Corruption, narcotics trafficking, and violence sustain Maduro’s dictatorship.

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Nicolas Maduro’s remaining in power is a strategic imperative for the continuity of the governments in Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, and is vital to sustain and expand in the region the renewed block against the United States, and is the best guarantee for impunity against criminal prosecution. Venezuela is the most important booty that is now trapped by the Castroist parasitic ideology’s need of survival that is willing to do anything and everything not to lose its foothold. The dictatorship’s defeat by the people is so noticeable that it now has reached a juncture in which solely for its own interests; crime, corruption, narcotics trafficking and violence sustain Maduro’s dictatorship.

A government has different features or qualities that are useful to distinguish it and those of Nicolas Maduro are undoubtedly those of a “criminal dictatorship”. A dictatorship because he exerts his power against every known national, international, and natural set of laws, violating human rights and basic freedoms, without the Rule of Law, without independent branches of government, incarcerating and exiling politicians from the opposition, suppressing freedom of the press and now attempting to supplant the people’s sovereignty with a “fascist constituent assembly” in which people do not vote. Criminal, because in pursuing his objectives he commits crimes, promotes and covers the most felonious crimes with premeditation and as a part of his policies of government that without committing those crimes it would surely not survive.

Crimes committed by Nicolas Maduro and his government go from those felonious crimes against the people implanted and executed by the Castroist methodology that has oppressed Cuba since 1959 and practically cover the whole range of felonies known, from a penal perspective, as; homicide, torture, undue privation of freedom, creation and operation of criminal cartels, betrayal to the nation, subjugation to a foreign power, embezzlement and emptying of the national treasury, corruption in public contracts and services, like the so-far covered up case of Odebrecht, seizures, theft, fraud. But there are those crimes through which the regime sustains itself, those crimes that are continuous and repetitive and those are mainly; corruption, narcotics trafficking, and organized criminal violence.

Corruption in Maduro’s Castroist-Chavist regime ranges from active and passive bribes in and by governmental institutions that have yielded huge amounts of wealth that is internationally known, the destruction of the state’s main oil-based enterprise known as Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA in Spanish) and the use of its resources for bribes so large and notorious like those of the so-called “Petrocaribe”. Corruption also includes the existence of narcotics trafficking cartels that have earned Venezuela -since several years back- the designator of “Narco-State” that has now become a hub for cocaine trafficking with guaranteed sources of supply that include the FARC of Colombia and Evo Morales’ coca leaf growers’ unions from the Pluri-National State of Bolivia, also now known as a “Narco-State”.

To criminal organizations involved in narcotics trafficking the thought of losing control of Venezuela is unthinkable as they have turned it into their criminal base from where they launch their money laundering operations in collusion with the other regimes of the system.   It is impossible for Maduro to lose power and not dramatically impact terrorist and weapons trafficking organizations that have made narcotics trafficking one of their principal means of support and logistics. If Maduro’s regime collapses, there just isn’t any way the transnational system of crime related to, and a consequence of, narcotics trafficking can sustain itself without irreparable damage.

It has been shown that Nicolas Maduro’s regime is controlled and defended by the Cuban government through operational interventions in which all regimes who are members of the 21^st Century Socialism participate and includes the FARC who is now focused in rising to political power in Colombia. Edmundo Primitivo Sánchez Zurita, a Bolivian military officer posted by Evo Morales at the Bolivian Embassy in Venezuela has been caught and denounced through the social media of actively participating in the repression against Venezuelan people, documentation revealed has been acknowledged to be official documentation and attempts to explain this foreign officer’s role have only confirmed the shameful intervention the Venezuelan armed forces and institutions are subjected to in order to repress their people.

The fight that is happening today in Venezuela besides being a confrontation between freedom and democracy against the dictatorship, is by far neither an ideological dispute between capitalism and socialism nor a political one between the left and the right. It is a hard battle against organized crime, owner of narcotics’ trafficking corruption and unleashed violence, that has many “chieftains” who present themselves as politicians but who, in reality, are nothing more than a mafia that have control of countries that serve as their base for all types of criminal activities that produce high profits, including terrorism.

Every community, every family, every person, without exception, is threatened and/or impacted by corruption, by the traffic and consumption of cocaine and drugs, by the violence and crime related to narcotics trafficking. The situation of the Venezuelan people affects us all and their victory will benefit us all. We must understand that the Venezuelan people’s fight to rid themselves of Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorship is a fight for the people of the Americas and the world, a world in which the poorest are the ones who most increase their consumption of drugs and endure most of the violence, perhaps ignoring that such bad situation originates from the “Castroist-Chavist” ideology structured as a mafia and holed up in Venezuela, defended by those who promised to liberate the people but who instead subject, oppress, and degrade them.

Published in Spanish by Diario las Américas on Sunday June 11th, 2017.