Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
March 24, 2020
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and the worldwide crisis it has unleashed, corroborate once again the existence of two Americas; one democratic, the other dictatorial. The democratic one has elected governments, alternation of power and freedom of the press. The dictatorial other has usurper regimes who violate human rights. The pandemic has proven the criminal nature of the Castrochavist dictators and the extremely serious situation of helplessness of the peoples from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental conditions that demonstrate the strength of democracy. The right to freely express your ideas, to dissent and to oppose through legal means, are inherent elements of freedom. Under Castrochavist dictatorships, however, these are outcast conditions which the regime represses through censure, judicialized persecutions, undue detentions, torture, exile, and assassinations.
It is worthwhile to reiterate that “Castrochavism” is “the name that describes the transnational organized crime’s system that usurps political power in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua (and at one time in Ecuador and Bolivia), which must be dealt with as a structure and undertaking of organized crime and not as a political process”. It is the acronym coined after its creators Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez who, starting in 1999, expanded the Cuban dictatorship’s criminal capabilities with Venezuelan oil and wealth.
So far in this 21st century, Castrochavism has destabilized and even gotten to lead the Americas through deception, violence, institutional destruction, misery, crime, corruption, exile, and the building of narco-states. In those countries it has controlled, such as Ecuador with Rafael Correa and Bolivia with Evo Morales, and in those that it currently usurps power; Cuba with Castro/Diaz-Canel, Venezuela with Maduro/Cabello, and Nicaragua with Ortega/Murillo, it has destroyed their education, health, production, industrial, economic-financial, institutional, and social systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic found Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua’s dictatorships in terminal economic and social crises, in a situation of misery with humanitarian crises, as narco-states, with their health systems practically non-operational due to the inexistence of resources, means and supplies and with their citizenry’s living conditions well under the minimum sanitary and feeding standards, with hundreds of political prisoners and millions of exiled. The situation that Castrochavists left the health systems in Ecuador and Bolivia is no different.
Under these conditions, now facing COVID-19 the lead-dictatorship from Cuba, seeking to generate needed income, chose to take advantage of the situation by offering up -without any takers- its “enslaved physicians” to other countries. At the worst possible time; it incentivized its declining tourism industry, accepted a cruise ship with sick passengers on-board, and finally chose to simulate a fight against the pandemic by announcing the closure of its borders. It is noteworthy to point out that despite intensive repression, the citizenry at-large in many ways and particularly under the slogan “PA’LA CALLE” (Out to the Street) with their distinctive yellow color started to protest, indicating they felt unprotected against the Coronavirus and accused the dictatorship of acting with “negligence and disregard” when facing the emergency.
Venezuela’s usurper regime uses the pandemic to regain “Maduro’s de-facto power” with the backing of the military. It attempted to coax five billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund under the pretext of COVID-19 and after failing to do so it chose to manipulate and falsify information, repressing individuals and journalists, again using nonexistent COVID-19 cases as pretext. It has sought dialogue with Colombia who, as all neighboring countries did, closed its border. It is one of the more serious sources of infection due to its interaction with Iran who is seriously impacted by the pandemic.
In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo decided to face “the pandemic with love and marching” having called for, and leading a march on Saturday 14 March when, throughout the world, massive gatherings and meetings are prohibited.
The three Castrochavist dictatorships are managing the situation with; control of the information, suppression of the internet, disinformation, repressing freedom of speech and freedom of the press. These dictators are using the pandemic to strengthen themselves in the power they are usurping, committing more crime, affirming their de-facto power in order to continue subjugating and oppressing. It is a situation that can become a “catastrophe” or a “genocide” against peoples whose degree of helplessness only increases.
*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.
Published in Spanish by Infobae.com Sunday, March 22, 2020
Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.