Narcotics’ trafficking, an essential ingredient of castrochavism

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) In every analysis of 21st Century Socialism, or Castrochavism, narcotics’ trafficking stands out as an essential ingredient to escalate into positions of government, in order to hold power and sustain their regimes. Narcotics’ trafficking, mainly of cocaine, is a fundamental part of the transnational organized crime’s system who, disguised as an anti-imperialist and populist political undertaking, turned Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and at one time past Ecuador into narco-states.

The concept of narco-state describes a “country whose governmental institutions are influenced, in a significant way, by narcotics’ power and wealth, whose leadership -protected by the legal immunities of their position- simultaneously function as governmental officials and as members of narcotics’ trafficking networks”.

In the first years of the so-called Cuban revolution, the regime announced through Che Guevara and Fidel Castro the “strategic objective” of flooding the United States with drugs to attack its youth. Narcotics’ trafficking is part of the means of the Cuban dictatorship’s anti-imperialist fight that now has been re-created within Castrochavism as expressed by its spokesman Evo Morales who in April of 2016 at the United Nations stated that “the fight against narcotics’ trafficking is an instrument of imperialism to oppress the nations.”

During the period of Soviet sponsored Castroism, Fidel Castro and his dictatorial regime’s participation in narcotics’ trafficking is overwhelming. Beside promoting and sustaining Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC in Spanish), the National Liberation Army (ELN in Spanish) in the same country, the Castro’s close and direct link to narcotics’ traffickers such as; Pablo Escobar in Colombia and his partner Roberto Suarez in Bolivia is proven, as documented as “the Cuban Connection” in the book The King of Cocaine.

The execution by firing squad of; General Arnaldo Ochoa, Colonel Antonio de la Guardia, Major Amado Padron, and Captain Jorge Martinez on 13 July of 1989 is the dictatorial sham through which Fidel Castro “attempted to cleanse his own image and that of the revolution” when facing compelling evidence that he had turned Cuba into a narco-state at a time when “the Soviet Perestroika had isolated Cuba. With its mediation at the peace talks with the FARC, Castrochavism was able to turn narcotics’ trafficking and crime into legal politics in Colombia. A unique situation in which the promoting dictatorship, the FARC’s protector and partner, had the role of being the arbiter and “pacifier”. Today Castrochavism protects, in Cuba, the heads of the ELN, while with the support that Venezuela gives, it has rearmed the FARC and has turned the ELN into an effective terrorist force in Colombia.

Ecuador was branded as a narco-state by Rafael Correa because; his open protection of the FARC who were targeted in a bombing at Angostura, with his closing of Manta as an anti-narcotics base, narcotics’ trafficking in diplomatic luggage, and more. Because of President Lenin Moreno and his government’s return to the war on drugs, Ecuador has drifted away from its condition of narco-state.

Bolivia, with Evo Morales, is a narco-state whose structure has been kept intact despite the departure of the dictator. In 2003 there were 7,413 acres of illegal coca plantations and today, as the direct result of government actions to grow and expand narcotics’ trafficking, there are over 172,974 acres. A territorial control structure with coca-leaf harvester unions, whose chief is Morales, is a political party known as Movement Towards Socialism (MAS in Spanish) and no one dares to disqualify it, despite proof that it is an instrument of organized crime. Leonardo Coutinho’s book “Cocaine’s Bridge” is proof of massive drug trafficking, under the command of Evo Morales, on board of Bolivian Air Force airplanes going directly to Venezuela’s presidential hangar under the command of Maduro.

Narco-state Venezuela, is the narcotics’ trafficking axis operating with the FARC’s, ELN’s and Evo Morales’ Coca Harvesters Unions. The highest tier of the Venezuelan regime has been accused and is wanted by international tribunals for narcotics’ trafficking crimes, with a bounty over their heads for these narcotics’ trafficking crimes. “Orion V” is the code name given to a big anti-narcotic trafficking operation in the Caribbean by the United States, Colombia, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Belgium, Ecuador, France, and around 20 other countries.

Cuba, the lead narco-state, operating with and in Nicaragua, has demonstrated that beside occupying Venezuela and directing Evo Morales, is the country of departure of the cocaine shipments as proven by the nearly 1,517 packages of seized cocaine in May of 2019 in Panama on-board of a container ship coming from Cuba. Wherever Castrochavism is, narcotics’ trafficking is also there, wherever they control a government they birth a narco-state, wherever they deploy their diplomacy, they protect narcotics’ trafficking.

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

Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators Association, ATA # 234680.