Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
January 23, 2020
The greatest threat to democracies’ stability in the Americas is Cuba’s dictatorship with its control over Venezuela and Nicaragua’s dictatorships, its pretension to regain its regimes in Ecuador and Bolivia, and its strategy of constant sedition with crime as the means to do it. Latin America’s democratic governments persist in maintaining an attitude of unexplainable simulation with the permanent aggressor, when the facts demand the defense of their national interests. It is time to realign democracies’ foreign policy regarding Cuba, clearly identifying it as a State controlled by a transnational organized crime’s regime.
Foreign policy “is that part of the general policy comprised by the set of decisions and doings through which a State’s objectives are defined and means are used to generate, modify, or suspend its relations with other actors from the international community”. Internal policy and foreign policy “are two traits of the same factual policy” and are intimately related. Foreign policy is based upon the bests interests of the State and is instrumental to achieving national objectives.
If we accept that all governments of Latin America’s democracies have the fundamental goal and obligation of maintaining their countries peace and security to be able to implement social, economic, and progressive policies, we must acknowledge that identifying the condition of the other international community actors is essential for the formulation of each State’s foreign policy.
I insist that the region’s factual reality shows that in this 21st century, there are two Americas divided by the nature of their governments and systems: The democratic one and the organized crime’s dictatorial other. One that is legitimate and the other that is de-facto. The first with the rule of law, and the second with shameful regimes. The democratic one with freedoms and the dictatorial other with political prisoners and exiles. Two Americas whose clashing axis is not ideological but methodological, because the democratic one is based on the respect for human rights and individuals’ basic freedoms, and the dictatorial other is based on the use of organized crime from the helm of the State’s power to indefinitely perpetuate itself in power.
Organized crime’s dictatorships, under the direction of Cuba, have disguised their criminal undertaking as politics with the worn-out propaganda of the Cuban revolution, to the point that failure can no longer be hidden and its role as producers and exporters of misery and crime is shameful. They have portrayed themselves as populist movements until nationalistic majorities have started to oust dictators, just as it happened in Ecuador and Bolivia, and just as it is happening in the very same Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
Objectively seen, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua’s dictatorships today, and at one time that of Ecuador with Correa and Bolivia with Evo Morales, are establishments for the permanent violation of human rights. They are narco-states that encourage, conduct, and protect narcotics’ trafficking. They sponsor and are related to different levels of terrorism, inside and outside of the region. They conspire and orchestrate sedition misusing the privileges and immunities of their embassies and diplomatic personnel. They conduct human trafficking, a crime expressly indicated by the Palermo Convention, enslaving physicians and other professionals to generate income for Cuba. They have created and controlled the greatest internal and transnational corruption cases, such as “lava jato”. They promote forced massive migrations as a means to destabilize and pressure governments. They protect narcotics’ traffickers and terrorists, such as the ELN and the FARC, and much more.
This summary of criminal acts that in this 21st century was perpetrated by Castrochavism, is only the reoccurrence of similar crimes committed by Cuba’s dictatorship since the decade of the sixties, a time in which it blood-stained the region with guerrillas, terrorism, narcotics’ trafficking. It is only more of the same and is from Cuba’s 61-year dictatorship.
With these acts of clear aggression against Latin America’s democracies and with the undisputable Cuban direction in them, the questions are: Why do democratic governments still do not openly see Cuba’s dictatorship as an “aggressor state”, as an “enemy regime”, or as “an organized crime system”? Why do democracies insist in embracing foreign policies of simulation and defenselessness when facing dictatorial aggression? Why do they continue relating and trading with Cuba instead of adjusting their foreign policies for the protection of their own stability?
*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.
Published in Spanish by Infobae.com Sunday, January 19, 2020
Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.