Judicial state-terrorism of dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
December 11, 2024

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) A government who systematically executes illegitimate, illegal, or criminal acts that violate human rights in order to create fear in the population with the objective of subjecting it, or forcibly imposing obedience, perpetrates “State-terrorism.” When those crimes are committed using the judicial system comprised by prosecutors, judges, and tribunals, to falsely accuse, persecute, imprison, and sentence without the legal due-process is “Judicial State-terrorism,” a practice that is very much used as a method of intimidation by dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

Terrorism is “domination by terror.” Terrorism committed from within a government seeks to instill fear, contain, or limit the activities of the population so that it will subject itself to the regime and assume a pattern of behavior or subordination that would -otherwise- not occur. Dictatorships call this process “the vaccination” that is comprised by a vast spectrum of crimes. It is the disappearance of the “rule of law” that is supplanted by a “state of helplessness.”

The control and manipulation of the judicial system is the core thrust of the Castrochavist dictatorships’ methodology, to be able to indefinitely stay in and wield power with impunity. They use it to criminalize opposition members, dissidents, businessmen, journalists, common workers, and individuals, to assassinate their reputation, disqualify, persecute, and subject them to unjust prosecution with false accusations, or to charge them for crimes committed by the regime itself, to imprison, sentence, torture, and kill them in prison, or force them into exile. Castrochavist dictatorships, using the sovereign empowerment of the States they oppress, internationally persecute their victims, and have trans-nationalized State-terrorism.

Judicial State-Terrorism has, as its direct authors, the “judicial hit-men” who present themselves as reputable prosecutors, magistrates, and judges. They are “hit-men” because they are executioners disguised as salaried employees, vested with the empowerment to mete-out justice by the regime. They are ghoulish puppets who carry out the will of the dictatorship, violate human rights and laws they are supposed to protect, hand-down “despicable rulings and sentences.” They are recurring counterfeiters and prevaricators, servile protectors of the impunity of the dictator and his inner-circle.

There are thousands of cases and the numbers continue growing. We must not ignore that in Cuba there are 1,149 political prisoners, certified by Prisoners Defenders, and that each and every one represents; a false accusation, a manipulation by prosecutors and judges, the extortion of families, the torture and hardship experimented by prisoners, the despicable orders and sentencing to instill fear so that people will know the next time they peacefully protest, they will suffer years of abuse and the loss of freedom “by order of the judicial.”

As certified by the Venezuelan Penal Forum, in Venezuela there are 1,905 political prisoners and each and every one of them represents a case of “dictatorial justice” operated by the “judicial hit-men.” We must not forget that; Nicolas Maduro has taken to trial and sentencing seven minors detained for having dissented against the electoral fraud of 28 July, judges from the dictatorship have approved -with despicable rulings- the electoral fraud perpetrated by Maduro and his Electoral Council, the dictatorship’s prosecutors investigate and persecute Maria Corina Machado who is in-hiding, falsely accusing her of treason to the homeland!!

In Bolivia, the crimes of “Judicial State-Terrorism” started with; the persecution of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, his cabinet and military high command, following his toppling in October of 2003, and with the signing of two amnesty decrees by Carlos Mesa, absolving the topplers and subversives. It continued with the crimes of Evo Morales to impose his plurinational constitution, the massacre at the Las Americas Hotel where two cases Terrorism 1 and Terrorism 2 were birthed and wherefrom hundreds of innocent were tried, imprisoned, and condemned. It continues with Luis Arce and applies to the persecution and imprisonment of former president Janine Añez, Santa Cruz’s Governor Luis Fernando Camacho, Potosi’s Civic Leader Marco Pumari and a long list of 321 political prisoners certified by the Human Rights League. Through a despicable sentence, for having made Bolivia an important natural gas resource -that the dictatorship destroyed- former president Sanchez de Lozada was just added as a victim.

In Nicaragua, the “Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners” certifies the existence of 46 political prisoners but the crime of Judicial State-Terrorism is evident with the on-going persecution that expels, exiles, and deprives hundreds of Nicaraguans that include civic, political, religious leaders, journalists, and ordinary citizens, of their rights and citizenship. Judicial State-Terrorism has approved a law that enables the State to prosecute Nicaraguan exiled opposition members in order to deprive them of their estate and rights. Undoubtedly, Judicial Hit-Men will apply this law.

Judicial Hit-Men are the material authors of Judicial State-Terrorism and must be internationally identified, tried, and sanctioned as violators of human rights and must be added to a public listing of universal infamy.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

Published in Spanish by infobae.com Sunday December 8, 2024