rules, rotation of power and enforcement of the law above and beyond the power of the Government.

It’s not that in a democracy there is no corruption, it’s the fact that only in a democracy corruption can be prevented, investigated, publicized, judged, and punished. In a democracy people know that the end for those corrupted is their sentencing beside the eradication and/or return of the fruits of their corruption. The message of democracy is that crime by those in government does not pay and must be exemplarily punished because it deals with a crime that betrays the trust of the sovereignty that solely rests with the people, a crime that demands accountability through institutionalized means, through a structure of checks and balances within the government.

When democracy is violated and ended the political objective becomes the harnessing and concentration of total power, as was systematically done in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, and as was attempted in Argentina with the Kirchner’s and in Brazil with Lula and Rousseff. These political regimes who comprise the 21^st Century Socialism created by the Cuban Castroist regime, changed and replaced; constitutions, judicial systems, fiscal oversight mechanisms, comptrollers, financial and electoral systems, modified at their whim the control of the news and communications media until they owned and/or controlled them. In summary, they did everything they could so that the beginning and the end of power would rest with their leader; Castro in Cuba, Chavez and now Maduro in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, Correa and now Moreno in Ecuador, and the Ortega’s in Nicaragua.

When they concentrated all power, they also reduced at their whim the size and model of the opposition, public opinion and the press. Those who dare to trespass the limits established by the regime are subjected to “political repression through judicial means” with accusations, persecution, and despicable judicial sentences that are presented as legitimate to, and condoned by, the rest of the world, forcing the victims to go to jail and/or to have their “reputation assassinated”.

These are the reasons why those governments who manipulated election results and got to power

through the ballot boxes are now dictatorships that have expanded Castroist power almost throughout the whole region. Brazil because its political and economic importance was the cornerstone in the generation of funds for the dictators. The quick construction of a corruption scheme using Brazilian world class wealth and entrepreneurial capabilities started upon Lula’s arrival to the presidency in 2003. “Lava Jato” is the end result of billions of dollars’ worth of projects, bribes, benefits and perks of leftist political criminals who made a great mafia out of politics, who moreover are implicated in one other type of a corruption scheme with China paid for with oil and natural resources and narcotics trafficking moneys, and is yet another source of income for the dictatorships.

The vast quantity of billions of dollars that dictators of the 21st Century Socialism have amassed and have available, has created new rich in politics and new or reactivated crafty bourgeoises in Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, as well as in Lula’s Brazil and Kirchners’ Argentina and makes them practically untouchable because -as they had intended- they have so much money that they can control politics in their countries with Political Party blocks to ensure their impunity, as it is now being attempted in Argentina for example.

These new multimillionaires of corruption and main actors of politics, also use their ill gotten money from crime to influence democracies of the world by contracting powerful lobbyists, renown law firms, public relations (PR) companies in the United States to neutralize any attacks, improve their image, or persecute politicians who are considered their enemy; they influence in the creation of new political movements as was the case with the “Podemos” political party in Spain, they subject democratic governments or leaders to constant attacks from proxy -supposedly neutral- actors who are well incentivized by money from corruption, and much more.

The economic power of the “mafia bosses” from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua seeks to make it impossible for them to lose power and if they lose it, to make sure that those who follow must ensure their impunity. They have accomplished the promise they made “to never again lack money” when declaring that the decade of the nineties as a “decade lost” because of the lack of money to conspire with. For this, and many more, reasons the corruption of America’s dictators must be exposed and Brazil is today a good starting point.

Published in Spanish by Diario las Américas on Sunday May 21st, 2017