With the dictatorship from Cuba in command, Lula, Lopez Obrador, and Petro support Maduro’s crimes in Venezuela

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) A week following the resounding victory of Edmundo Gonzales Urrutia led by María Corina Machado over Nicolas Maduro at the 28 July (28-J) elections, Venezuela’s freedom is now being disputed on two scenarios: the internal, with documented proof of the electoral victory and massive popular mobilizations against the on-going counterfeiting and criminal repression; and the international scenario with the acknowledgement of the results and with Gonzales Urrutia recognized as President-Elect. So that Maduro can illegally and illegitimately stay in power, 21st Century Socialism, under the command of Cuba’s dictatorship, has activated its State-terrorism system with the deployment to Venezuela of Cuban armed internal repression groups, the use of tactics for delay and confusion, and with Lula, Lopez Obrador, and Petro as international operators.

In his dictatorial system, Fidel Castro’s creed was “to never surrender power,” and that power is conclusive, irrevocable, and unlimited Within the dictatorial and criminal concept of Castroism -that has expanded in the Americas as 21st Century Socialism or Castrochavism, birthed by the publicized alliance made with Hugo Chavez following his ascent to Venezuela’s presidency in 1999- Fidel Castro, along with Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, set in motion an antidemocratic group with an antiimperialist discourse. Today, this group controls as dictatorships, the governments from Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua and as Para-Dictatorial governments those from Mexico with Lopez Obrador, Brazil with Lula da Silva, Colombia with Petro, and Chile with Boric (hitherto unverified regarding Venezuela’s elections).

In this 21st century, the Americas and the rest of the world are different from the second half of the 20th century or during the Cold War, a time in which Cuba’s dictatorship aggressively barged-in and blood-stained the region and the world creating urban and rural guerrillas, executing bloody invasions and interventions, organizing itself as the first narco-State of the region. It was also at this time that Cuba -under a “revolutionary” justification- established the practice of State-terrorism with the imprisonment, torture, exile of millions, and the execution by firing-squads of political adversaries. This is why they have created “the vote-catching system in which people vote but do not elect” in order to appear to be democratic yet continue committing the same crimes of their Castroist past.

The 28-J elections in Venezuela were convened and conducted under the conditions of a vote-catching dictatorship of 21st Century Socialism, with political prisoners and exiles, without the rule of law and the separation and independence of the branches of government, without free political organization, with the absence of the essential components of democracy, with a functional opposition and a counterfeited voters’ registry that prevented millions of Venezuelans from voting, and with puppet electoral and judicial officials. These were elections in a country whose dictatorial regime is operated by Nicolas Maduro, Diosdado Cabello, and Vladimir Padrino and is controlled by their Cuban Dictatorship-In-Chief that has transformed Venezuela -ever since the death of Chavez- into its main launching platform or satellite.

Twenty-First Century Socialism’s regimes cannot win in free and fair elections, this is why they commit a long repetition of crimes to counterfeit a result that is forcibly imposed by force and violence. What is now happening in Venezuela, has already happened in Bolivia ever since the arrival of Evo Morales with crises in 2019 and 2020, we already saw this in Nicaragua in 2021 and has already previously occurred in Venezuela. Dictators do not win elections because they are widely repudiated by around 80% of the people who are discontent with the misery and desperation they produce amongst the population.

The Venezuelan nation is fighting for the freedom of the Americas, the recovery of democracy in Venezuela signals the end of Cuba’s dictatorship and the collapse of 21st Century Socialism. Along with the recovery of freedom in Venezuela comes the end of the deceitful electoral campaign funding and the conspiracies to weaken democracies from within, the end of support to present torture as an act for the liberation of the peoples, the weakening of organized crime that -in Venezuelan territory has the most important base of Russian, Chinese and Iranian dictatorships, and the end of support to guerrillas from the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC in Spanish) and the National Liberation Army (ELN in Spanish) and others who threaten international peace and security in the region.

The impacts of the 28-J triumph are vital for freedom and devastating for dictatorships of the Americas and the world, reason why -internally- repression, violation of human rights, and crimes against humanity do not have either a statute of limitations, or clemency. This is why, in the international arena, the dictatorship has decided to gain more time in order to twist the overwhelming evidence, in the hope that the popular support and mobilization will weaken.

For the internal repression, the overt and publicized sending of Cuban Special Forces (black “hornets” and others) to Venezuela to sustain State-terrorism and control Venezuelan military and national police, is a desperate effort whose effectiveness has as a limit the strength of the people, and the honor of the men and women of the Venezuelan Armed Forces.

In the international arena, the operators of the “delay and confusion strategy” are the presidents Lula da Silva from Brazil, Gustavo Petro from Colombia, and Lopez Obrador from Mexico (all members of the Forum of Sao Paolo and the Group from Puebla who owe their positions to 21st Century Socialism) and who simulating to defend democracy ask for information, publicly available anywhere in the world and that they already know, in order to meanwhile the criminal violence subject the popular demonstrations and end at a negotiating table, legitimizing the dictator who stole the elections.

Nothing new, it is Castroism, 21st Century Socialism, or Castrochavism. Transnational organized crime operating to convert criminals into politicians, narcotics’ traffickers into business entrepreneurs, terrorists into social leaders, prison inmates into winers of elections and their victims into those who are accused and charged with the crimes of the tyrants.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas