Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
November 1
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The defense of freedom and democracy is based on principles, values, and standards that when applied to the objective reality and the scrutiny of facts, bring about conclusions that can be of normalcy, crisis, or the sheer absence of democracy. For a rather extended time, in the Americas we have seen holders of power that besides killing democracy, have installed Transnational Organized Crime’s dictatorships. The criminal governments that comprise a consortium are from; Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.
The parameters to qualify a regime as a dictatorship, an Organized Crime’s dictatorship, and a criminal government, are set out by existing universal and regional standards, such as; the United Nations’ Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The Charter of Bogota, the Covenant of San Jose, the European Union Treaty, the Palermo Convention, the Interamerican Democratic Charter, and many more that are of compulsory adherence by the States, governments, and the citizenry.
In this context, in my column “To Differentiate and Separate Politics from Organized Crime” published this past 11th of March, I stated -and today reiterate- that: “Americas’ reality is worsening because the Castroist Chavist system shows that its actions and objectives are not of a political nature but totally belong to the Organized Crime arena. Separating those countries with democracy from those with dictatorships is no longer enough. The regimes from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Correa’s Ecuador, besides having installed de-facto governments harnessing and concentrating all power and being sustained by violence, belong in the Transnational Organized Crime arena”.
The order of the countries under criminal control; Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, corresponds to the historical time in which each of them began their criminal regime. Cuba, since 1959, will soon celebrate 60 years with the Castro’s, Venezuela established the Organized Crime’s regime with Hugo Chavez in 1999, Bolivia did it in 2006 with Evo Morales, and in 2007 Daniel Ortega began the control of Nicaragua.
Proof that these are dictatorships is their constant violation of all essential components of democracy. These regimes have people politically persecuted, imprisoned, and exiled, are guilty of massacres and torture as acts of the government, they do not have either freedom of the press or Rule of Law, there is no separation and independence of the branches of government, and have turned the Judicial Branch into a mechanism for political repression, they have turned elections into a permanent fraud in order to supplant the will and the sovereignty of the people so they can indefinitely remain in power.
The international press, with respect to Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, provides some of the common features of those in power who, under the helm of Cuba, are associated in operations that range from; squelching street demonstrations, are aimed at destabilizing unity in protests, are used for propaganda and for caravans, up to violent eruptions in international forums such as at the UN where “diplomats” from Cuba and Bolivia attacked the speech of OAS’ Secretary Almagro on the issue of political prisoners in Cuba.
Further proof that these are part of Transnational Organized Crime are the political prisoners there are in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, all imprisoned with the same methodology directed by the Castroist system. Cuba has over 120, Venezuela has nearly 500, Bolivia over 80, and Nicaragua over 300. One other proof yet are the numbers of Cuban and Venezuelan exiles that can add up to millions, the Bolivian exiles that, according to data from ACNUR, are in excess of 1,200 and the Nicaraguan exiles who increase in numbers each day.
More corroborating proof are the narcotics’ trafficking activities that have caused Venezuela and Bolivia to be identified as narco-states, the first as the center point of commercializing the FARC’s and Evo Morales’ coca growers’ cocaine from Bolivia that have flooded the region and the world with an increase by 20 times of the amount of illegal coca harvested, the expulsion of the DEA and the “international political revindication” of narcotics’ trafficking such as what Morales did at the UN in 2016 stating that “the fight against narcotics’ trafficking is an instrument of North American Imperialism to oppress the nations.”
Whoever doesn’t see this entire scenario and excludes any of the “four criminal governments” from an analysis or has a different conclusion, is wrong or are victims of the permanent penetration and cover up efforts the dictatorships conduct throughout the democratic world, and owes an explanation.
Published in Spanish by Infobae.com on Sunday, october 28, 2018
Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.