Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
December 13, 2018
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Applying Cuba’s screenplay carried out in Venezuela and Nicaragua, Evo Morales just finished manipulating his regime’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal forcing it to rule him as a viable candidate for the 2019 elections and afterwards, thus imposing his indefinite reelection. Bolivians no longer have any doubts they are subjected to a dictatorship, while the regime increases its intimidation, control of political actors, and control of the press. The counterfeiting of democracy has become obvious and Bolivia’s people are being forced to exercise their supreme right of rebellion against tyranny and oppression.
The right to “the supreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression” is a natural and legal right recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Aleksandar Marsavelski summarizes this as “the right of peoples facing those governing who are from an illegitimate origin or those who -having a legitimate origin- have transformed into illegitimate in the course of their government, that authorizes civil disobedience and the use of force in order to topple and replace them with governments who have legitimacy”.
The right to rebellion was first proclaimed by Plato and backed up by Saint Thomas de Aquino. It is included in the Declaration of Independence of the United States that after declaring the right “to life, liberty and the search for happiness” it establishes that “in order to guarantee these rights amongst men, governments who derived their legitimate power from the consent of those governed are instituted; and that anytime a form of government becomes destructive of these principles, the people have the right to reform or abolish it and to institute a new government that is based on said principles…”
Article 35 of the Declaration of Rights of Men and the Citizenry of the French Revolution states that “when a government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is, for the people and for each of its sectors, the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties”. All Constitutions by recognizing that “sovereignty rests with the people and that its performance is delegated” back up the right to rebellion.
The 21st Century Socialism, or Castroist Chavist doctrine applies the methodology of supplanting the democratic order with despicable laws “to legally violate” Human Rights, and individual basic freedoms and to commit all type of crimes with impunity. What is taking place in Bolivia is only the closing of a process that started in October of 2003 with the toppling of a democratically elected Constitutional President through a coup d’état using the fallacious argument of defending the country’s oil resources that topplers labeled “the Gas War”. They, afterwards, supplanted the Constitution and eliminated the Republic of Bolivia through an irritant “Constituent Assembly”.
The call for the “indefinite reelection” of Evo Morales caps an ongoing fifteen year “iter criminis” period and starts another of indefinite duration and with unforeseen consequences. Replicating Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela and Ortega in Nicaragua, Evo Morales who ascended into power for a five-year period that had to be concluded in 2011, will now celebrate 13 years in power and has everything arranged to yet once more “win elections that have been orchestrated to meet his needs”. He will do so through the commission of a chain of crimes that range from; the Constitutional supplanting, the disappearance of the Rule of Law, the garnering of all power, the disavowing of the popular will expressed through the 21 February of 2016 referendum (21F), down to electoral fraud through the control of the citizenry’s identification, voter registration, publicity, the press and of all officials who should be impartial but that now comprise “the criminal Group of 6” at the service of the dictator.
The situation is so dire that Evo Morales as “electoral dictator” controls even the opposition’s candidates who must now go through a process of Primary Elections in order to consummate the disavowing of the 21F mandate in an environment that simulates democracy. Bolivian leaders now have the urgent challenge of deactivating the dictator’s electoral farce by making the truly democratic candidates to abandon the electoral race, calling it out by what it really is, because those who stay in the race will do so as functional props and accomplices to legitimize the dictator.
Evo Morales’ dictatorship and Cuba’s and Venezuela’s Castroist Chavist intervention in Bolivia force Bolivians to exercise their supreme right of rebellion. Protesting Bolivians shout “Bolivia is not Venezuela” and I hope they are right, because just some years ago Venezuelans shouted “Venezuela is not Cuba”.
*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.
Published in Spanish by Infobae.com on Sunday, December 9th, 2018
Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.