The governments of Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, subservient to organized crime, defend the Cartel of the Suns.

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
November 6, 2025

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Democracies at the service of organized crime and 21st-century socialist dictatorships that subjugate the freedom and sovereignty of peoples through narco-states, terrorism, and crime. As part of their subservience to the Cuban dictatorship, the presidents and governments of Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia have become subservient to transnational organized crime, supporting the «Cartel of the Suns» that usurps power in Venezuela.

A “para-dictatorial government” is led by a president elected in a democratic country who serves dictatorial regimes by contributing to their perpetuation through legitimizing and supporting actions, violating international legal obligations and harming national interests. This is the case of Lula da Silva in Brazil, López Obrador and Sheinbaum in Mexico, and Petro in Colombia, all subservient to the dictatorial system that, under Cuban influence, has allowed organized crime to seize power in Venezuela with Chávez and Maduro, Nicaragua with Ortega and Murillo, Bolivia with Morales and Arce, and Ecuador with Correa.

The support of Lula, Sheinbaum, and Petro for the dictatorships of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia violates mandatory norms of the American Convention on Human Rights or Pact of San José, the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime or Palermo Convention, and more, while they attempt to provide ideological support and political image to the commission of crimes such as drug trafficking, terrorism, transnational crime, forced migration, human trafficking, and multiple expressions of hybrid warfare that harm their own people.

The actions of Lula da Silva, Sheinbaum, and Petro, which they attempt to portray as acts of sovereignty, solidarity, or anti-imperialism, are crimes in their respective countries’ jurisdictions. When a citizen in Brazil, Mexico, or Colombia advocates crime, they are committing a crime, as they are when they protect or cover up for drug traffickers and terrorists, or when they use state resources to support individuals who violate human rights, torture, murder, and traffic drugs. In the case of government officials, it constitutes treason against their national interests.

These crimes are aggravated by the evidence that they are «rewards» motivated by the financing of electoral campaigns and the receipt of money, as sworn to by Hugo Chávez’s former intelligence chief, «Pollo Carvajal,» who implicated Lula, Petro, and others. Former US Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism Financing Marshall Billingslea states that Nicolás Maduro financed electoral campaigns in several Latin American countries: «Corrupt money from Venezuela in Petro’s campaign…money has been found in Mexico, in Brazil…»

The latest efforts of Lula da Silva, Sheinbaum, and Petro focus on defending the criminal group that has usurped sovereignty and holds power in Venezuela, the «Cartel of the Suns,» comprised of fugitives wanted by U.S. authorities. The three leaders, representing Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, maintain normal diplomatic relations with Nicolás Maduro and his regime, have explicitly and implicitly recognized it, and are protecting it by buying time and seeking negotiations to sustain it.

Lula da Silva offered himself as a “mediator between the United States and Venezuela,” and the proposal itself seeks to recognize the Cartel of the Suns as a subject of international law, granting the criminal group the status of a counterpart and equal to democracy. Under the pretext of maintaining peace in South America, Lula, founder and head of the São Paulo Forum, the only living leader of the 21st-century socialism he founded with Castro and Chávez, with whom he also organized the Lava Jato corruption scandal, is siding with narco-terrorists who are the root of insecurity in Brazil, as the Comando Vermelho recently demonstrated in Rio de Janeiro.

Sheinbaum, speaking on behalf of Mexico, recognized the Maduro government, using «the self-determination of peoples» as a pretext. She then declared that «Mexico has no evidence linking Maduro to drug trafficking,» defending the Cartel of the Suns before the US Attorney General. Following the same strategy attempted by Lula to protect Maduro and his cartel, she «reiterated Mexico’s position of respecting the self-determination of peoples, non-interventionism, and the peaceful resolution of disputes.»

Petro gave military support to Maduro when, on August 10, 2025, he wrote: “I publicly transmit my order, given as commander of the armed forces of Colombia. Colombia and Venezuela are the same people, the same flag, the same history. Any military operation that does not have the approval of our sister nations is an aggression against Latin America and the Caribbean…”. Later, defending drug traffickers, he accused the US of murder and was labeled by Trump as a “drug kingpin,” resulting in severe sanctions against Colombia.

Presidents who are essentially dictators cannot be defenders of transnational organized crime with impunity.

Published in Spanish by infobae.com Monday November 3, 2025

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

Published in Spanish by Infobae.com Sunday November 6, 2025