WHEN ORGANIZED CRIME SUPPLANTS DEMOCRACY

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
agosto 8, 2017 

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The world watches these days Venezuela’s drama whose people are subjected to extreme situations by a regime that decided to remain indefinitely in power.   Only the use of undue force allows Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorship to carry out a criminal agenda that replaces politics and democracy, applying a methodology intended to enable the perpetration of any and all crimes which may be necessary to obtain his objectives. The situation in Venezuela shows in reality what happens when organized crime supplants democracy and crime cannot win.

The universal civilization recognizes the principle that all human beings are free and were created equal and this is why sovereignty rests in the people, in other words “the supreme political power that corresponds to an independent state” is from the people who comprise it, from that nation’s citizens who have the right to determine the way they are organized, the election of those who will govern them, their laws, and the entire institutional system that establishes their way of life within a society politically organized. This is why democracy is “the form of government in which the political power is exercised by the people”.

From freedom as a fundamental right, as a human right, we derive the “right to democracy”. “The people of the Americas have the right to democracy and their governments have the obligation of promoting it and defending it. Democracy is fundamental for the social, political, and economic development of the nations of the Americas” reads Article 1 of the Interamerican Democratic Charter, a document that in its Article 3 also acknowledges the essential elements of democracy including, among other, respect for human rights and “access to, and the exercise of, power with subordination to the Rule of Law”.

The United Nations (UN) declare the Rule of Law is “a principle of governance in which all people, institutions, and organizations, public and private, including the very own State, are subordinated to the laws that are publicly promulgated, are equally enforced, and are applied independently and, moreover, are compatible with international standards and principles of human rights. Furthermore, it demands that measures be taken to ensure respect of the principles of; the law’s primacy, the equality of treatment by the law, the separation of the branches of government, the participation in the making of decisions, legality, not arbitrarily, and procedural and legal transparency.”

Organized Crime, that is also known as “Organized Delinquency” is “any organization comprised by individuals with determined hierarchies, roles, and functions, whose main objective is the gaining of material or financial benefits through the commission of crime”. The United Nations’ convention against Transnational Organized Crime defines that for “organized criminal group” we shall understand to mean “a structured group of three or more individuals that may exist during a certain period of time and which is set up to act for the purpose of committing one or more serious crimes typified according to the said convention with views to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial, or any other, material benefit.”

The aforementioned concepts and universal standards prove, irrefutably, that Nicolas Maduro and his regime are an organized criminal group, part of a Transnational Criminal Organization, who commit crimes ranging from the violation of human rights, assassinations, undue detentions, incarcerations, false accusations and charges, simulation of crimes, manipulation of prosecutors and judges (many of whom are part of the organized criminal group), bribery, counterfeiting of all types, material and ideological falsehood, use of counterfeited means in just about the entire current Criminal Code in existence to include crimes of narcotics trafficking, money laundering, illicit enrichment, undue influence peddling , and so many more, far too many to include and mention in this article.

Maduro and his criminal group in Venezuela commit crimes with premeditation and evidence before the national and international public opinion.   The alibi for his crimes are labeled as “political actions” in attempts to validate them and keep themselves immune by force. Examples of these flagrant, brazen, bold crimes are; the 1 May 2017 calling to convene a Constituent Assembly, the forming of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ in Spanish) and the rulings of this tribunal regarding the National Assembly, the political persecutions, the dozens of political prisoners, the mustering of armed paramilitary groups, the assassinations and wounding of demonstrators for over 120 days, the electoral fraud to impose his Constituent Assembly, the takeover of the National Assembly, the coverup of the Odebrecht corruption scandal and hundreds more!

The criminal group that has the power in Venezuela is a dependent part of a Transnational Organized Crime organization that we could call “Castroist” which is directed by the government from Cuba and is comprised by at least the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. This “Castroist” group commits the same type of transnational crimes in each one of the countries under its control and as outlined in the UN’s convention “with views to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial, or any other, material benefit” (to perpetuate itself in power).

It is organized crime, the 21^st Century dictatorships defending today their power in Venezuela, victimizing the people and imposing themselves by force, attempting to supplant democracy with revolutionary banners when, in reality, they are only thugs that comprise a powerful and dangerous criminal organization typified by the UN.

Published in Spanish by Diario las Américas on Sunday August 6th, 2017

Translated from Spanish by: Edgar L. Terrazas, Member of American Translators’ Association ATA # 234680