Democratic governments’ responsibility for the existence and permanence of 21st century dictatorships in the Americas

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) At the start of the 21st century there was only the dictatorship from Cuba that has expanded in the dictatorships from Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and temporarily Ecuador which regained democracy. Americas’ States and their governments have international obligations to prevent and end dictatorships, but because of their actions and omissions, Americas’ democratic governments and leaders are responsible for the existence and permanence of dictatorships at the expense of their own national interests and security.

Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua’s dictatorships have political prisoners, exiles, concentrate all the power they wield through “State-terrorism,” do not have free or fair elections, violate human rights, do not have either freedom of expression or freedom of the press, do not have “the rule of law,” do not respect private property, and in Cuba and Venezuela have taken their peoples to humanitarian crises and in Bolivia and Nicaragua to serious economic and social crises. They are narco-States with their main heads identified, legally accused, and sought by justice as the heads and members of criminal groups.

This is the new reality in a region that in the year 1994, during the first “Summit of the Americas,” decided to consider democracy as the basis for life and development and that on 11 September of 2001 approved the Interamerican Democratic Charter proclaiming “The peoples of the Americas have the right to democracy and their governments have the obligation to promote and defend it. Democracy is essential for the social, political, and economic development of the nations of the Americas.”

The Interamerican Democratic Charter is an obligatory “foundational treaty” for all Member States. It is not a statement of intentions and least of all an instrument of voluntary or optional compliance, it is mandatory. Amongst the obligations it prescribes are all the essential components of democracy: “Respect of human rights and basic individual freedoms, access to power and its discharge subject to the rule of law; the holding of periodic, free, and fair elections based upon universal and secret suffrage concepts that make elections an expression of the peoples’ sovereignty; a plural regime of political parties and organizations; and the separation and independence of the branches of government.”

Besides the Interamerican Democratic Charter, the international legal system also establishes other additional obligations such as the ones determined by the United Nations that makes peace and the respect for human rights, international legal obligations. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights turned into a mandatory treaty in the Americas with the San Jose’s Covenant or the American Convention on Human Rights, establishes as an obligation the protection of the right to life, physical well-being, private property, the freedom of expression, the free and unencumbered association, the right to meet, equality before the law, the prohibition of slavery, and more…

The International Criminal Court’s Statute from Rome, establishes jurisdiction for “crimes against humanity” and defines these crimes as «any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population…; murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution …, persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity based on political…, enforced disappearance of persons…”

The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, or the Palermo Convention defines as an “Organized criminal group” … “a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offenses established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.”

In regard to the dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, all of these mandatory obligations and more, are the ones that democratic leaders and governments of the Americas and the rest of the world, are not complying with. Flagrant crimes and notable events corroborate their non-compliance, the people’s and public opinion demand it, but impunity seems to be the standard and dictators continue their contempt by remaining in the same forums and continue to enjoy international relations with democratic governments.

Humanitarian crises, forcible migrations, conspiracies, the destabilization of democratic governments, narcotics’ trafficking, terrorism, backing and support of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, political prisoners, torture, massacres, exile, the stripping of a person’s nationality, all lead us to the question: Do democratic leaders and governments need something else to comply and meet international standards and end Castrochavism’s dictatorships?

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas