Maduro’s Constituent Assembly: A defeat for all dictatorships

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
Publicado agosto 3, 2017

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The ploy to convene a Constituent Assembly in Venezuela against the will of the people, without any legality or legitimacy and solely as a means to perpetuate the government of Nicolas Maduro in power, has turned out to be proof of a criminal, corrupt, antinationalistic, and narcotrafficking dictatorship. Maduro’s initiative is a boomerang that further exhibits the involvement of members and accomplices of the 21^st Century Socialism, making visible those governments and individuals that back and sustain Castroist barbarism in Venezuela and the region. Maduro’s Constituent Assembly along with the violence and the fraud perpetrated during the day of election, is nothing more than a resounding defeat for all dictatorships.

Venezuela, the wealthiest oil rich nation of the Americas, one of the most stable democracies during dictatorial regimes of the Cold War, the nation that gave asylum and protection to the politically persecuted by the Castroist and other military dictatorships, the important and founding nation of the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC in Spanish), the country that was a model of development and stability, was taken -with its own money- to the economic, political and social crisis that it endures today. The misappropriation and corrupted use of Venezuelan resources by the Castroist-Chavist operators have now configured a totally different, impoverished, confronted, intervened, and oppressed country.

Hugo Chavez handed Venezuela over to the Cuban dictatorship enabling, with Venezuela’s oil resources, the agonizing Castroist regime to survive, regrow, and expand in the 21^st Century under the guise of a leftist, populist, socialist, Bolivarian movement (ALBA Project), to the point that nowadays there is not even a sliver of a doubt that it is a Castroist hard core: A dictatorship.

The crisis produced by Castroist-Chavist operators in the region has its maximum footprint in Venezuela where the dictatorship is resisted by a mobilized people that is not willing to follow the footsteps through which they have subjected Cuba for over 59 years. The fight of the people and its democratic leadership took the regime to its greatest defeat on the 6th of December of 2015 (6D) when the opposition gained control of the National Assembly, a situation that instead of generating a process toward national reconciliation and the return of democratic institutionalism, motivated the Castroist dictatorship to place the most despicable practices of a dictatorship to be underway. After his defeat on 6 December 2015 and the National Assembly’s members taking office on 5 January of 2016, Maduro strengthened the dictatorship in order to disavow and deny the newly established Legislative Branch. He made the violation of the essential elements of democracy that had been violated for years harsher and more notorious. Ever since Chavez there had not been a separation and independence of the branches of Government, the “Rule of Law” had been replaced by the whim of the chief.

In a terminal situation, Maduro called on the 1st of May of 2017 to a Constituent Assembly to liquidate the National Assembly, regain total control of power and institutionalize the dictatorial regime with functional organizations under its control. The popular street protests became permanent and with the passing of each day the world began to see further proof of Venezuela’s Castroist dictatorship, the ferocity in its violation of human rights, its criminal practices, its corruption, its condition as a narco-state. The world now is informed and convinced that only the illegal and illegitimate use of undue force sustains Maduro in power.

The General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, that had previously denounced the dictatorship in 2016 with its first report on Venezuela, led the need for the OAS to live up to its principles and obligations on the defense of democracy.   Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, and Canada promoted the effort that soon expanded to include Colombia, Chile, and Panama, without regard to ideological differences, all of these governments understood that what is going on in Venezuela is a fight for democracy and for human rights. Maduro’s response consisted of a coordinated reaction by all Castroist 21^st century dictatorships so Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua now went on a frontal defense of Venezuela’s dictatorship, leveraging the support from the Petrocaribe’s countries who, motivated by their interest in Venezuela’s oil and manipulated by Cuba, left a visible trail of the shameful bribes and favors to sustain the dictatorship.

The crisis reached beyond the region, Spain took a position against Maduro’s dictatorship and the European Union demanded the Venezuelan regime stop its attempts to convene the Constituent Assembly. International news media throughout the world report the daily crimes committed by the Castroist dictatorship in Venezuela and the people’s sacrifice in pursuit of their freedom that has victims, heroes, and heroic acts.   Venezuela’s Episcopal Conference openly censured the dictatorship and opposed the Constituent Assembly thus getting The Vatican and Pope Francis to give-up their support of the regime. The U.N. shows Castroist penetration and influence, but their lack of response does not leave it unscathed. Maduro turns to Putin and his condition, as a dictator is now unquestionable. Legislatives from throughout the world condemn the dictatorship. The United States increases its sanctions. It is the chronicle of the dictatorship put on display that signals the defeat of whole group in the region because, beside Venezuela; Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua are now on notice. They all know they have been unmasked so now they make Venezuela and Maduro their trench of resistance.

Images from the polling booths for Maduro’s Constituent Assembly unquestionably show; an absolute lack of popular support, the firm opposition of the people, the persistence of the dictatorship in the abuse, violation of human rights to simulate democracy and supplant the people’s will through electoral fraud, and the dictatorship’s control of power through the use of undue armed force. A “de-facto” government committing fraud and attempting through the use of false figures and data to extend -however briefly- its tenure in power and impunity, but that in reality is setting itself to fall harder and sooner.

Published in Spanish by Diario las Américas on Sunday July 30th, 2017

Translated from Spanish by: Edgar L. Terrazas, Member of American Translators’ Association ATA # 234680