VENEZUELA AND THE BARED DICTATORSHIPS WITHOUT A MASK OF DEMOCRACY

April 4th, 2017

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The Venezuelan dictatorship has just struck a coup d’état against its National Assembly using a despicable decision by its Supreme Justice Tribunal thus replacing the only legitimate institution in Venezuela. This crime has been committed with the support and coordination of the governments from Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, and shows the true nature of the regimes of Nicolas Maduro, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega. This coup d’état bares once again the dictatorial nature of the five dictatorships of the region and definitely unmasks their democracy façade.

The Interamerican Democratic Charter establishes in its third Article that “the essential elements of democracy” are; “respect for human rights and basic freedoms, access to power and its exercise subordinated to the rule of law, conducting periodic elections that are free, fair, and are based on the universal and secret vote as an expression of the sovereignty of the people, plurality of political parties and organizations, and the separation and independence of the government’s branches”. The Interamerican Democratic Charter has been activated by the two reports from the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro on the situation in Venezuela which prove that Nicolas Maduro and his government are dictatorial in nature but with a façade of democracy.

A façade is a “mask, concealment, fake” and it is a disguise, a sham, a deception with which one shrewdly intends “to appear to be doing something that he is not”, it is all about “cunningly hiding or concealing”. This is precisely what the regimes in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua have been doing and pretend to continue doing. They show themselves to be democracies but are dictatorships. They demand to be acknowledged as democracies, but with a trend of progressive socialists of the 21^st Century Socialism who are members of the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance), but in truth they are Castroist-Stalinist dictatorial regimes.

Secretary Almagro’s reports prove that in Venezuela: Human rights are violated with political persecutions that use the Judicial Branch as an instrument for repression. There are political prisoners, persecuted, and exiled. The “Rule of Law” has disappeared because Maduro and his cartel are above the law and are the law. The dictatorship has focalized all power to themselves thus extinguishing “the separation and independence of the branches of government”. This government has taken the Venezuelan people to a humanitarian crisis that violates all human rights. There is neither freedom of expression, nor freedom of the press. There is no possibility of any type of political activity. What Secretary Almagro showed with his reports is that Venezuela is not a democracy but a dictatorship with a tremendous after-shock effect for the similar regimes in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, to the point that if the OAS would report on those countries’ governments the reports would be similar to those of Venezuela, with a devastating blow to Castroist Cuba’s leadership of the group.

Castro-Chavez ideology rooted on the 21st Century Socialism and the Sao Paolo forum right now controls the majority of the votes from the 35 member states of the OAS through Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua who; while defending Nicolas Maduro, protect themselves with Venezuelan oil manipulated as a bribe to the Petrocaribe countries, threaten instability and crisis generation, and through ideological pressure and relationships. As a result of the Venezuelan crisis the world’s public opinion is now aware of this situation and the people of all nations have produced changes and pressures that enabled Secretary Almagro to courageously activate the Interamerican Democratic Charter, but to date there aren’t the two-thirds of votes needed to sanction Maduro’s government.

Maduro’s dictatorship, furthermore, is a “narco-state” and there is proof of that with the reports from the United States that point to the Venezuelan Vice-President, with Maduro’s nephews judged and imprisoned for narcotics trafficking in New York, with the “Los Soles’ Cartel” (The Suns’ Cartel) implicating the highest levels of the government, with the relationship with the FARC guerrillas and Evo Morales as the main sources of cocaine which has turned Venezuela as “the axis of drugs”, with the relationship with Islamic terrorism. This situation also encompasses the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, more and as much as they are also implicated as dictatorships.

It is in this context that Maduro strikes the coup d’état against the Venezuelan National Assembly abiding by the Castroist strategy of “defending themselves while deepening the roots of dictatorship”, in other words moving forward and showing they are not willing to leave power in any way. The coup comes as a follow on to military defense exercises similar to those practiced by the Castroist regime of Cuba for years with anti-imperialism propaganda, and as a follow on to the ratification of the unjust sentence of political prisoner Leopoldo Lopez, and in the midst of a great effort to cover-up the Odebrecht and “Lava Jato” corruption that also implicates its accomplices in Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

Maduro’s coup d’état in Venezuela is a coup of the dictatorships and makes it clear the existence of and confrontation by “THE TWO AMERICAS”, the democratic and the dictatorial. The one whose Presidents are subordinated to the Rule of Law and where the branches of government are independent versus the other one in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua whose Presidents are in perpetuity, almighty, who violate Human Rights and wish to die in power and with impunity.   The real net result of Maduro’s coup is to have bared, to have unmasked the dictatorships. They have lost the façade of democracy with which they deceived for years, and it is not only Venezuela, there are five of them!

Published in Spanish by Diario las Americas on Sunday April 2nd, 2017

*The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author.*