Twenty-first century socialism uses hybrid warfare against democracies from the Americas

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
May 3, 2025

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) In this 21st century, Cuba’s dictatorship has replaced guerrilla warfare with hybrid warfare. Democracies from the Americas are under constant attack by several means and processes such as narcotics’ trafficking, forcible migrations, organized criminal groups, public agitation, street turmoil, coups d’etat, terrorism, electoral penetration, assassinations of reputation, fake news, murders, cyber-attacks, and more, operated by the organized criminal group that has labeled itself as 21st Century Socialism.

“Hybrid Warfare” is the type of “attack in which all sorts of means and procedures, conventional or non-conventional forces or irregular means, are used for the purpose of weakening and eliminating the adversary’s resistance, erode its power, strength, and will, that has the advantage of enabling the aggressor not to be held responsible for such attack.”

“Crime,” is the “serious crime.” These are the harmful actions that are detrimental, not only for the victim, but also for the community, society at large, and the State.

“Organized criminal group,” defined by Article 2a. of the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Convention) is “(a)… a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offenses established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.”

“Twenty-First Century Socialism” is the political label of a Transnational Organized Crime Group that started during the presidency of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1999 that is led by Cuba’s dictatorship. The label “21st Century Socialism” was created by Heinz Dietrich and became the political label for Castrochavism ever since it was used by Hugo Chavez at the 5th Worldwide Social Forum of 2005.

“Castrochavism” is a neologism, comprised by the surnames of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, that describes 21st Century Socialism as “a Transnational Organized Crime Group disguised as a political ideology used to violate human rights and indefinitely wield governmental power.”

I insist in saying that “the fight against narcotics’ trafficking fails only when the narco traffickers take governmental power, as proven by the existing dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua who protect and expand crime. Through narcotics’ trafficking they attack not only the U.S. but all countries with democracies in the Americas where the prevalence of drug consumption has increased. To the production of Cocaine, they have added the Chinese related production of Fentanyl.

I must reiterate that forcible migrations happen due to people’s fear because, in the Americas, people have managed to get-by with poverty, as long as this is not aggravated with terror. 21st Century Socialism is synonymous to the violation of human rights, misery, persecution, prison, torture, and death. Fear generates forcible migrations, as seen by the exodus of millions of Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, this in-turn produces humanitarian crises that are infiltrated with criminals and undercover operatives and are manipulated by the very same dictatorships that caused them and profit from them. To repeat -at a larger scale- the so-called “Exodus from Mariel” manipulated by Castro in 1980, that involved 125,000 people.

Attacks with forcible migrations are not only against the U.S., but are against all democracies of the region. In Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and elsewhere, the arrival of thousands of State-terrorism victims (infiltrated with criminals and undercover operatives) strain the health, education, housing, employment, and security systems of host nations to levels of crisis, eroding these States’ economies.

Common criminal groups are the operative arms of dictatorships and have been trans- nationalized similarly to the narcotics’ trafficking cartels: El Tren de Aragua, las Maras, the MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha, the cartels from Sinaloa, Jalisco, Los Zetas, Los Del Golfo, to mention a few of the well-known ones.

Key elements for the survival and expansion of dictatorships involve the funding for public agitation, the creation or exacerbation of problems that lead to confrontations, agitating the streets with violence. In Mexico, for example, to “put heat on main square,” is “when a group, generally of traffickers, ignites the scalation of violence in some part of a territory that it controls, to instill fear in the population, attract the attention of the news media, or intimidate authorities or rival gangs. If the Narcos forge alliances with guerrillas, para-military, political parties, or candidates, they usually “put heat on the elections’ main square.”

It is not coincidental that there were coups d’etat against; Jamil Mahuad in Ecuador (2000), Fernando de la Rua in Argentina (2001), Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in Bolivia (2003), the OAS Secretary General Miguel Angel Rodriguez (2004), Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador (2005); along with failed coups against Lenin Moreno in Ecuador in 2019, Sebastian Piñera in Chile (2019), Ivan Duque in Colombia (2021) and Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador (2022).

Insurgence, terrorism, and “State-terrorism,” electoral penetration, the assassination of reputations, fake news, murders, like that of Fernando Villavicencio in Ecuador, and killings like what occurs to hundreds of political prisoners in the jails of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua’s, and the cybernetic war are all part of the hybrid warfare.

*Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

Published in Spanish by infobae.com Sunday April 27, 2025