Failure of Lula and the union of South American nations (UNASUR) and defeat to castrochavist organized crime dictatorships

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Using Brazil’s presidency, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva has failed to incorporate organized crime along with Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro as political components of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR in Spanish). UNASUR has again failed to be used as a mechanism for dictatorial manipulation and this has resulted in democracy’s historical defeat to 21st Century Socialism or Castrochavism, a self-confessed criminal and not political organization.

To better understand what Lula da Silva is doing as President of Brazil, we have to remember who Lula is. He is the co-founder, along with Fidel Castro, of the Forum of Sao Paolo, created to sustain Cuba’s dictatorship after the fall of the Berlin wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union. The conspirator nature of the Forum of Sao Paolo is expressed in its objective; to multiply the axis of confrontation to resurrect defeated communism and to continue its attacks against democracy with an anti-imperialism’s narrative.

With the passing of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, Lula is the sole living head of 21st Century Socialism or Castrochavism created in 1999 as a populist Bolivarian movement under the leadership of Chavez who squandered Venezuela’s wealth to rescue Cuba’s dictatorship, and ultimately took Lula to Brazil’s presidency. Lula, the President, became a contractor of Cuban enslaved physicians and the most significant suspect in the greatest case of transnational corruption dubbed as “Lava Jato.” This case consisted in the use of Brazilian moneys -through Brazilian mega-construction contractors, to effect contracts in all countries indicated by Chavez and Castro. The surcharges, bribes, criminal manipulation, and the existence of many contracts that were never performed, highlighted the global scandal that ultimately took Lula to jail.

UNASUR was articulated by Hugo Chavez on 8 December of 2004 and member States signed its constitutive treaty on 23 May of 2008 and became effective on 11 March of 2011 with its main objectives; to promote the 21st Century Socialism’s system and to support dictatorial expansion. In April of 2018, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru suspended their participation. Colombia announced its departure from UNASUR in August of 2018. Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay left in March and April of 2019, and Uruguay in March of 2020.

With the presidencies of Lopez Obrador in Mexico, Fernandez/Kirchner in Argentina, Castillo in Peru, Boric in Chile, Petro in Colombia, and Lula in Brazil, “Para-Dictatorial Governments” make their appearance. These are defined as a “government managed by an elected president in a country with democracy that nevertheless ignores dictatorial crimes and contributes to sustain them.”

Lula, having been elected as Brazil’s president, met with Argentina’s president Alberto Fernandez and on the 7th of April of 2023 both announced their return to UNASUR. Gustavo Petro did the same on 30 May of 2023, announcing Colombia’s return. On this date and within this framework, Lula convened a so-called Summit to resurrect UNASUR, inviting those presidents of countries that had left, with the trap of having and showcasing a special guest, fugitive dictator Nicolas Maduro.

This brief history shows that UNASUR is one of those types of organizations created by Castrochavism, that has never met any objective and has no way to accomplish it, and that it was used by Lula, in complicity with Fernandez from Argentina, Petro from Colombia, and Arce from Bolivia, to launder and legitimize Venezuela’s dictator. By his disagreement and publicly declared dissent on Maduro’s role in Venezuela we can infer that Boric was not aware of Lula’s objective -to introduce Maduro as a victim of a narrative and not as the criminal he really is- or Lula’s “exaggerated efforts” to do so, made him reconsider.

The crimes committed by dictator Nicolas Maduro and his regime are the same as those committed in Cuba, the Dictatorship-In-Chief, who has expanded and controls the “State-terrorism” system, the disappearance of all essential components of democracy, the methodology of political imprisonment and exile, torture, assassinations, crimes against humanity, corruption, betrayal to the homeland, illicit enrichment, narcotics’ trafficking, and the establishment of narco-States along with the impunity, judicial manipulation, extortion, and more. The dictatorships from Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua are Cuba’s satellite dictatorships and its main launching platforms with the same features and crimes. They all comprise a transnational organized crime group as defined by the Palermo Convention.

To call a “narrative” as Lula has done, all crimes against humanity, the torture, over 7 million Venezuelans uprooted, the assassinations, the existence of political prisoners, narcotics’ trafficking, and the narco-State nature of these dictatorships, along with their continued and periodic reincidence to launder and legitimize Maduro is something that can only be done by the sole surviving founder of the Castrochavist criminal organization.

Lula’s resounding failure in his maneuver to politicize dictator Nicolas Maduro and not being able to accomplish it, is a historical defeat to 21st Century Socialism, or Castrochavism because it makes it crystal clear that this is not a political group but a transnational organized crime group.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas