CASTROCHAVISM OPENLY CONSPIRES AND MEDDLES AGAINST DEMOCRACIES

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
 June 11, 2020

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The 21^st century is characterized by the existence of “two Americas”, the democratic one and the dictatorial other.  The Coronavirus pandemic has created situations of fear, stress, and distrust with collective quarantines and confinements that have generated social and economic crises that become political crises.  The worldwide calamity is being taken advantage of by Castrochavism -comprised by Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and their allies- to conspire and meddle in Americas’ democratic States with the objective of destabilizing, weakening, and if possible, toppling their governments.

During the last few years, countries controlled by Castrochavism have deteriorated to critical situations that forebode their forthcoming demise and the return of freedom and democracy. In Cuba -with the new Special Period- they cope with extreme conditions; in Venezuela despite the fact that Juan Guido is the legitimate president recognized by over 60 States, and in Nicaragua, they cope with general crises. All of them using institutionalized crime as a means of illegitimately hanging on to power.

New United States’ foreign policy, accompanied by other countries, regarding violations of human rights, narcotics’ trafficking, and terrorism, signal a vital difference with the different types and degrees of sanctions to Castro Chavist regimes.  These dictatorships lost Ecuador with Rafael Correa’s departure, and were left weakened in Bolivia with the resignation and flight of Evo Morales who constrained his main narcotics’ trafficking link.  They were encouraged by the arrival of Lopez Obrador in Mexico and were strengthened with the return of Kirchnerism with Fernandez and Kirchner in Argentina.  They lost Uruguay and with the reelection of General Secretary Almagro suffered a great defeat at the Organization of American States (OAS).

Castrochavism, chose the use of violence and around mid-2019, placed underway the destabilization of the region’s democratic governments through operations such as the October’s Coup d’état in Ecuador, the destabilization of Chile, the FARC’s reactivation and all conspiracies in Colombia, the destabilization of Brazil.  These acts were all planned at meetings of the “Forum of Sao Paulo”, in Havana and Caracas and were, afterwards, as claimed by Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello to be a “light Bolivarian breeze”.

In March, the “Palermo Convention” for the fight against Transnational Organized Crime was applied in New York and Florida’s courts that ruled to place a bounty on the heads of Maduro and high ranking members of the Venezuelan regime, offering rewards from 10 up to 15 million dollars for their capture and with rippling effects to their accomplices in Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Argentina, and Mexico.  A few days thereafter the United States announced the beginning of the anti-narcotics operation code-named “Orion V” at the Caribbean Sea and he Eastern Pacific along with 17 partner States that included; Colombia, Brazil, Spain, France, and Belgium.

In this scenario, the COVID-19 pandemic and its serious psychological, social, and economic effects in the nations of the Americas, began to be used as “targets of opportunity” by Castrochavism’s dictatorships and its allies to escalate the conspiracies and meddling against democracies, as shown by facts and events that transpired in Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, and Colombia.

During violent protests in the United States it was reported by news media such as; Infobae, the Americas’ Daily, The New Herald, and others that “the FBI detained a group of Venezuelans and Cubans who were paying people to create and cause chaos in the US protests”, that “Chavist militants participated in marches. . . in Florida”, that “the Latin American radical left had infiltrated the protests in the U.S.”, that “Rodriguez Zapatero called on participants to place the U.S. in an impossible situation”, that “point to Maduro for the Chaos”, and more.   U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, “denounced that China was trying to take political advantage of George Floyd’s death”.

We live in a time of the dictatorships’ new attacks against democracies, taking advantage of conditions stemming from the worldwide crisis.  It is the confrontation axis of the 21^st Century -that of the “two Americas”- that will only change when the region regains freedom and democracy, stops the regimes of disgrace, usurpation, and of narco-states.  It is not a political attack, it is Organized Crime that holds political power, it is Castrochavism spreading violence directed from Cuba and operated from Venezuela.

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