The high price paid by democracies for crimes committed by dictatorships

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The release from jail and subsequent exile of 222 persons who had been kidnapped and the immediate and shameful sentencing to 26 years in prison of Bishop Rolando Alvarez by judicialized State-terrorism, are only the most recent crimes the dictatorships of the 21st Century Socialism -or Castrochavism- commit uniformly in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The course of enduring imprisonment in conditions of torture to having to suffer the uprooting or exile from one’s homeland, are evidence of the high price democracies pay for the crimes committed by dictatorships.

Nobody believes the recent release of political prisoners by Daniel Ortega and his structured transnational organized crime group has been a unilateral and unconditional act of spontaneous dictatorial benevolence. That there had been negotiations, that up to now is officially denied, is neither subject to criticism because the victims and their families were given much needed relief. Up to now, we do not know at what price the release came, but many suppose it.

To deport a person is a crime and an imposition that restricts his/her freedom but, for both the victims and their families, is a more bearable way of enduring the dictatorships’ persecution, instead of suffering imprisonment and torture. Deportation is a crime against humanity described by Article 7.1 d. of the Rome Statute that states; “Deportation or forcible transfer of population means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present…”

When in addition, deportation also includes the victim’s “stripping of nationality” the crimes are further aggravated thus making amply evident the facts; that a transnational organized crime group wields political power in Nicaragua, that it commits serious crimes to continue benefitting from this power and to have impunity. These facts make the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, or Palermo Convention of the International Criminal Court, applicable.

The case of Bishop Rolando Alvarez, who rejected his deportation, is another sad proof of Daniel Ortega’s crimes and those of his organized group. Just a few hours following the massive deportation, in another act of State-terrorism, Nicaragua’s dictatorship sentenced Bishop Alvarez to 26 years of imprisonment and stripped him of his Nicaraguan nationality for the fabricated crimes of “treason to the homeland, obstruction of justice, aggravated disobedience to the detriment of the Nicaraguan society, and dissemination of fake news” and was taken to jail.

The dictator Ortega himself, in a national radio and television network, informed that Bishop Alvarez had refused to be deported, making it clear that the immediate sentencing to 26 years of imprisonment is the regime’s reaction for anyone who does not subject to it, showing also that anyone who refuses to be uprooted will be swiftly and quickly punished with something worse. Raw and hard State-terrorism with a promptly fabricated -in a matter of hours- sentence and publicly broadcasted by the head of the criminal organization.

These public and highly publicized crimes are not an isolated thing in the 21st century Americas, they are the replication of Cuba’s 64-year-old application of institutionalized State-terrorism’s crimes that has been established with its expansion in the dictatorships of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

In multiple occasions, Cuba’s dictatorship released from imprisonment and deported political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in exchange for political and economic concessions. Venezuela’s dictatorship permanently negotiates and has even managed to have an exchange of prisoners, the nephews of dictator Maduro serving time in the U.S. for narcotics’ trafficking for kidnapped American executives. Using this same scheme, Bolivia’s dictatorship has over 220 political prisoners in its jails. All dictatorships release prisoners to then imprison more and continue operating as if it were a “revolving door.”

Castrochavism’s dictatorships, beside their business of judicialized kidnappings, operate forced migrations directing the victims of the misery that its oppressive system produces as an instrument of attack against democracies. Ample proof of this is the “Mariel” crisis and the repeated waves of Cuba’s unwanted people attempting to migrate to the U.S. (“Marielazos” in Spanish) directed and managed by Cuba’s dictatorship, or the nearly seven million exiled Venezuelans who are now displaced throughout the region.

Because the dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua are the narco-States of the Americas, narcotics’ trafficking is yet one other of the mechanisms for aggression against democracies. Terrorism, with the sustainment and protection of armed criminal groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Army of National Liberation (Respectively FARC and ELN in Spanish) and their dealings and links to Islamic terrorist groups is one other category of their involvement. The systematic and organized conspiracy and destabilization of democratic governments, the counterfeiting of results and electoral fraud are some of their other crimes.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas