The Summit of the Americas noted dictatorships but initiatives to recover democracy are woefully missing

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The success of the 9th Summit of the Americas was to make it clear that organized crime’s dictatorships are outside of the InterAmerican system in which “peoples of the Americas have the right to democracy and their governments have the obligation to promote and defend it”. The regimes from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, along with the governments of Mexico and Argentina have confessed their integration into the 21st Century Socialism -or Castrochavism’s- dictatorial group and have ratified their permanent conspiracy against democracy. The Summit has shown the Americas can no longer continue to be exposed to the attacks and expansion of dictatorships, but initiatives to recover democracy are sorely needed.

United States’ compliance with the mandates of Quebec and the Interamerican Democratic Charter by not inviting the dictatorial regimes from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, set in motion an aggressive strategy of 21st Century Socialism’s actors pursuing the attendance of uninvited dictators to the Summit. Their operators were the para-dictatorial heads of State from Mexico and Argentina and Bolivia’s invisible dictatorship, who sought to boycott the event.

This confrontation -prior to the 9th Summit- was useful to remind everyone that; “the Summits of the Americas” are an essential part of the Interamerican democratic system, that their fundamental principles are “democracy and free trade” as the foundation for the development of the nations, and that this was the instrument that formulated the foundational treaty called the “Interamerican Democratic Charter”. It also helped to remind us that at the Summit held in Panama in 2015, dictatorships -led by Cuba- were given an opportunity to reintegrate themselves back to democracy, giving back their peoples’ freedom, but that this opportunity only worked to prolong the shamefulness of the dictatorial disgrace.

Prior to the Summit, Castrochavism’s attempt to boycott it clearly highlighted the existence of “Two Americas”, revealing -without a doubt- that the axis of confrontation in this 21st century is “dictatorship against democracy” that represents the fight of “crime against freedom”. The highlighted clarity of the Two-Americas was further ratified throughout the course of the Summit and it showed, without any doubt, Cuba as the “Chief Dictatorship” of the dictatorial group comprised by the regimes from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, and the para-dictatorial governments of Mexico with Lopez-Obrador and Argentina with Fernandez/Kirchner.

Having failed in their attempt to boycott it, they next tried to sabotage it from inside of the Summit, principally under the direction of Argentina’s president with the complicity of representatives from Mexico and Bolivia who showed everyone that the dictatorships in the Americas are one group, one unit, one identity, committed to the expansion of Cuba’s Castroist dictatorship -converted to Castrochavism- its system and its methodology and that this is how it controls Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia where power is wielded through “State terrorism” with the resulting evidence of the existence of political prisoners, tortured, exiles and peoples subjected by fear.

The failure of the Castrochavist sabotage of the 9th Summit of the Americas also rested on the manner -amongst other aspects- the presidents of Chile and Peru ratified their democratic obligations notwithstanding the fact they both claimed to be admirers of Cuba’s dictatorship and to be receptive to having relations with Venezuela’s dictatorship and despite the fact they had been intervened through Bolivia’s dictatorship and the fact they had policies that would seem to indicate their complicity with Nicaragua’s dictatorship.

The fundamental failure of dictatorships at the 9th Summit is shown in the positioning of democracy as the fundamental feature of Interamerican relations, as the breaking point for the political positioning of governments, and as an effective “right of the peoples”.

Dictatorships have been certified (Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia), their operators have been identified (Mexico, Argentina, …), their crimes are known (corruption, narco-States, and crimes against humanity), their instruments of attack are evident, their objectives to continue destabilizing democracies in allegiance with dictatorships from Russia, Iran, and others are clear.

The democratic system cannot remain defenseless and satisfied with the formal identification of dictatorships because its obligation includes the recovery of democracy in subjugated countries. It is not nearly enough to have a policy for their identification, not even to have a policy for their containment, because both would mean an advantage to the dictatorships because they can continue to co-exist with organized crime, the shameful State-terrorism, crimes against humanity, international extortion, and to tolerate the institutionalized and indefinite violation of human rights and continue to grant impunity to criminals.

It is time to have initiatives to recover democracy and end dictatorships.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas