State-terrorism from 11 July of 2021 in Cuba to 28 July 2024 in Venezuela

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Dictatorships of 21st Century Socialism wield power through their system of “State-terrorism” that is no more than “the institutionalized perpetration of crime from within the government with the objective of instilling fear in the population and thus generate behaviors of subjection.” It is the expansion of the criminal methods of Cuba’s dictatorship rooted in the Soviet dictatorship applied in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. Since the protests that erupted on 11 July of 2021 (11-J) in Cuba, the flagrant crimes that are part of “State-terrorism” are permanent and are globally well known by the world’s public opinion. These crimes are now being replicated in the electoral process for the upcoming elections in Venezuela on 28 July of 2024.

Terrorism is “domination by terror, the execution of violent acts to instill fear” and the “criminal behavior of organized gangs who indiscriminately, repeatedly, and commonly, intend to generate social upheaval for political objectives.” When all of this is perpetrated from within the government or by governmental officials of a regime that wields power, we are facing “State-terrorism.”

In situations with State-terrorism, the systematic criminal activities are; repression, harassment, persecution, threats, reprisals, extortion, different forms of violence, the misuse of force that is committed through and/or by government officials with the objective of subjecting the population through terror, fear, to prevent it from taking any action of resistance to the oppression and to perhaps even obtain the population’s active collaboration.

The protests that started on 11 July of 2021 in Cuba “were a desperate outcry for change in the country.” Thousands of persons took to the streets to spontaneously protest in dozens of cities with the outcry of “freedom,” “end communism,” “we are not afraid,” “hunger killed fear” . . . transforming the song titled “Homeland and Freedom” as the anthem for freedom instead of the dictatorship’s old worn-out slogan “homeland or death.” The protests were peaceful but the response by dictator Diaz-Canel who mandated “the combat order has been given, revolutionaries out to the streets” was violent and typical of State-terrorism.

Ever since then, protests have not ended and the world is a witness to the on-going repression to silence people through arbitrary detentions, interruption of internet service, violations of due-process, mistreatment, torture, forcible disappearances, manipulated trials with despicable sentences, and the “constant intimidation and surveillance by the government’s security agents,” as documented by Amnesty International.

On 24 June of 2024 the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions (OHCHR/WGAD) addressing cases filed by Prisoners Defenders, has condemned the 11-J detentions by the Cuban dictatorship, citing: “1. Deprivation of freedom without legal representation; 2. Inexistence of independent counsel; 3. Dependency of prosecutors and judges to the government; 4. State’s experts and witnesses are the only complainant’s source; 5. Criminalization of people’s exercise of fundamental rights; 6. Misdemeanors and manipulable crime; 7. Military tribunals used against civilians with condemnatory sentences within a matter of hours.” All of these facts are grievous crime that is part of “State-terrorism.”

Three years have passed since the beginning of the 11 July of 2021 protests. Prisoners Defenders has certified that on 11-J the Cuban dictatorship took 1,728 political prisoners of which 1,117 continue to be in prison. The cases of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia are all equally critical because the people there endure the application of the same criminal methodology. Dictatorships from these States sustain themselves through the use of fear with -as of 8 July of 2024- 287 political prisoners in Venezuela, as certified by the Venezuelan Penal Forum. In Nicaragua, according to the existing mechanism to account for political prisoners, there are 128 political prisoners. In Bolivia -as of 7 July of 2024- there are 296 political prisoners as documented by the Global Human Rights League.

Nowadays, we are seeing the application of State-terrorism in Venezuela’s electoral process and the elections to be conducted on 28 July of 2024. Faced with the reality that these are elections that cannot be won by dictator Nicolas Maduro because over 80% of the voters repudiate him, 21st Century Socialism has launched a scheme to counterfeit the electoral results and claim victory through “continuous electoral fraud based on State-terrorism.”

What is happening in Venezuela has gone beyond being “elections under dictatorship to elections under State-terrorism. In the midst of electoral campaigns, the dictatorship; has arrested over 40 leaders of the opposition’s campaign, shuts down hotels and restaurants who serve opposition’s candidate Edmundo Gonzales or the opposition’s leader Maria Corina Machado and falsely accuse their sympathizers, obstruct roadways, conduct confrontations with armed shock groups, utter threats, falsify polls and surveys, broadcast fake news on the backing of the dictator, execute assassinations of reputation of members from the opposition, have six (6) leaders of the opposition’s campaign persecuted at the embassy of Argentina in Caracas, and continues to undermine the process.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas