Dictatorships end when democracy is restored and no impunity is granted

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) This 2021 starts marked by the confrontation of two Americas, the democratic one and the dictatorial other. Castrochavism implements all kinds of superfluous, unnecessary, and trite changes (“gatopardismo” in Spanish) pretending to appear to be transforming their dictatorial regimes with agreements, and false transitions in order to keep themselves as political actors and enjoy impunity. The fundamental question is that dictatorships end only when essential components of democracy are restored and no impunity is granted.

The 21st century was expected to be when full democracy would predominate in the region with Cuba’s return to freedom, but it turned out to be the opposite by Hugo Chavez’s actions that in 1999 saved Fidel Castro’s agonizing dictatorship, reorganizing and reactivating the attacks against democracy. Castroism became Castrochavism.

Castrochavism has been preparing the scenario to stay in power in exchange for concessions that simulate democracy. The concept of this farcical process of “gatopardismo” in politics is described as “changing everything so that the status-quo is maintained and everything remains the same” also known as the “Lampedusa effect” that refers to “cosmetic reforms to distract or deceive”. In other words; to maintain the dictatorship and impunity under the umbrella of agreements that history has previously recorded as having fateful precedents such as; the ousting of the government, but not of Sandinista power in Nicaragua in 1990.

The crises of Castrochavist regimes have led them to implement “an apparent separation” they wish to highlight and treat as separate processes when dealing with the dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. Wishing to appear as something not linked and even different, when in reality these are regimes established under the same model of “vote-catching dictatorships” wherein the citizenry votes but does not elect, where there is judicialized political persecution, there are functional oppositions, there are political prisoners and exiles and there is the inexistence of the separation and independence of the branches of government, there is the supplanting of the rule of law by manipulated constitutions and “despicable laws” that violate human rights and there is an absence of the freedom of the press, where organized crime holds the power, they are narco-states, and more.

Up to recently, they simulated to have democracy in Venezuela when in reality they had installed the dictatorship much earlier with Chavez and his replacing the republican order with his Bolivarian system. They did so in Nicaragua when Ortega retook power thus liquidating democracy in exchange for impunity. This also happened in Bolivia when -in the aftermath of a Coup d’état- they replaced the Constitution and the Republic with a plurinational organization full of counterfeiting and crime. This also happened in Ecuador with the same scheming of manipulation of assemblies and reiterated votes, and even intend to show that in Cuba people vote.

Cuba and Venezuela’s dictatorships are on the brim of collapse and their ending would free its satellites from Bolivia and Nicaragua, stop their control of the Argentine and Mexican governments and would end the attacks and conspiration against democracies. There is no possibility that -as in 1999- another Chavez would appear to save the tyranny; their relationship with Russia, China, and Iran is not enough to sustain them, and their betting on a change in the United States’ foreign policy is bleak.

The existence of a “functional opposition” that gives them legitimacy is a basic condition for dictatorships to continue simulating democracy and normalization, like what is happening in Bolivia where after the people succeeded in ousting the dictator Evo Morales in November of 2019, they kept intact his legal infrastructure and through a gargantuan fraud they schemed the return of the dictator and his criminal group, with full impunity for the regime’s members and their operatives.

There are differences, however, between what is now happening with what happened in the past: 1. Cuba’s occupation of Venezuela and its intervention in Nicaragua and Bolivia has been corroborated. 2. Venezuelan dictatorship’s inner circle have been legally charged by judicial tribunals for crimes framed by the Palermo Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. A bounty ranging from 10 to 15 million dollars has been set for the capture of several criminals with Nicolas Maduro at the top of the list. 3. With its on-going multinational operations its condition as a narco-state has been proven. 4. Castrochavism’s attacks against Americas’ democracies is clear and replicates the decades of Castroism that stained the region with blood.

Dictatorships only end when democracy, along with its fundamental components, is restored and this supposes the liquidation of the “dictatorial judicial system”, its disavowal, and its inability to manipulate by the granting of impunity to criminals.

Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators Association, ATA # 234680.