The democratic governments and leaders consider the dictatorships of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua as if they were different subjects or processes, granting them different treatments and even admitting the narratives with which they oppress their people. Reality places the responsibility on democracies to recognize and treat the dictatorships of 21st century socialism as the expansion of the Cuban dictatorship, with the same methodology and purposes, and as a single entity.
The non-democratic regimes of the region are a transnational organization that is called 21st century socialism or Castro-Chavism, which results from the process of rescuing the dictatorship of Cuba that was dying in its “special period” carried out by Hugo Chávez starting in 1999. when he took power in Venezuela. The reactivation of the Cuban dictatorship was produced by oil and money from Venezuela, which with the financing of the subversive apparatus called “Sao Paolo Forum” organized with Lula da Silva, produced overthrows, crimes, assassinated reputations and political and party leaderships. , taking advantage of the withdrawal of the United States after suffering the attacks of September 11, 2001.
If the Cuban dictatorship had not existed at the beginning of this century, Venezuela would not be a dictatorship today with its local operator Nicolas Maduro required by international justice for drug trafficking with a $15 million reward for his capture; Bolivia would not have suffered the coup d’état of 2003 and then been converted through massacres into a dictatorship with the label of a plurinational state under the control of coca and cocaine producers; Ecuador would not have gone through the more than 10 years of Rafael Correa’s dictatorial regime, the consequences of which still weigh on the Ecuadorian people; In Nicaragua, Sandinism would not have been reinstated to break democracy and be today the most brazen and ostentatious dictatorship in violating human rights.
The sustained attack and defeats that democracy has suffered and is suffering in the Americas in the 21st century come from the reactivation of the criminal operations of the Cuban dictatorship with the resources of Venezuela, with the total control of that country after the death of Hugo Chávez, international corruption based on federal funds from Brazil with Lula da Silva and open participation in drug trafficking that has turned Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua into narco-states. Unlimited resources and international organization with a single command that attacks internally and internationally.
As the base of the Soviet Union USSR, the dictatorship of Cuba developed, since its installation in 1959, repeated criminal mechanisms of aggression against the countries and peoples of the Americas: invasions, guerrillas, organization of criminal groups, rural and urban guerrillas, kidnappings, terrorism, drug trafficking, cultural war, conspiracies, seditions, coups d’état and more. All of this has simply been repeated and updated in the 21st century, notably adding the mechanism of electoral manipulations to take advantage of the conditions and advantages of democracy.
Internally, the system to indefinitely hold power in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua is exactly the same – the one that the Cuban dictatorship has exercised for 65 years – State terrorism, which offers as proof the more than 1,300 political prisoners in Cuba , nearly 300 in Venezuela, 324 in Bolivia and more than 100 in Nicaragua, with the same mechanism of false accusations, manipulation of prosecutors and judges, torture, extortion of families and defenders and the “revolving door” to keep a constant number of victims. The persecutions, the exile, the physical and reputational murders, the non-existence of freedom of the press, the formation of “functional oppositions”, the corruption, the purges, the defense of drug trafficking, the protection of drug traffickers and more, all with speech “ anti-imperialist”, is additional proof.
Internationally, the dictatorships of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua and the dictatorial governments of Mexico with López Obrador, Colombia with Petro, Brazil with Lula and Chile with Boric operate in unison supporting the dictatorship of Cuba, deliberately ignoring when not protecting or justifying the crimes of dictatorships, supporting Russia in the invasion of Ukraine, pointing out Israel and trying to integrate an antidemocratic world bloc. Cuba has repeated its status as a military platform and geostrategic threat to Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua for the aggressive presence of the dictatorships of Russia, China and Iran in the Americas and the delivery of strategic natural resources. Castro-Chavism is a threat to peace and security and its status as a transnational criminal entity cannot continue to be ignored.
*Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy
