DANGEROUSNESS OF VENEZUELAN DICTATORSHIP FOR THE WHOLE REGION

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
May 2nd, 2017

In order to remain as government, the Venezuelan regime is moving head-on towards an open dictatorship that has militarized the exercise of political power.   There is no doubt left that Nicolas Maduro and his government are responsible for the most important Castroist dictatorship’s domain. Maduro with his failed façade of president is now trying that of a commander and the dangerousness of the Venezuelan dictatorship is now, internally and internationally, on display as a threat to the whole region.

In this 21^st century, the pivoting point of political confrontation in Latin America is not ideological in nature, it is not about a power struggle between the right and the left, between nationalists and globalizers, neither is it between statists and liberals, nor between progress seekers and conservatives. The fundamental struggle is between those who want to remain indefinitely in power with their own will and interests as a rule, against those who believe in the State’s institutionalism of the rule of law with the mandate of the law as a foundation. It is the confrontation between dictatorship and democracy, between Castroist intervention that was able to expand its antidemocratic project in the region, against those nations who want freedom with alternation and accountability in their governments.   There has been a regress from disputes over the plans of the government to now dispute as to the form of government and the State.

This situation is the result of the “institutionalized destruction of the rule of law” and as a consequence the destruction of democracy that Castroist intervention promoted as a new way to fight ever since it allied itself with Hugo Chavez. Under the pretense of a revolution and with populist rhetoric, with huge sums of money generated by Venezuelan oil, corruption and even narcotics trafficking, manipulating electoral processes, plebiscites and referendums, substituting constitutions, introducing despicable legislation, they were able to achieve the total control of the State and its institutions until they achieved the total manipulation of the government at the service of corruption.

In the short term, they controlled the region with apparent success. Then the unavoidable failure came because the Castroist system of the “dictatorships of the 21^st century” (SSXXI) went into a crisis due to; its centralized, statist, and selfish   economy, the ineptness and corruption of government officials, the lack of freedoms, checks and balances, the absence of real opposition and alternation in the government, clean elections, freedom of the press, and independent justice. They became noteworthy for their new rich elites, for the government-sponsored crime, for political prisoners, exiles, and persecutions that beside Cuban citizens who have endured these atrocities for over 60 years now we add Venezuelan, Bolivian, Ecuadorean citizens.

Besides the Castroist dictatorial model’s economic, social, and political crisis we now see in its most advanced stages in Venezuela, there is a true and genuine crisis of peace and hemispheric security produced by political acts that are deliberately executed and centered in Venezuela. It is about the threat to international peace and security that has grown exponentially due to “narcotics trafficking” and the ties with Islamic “terrorism”, the pressure caused by “forcible migration” and “corruption” that 21^st Century Socialism’s dictatorships have generated as part of their declared antiimperialist policies against the United States.

Under the system promoted by Castro and Chavez, narcotics trafficking grew and Venezuela (under Chavez and Maduro) and Bolivia (under Evo Morales) are now considered “Narco-States”. The two most important sources of cocaine for the world that each year increase their production are; Colombia with the FARC (on their way of getting political legitimization), and Bolivia with Evo Morales. They have made Venezuela the epicenter of the illegal trade.   This situation could have been unthinkable without the direct SSXXI Castroist involvement sustaining and defending the FARC and promoting the defense of Coca leaf cultivation as a matter of State policy that had Evo Morales declaring at the United Nations that the antinarcotics fight “is an instrument of oppression from the North American imperialism”. So, it is no coincidence that all of these governments had the DEA expelled from their countries.

Similar actions are verifiable in the links with Islamic terrorism, pressure over migration due to the insecurity created by narcotics trafficking, and with regard to institutionalized corruption. The point in the current dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro is that most -if not all- the institutions to control these criminal matters appear to be showing Venezuela as the pivoting point.

The dangerousness of the Venezuelan dictatorship is extreme for the whole region because Venezuela now -amongst other things- appears as the epicenter for the protection of; the FARC and narcotics’ trafficking from the FARC and Evo Morales’ coca leaf growers’ unions. Venezuela is now the State that issues passports giving fake identifications to people from territories affected by Islamic terrorism, it is where corruption -as in the “lava jato” case- remains unrevealed similarly to Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. Experts agree that it is from this narcotics’ trade pivoting point in Venezuela that pressure from insecurity in Central America grows with gangs, mafias, and Mexican cartels included.

In this scenario, it is not unusual for Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua to have reiterated their unconditional support to Maduro’s dictatorship. What is unusual is for all democratic governments from the hemisphere, from Canada and the United States to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile -with extraordinary information services- not to sound the alarm over the extreme dangerousness the Venezuelan dictatorship’s remaining in power represents for their people, their governments, and their nations.

Published in Spanish by Diario las Americas on Sunday April 30th, 2017