Articles and opinion columns by Latin American analysts who take an unwavering stand for freedom, including members and directors of the IID.
I find the American usage of political labels such as Left-Right and liberal-conservative, confusing and inconsistent. In the current American usage, Left, or liberal, is used to define those who believe government should play an extensive role, and who advocate for the use of government’s coercive powers to bring about a more egalitarian society. We label as Right, or conservative, those that argue that the role of government should be anchored on the Founding Fathers’ conceptualization of a limited government concerned primarily with protecting our lives, liberty and property. In most of the world today, liberalism still stands for the supremacy of the individual, and conservatism for the supremacy of the State. However, the point of political labels should be to identify us according to our preferences for less or more government. Political labels ought to be an accurate shorthand expression of our political philosophy. So, how about libertarian for freedom lovers, and servile for government lovers?
On April 4th, Rafael Callejas, former president of Honduras, died in Atlanta. He had been in the U.S. for the last five years as a consequence of the U.S. prosecution of FIFA leaders worldwide. President Callejas was the president of the Honduran Football Association and a member of FIFA’s Television and Marketing Committee. In 2016 President Callejas pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to charges of racketeering and wire fraud. At the moment of his death, he was living in Atlanta where he was being treated for leukemia. And perhaps the greatest punishment was separation from Norma Gaborit — his wife, muse and love of his life. They were twin souls. His heart broke when he realized that he would not be able to see her again given that the U.S. denied an entry a visa for her to come and support him through his leukemia treatment. When accused of corruption he presented himself to justice and was acquitted on every charge. Callejas took responsibility for his felonies and faced justice. In short, he was a great leader and gentleman who regrettably succumbed to the cult of easy money which is widespread in Latin America. He takes with him a political virtue. These virtues have always been important but today in the times of covid19 are essential to secure the survival of humanity.
One possible interpretation of the COVID-19 global drama might be that this terrible pandemic is a sort of answer from Nature in the face of human inability to prevent and reduce environmental damage. It was at the beginning of 1968 when a group of scientists, businessmen, academics and diplomats were invited by the Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei and the Scottish scientist Alexander King to a meeting in the Accademia dei Lincei, in a sixteenth century palazzo of Villa Farmesina, in the Italian capital. This became known as the Club of Rome. The Club of Rome’s became famous four years later when its report on “The Limits to Growth” (1972) was published. Controversially, the report pointed out that the temperature of the Planet would rise approximately two degrees Celsius by 2052 and that between 2008 and 2020 the world would achieve its maximum production level according to the available natural resources. The Club of Rome warned about global alterations that would affect the whole of humankind. At the time, some of its warnings were dismissed as outlandish. In recent years, a huge debate came back concerning primarily Climate Change and Global Warming. Many believe that the COVID -19 challenge may provoke deep changes to humankind in the years to come. The founders of the Club of Rome might have been solitary prophets, rebellious crusaders that tried to make humankind aware of the inevitable path to suicide, or no more than neo-Malthusian amateurs recycling old and rejected theories. These are questions and worries emerging in these fateful days, dominated by anxieties and uncertainties.
It has been denounced and proven for years on end that “Castrochavism’s dictatorships in the Americas use the justice system as an instrument for political persecution, to jail, exile, and assassinate opposing members’ reputation”. Little known, and generally anonymous the “dictatorships’ judges” are an essential element to sustain each regime, giving them a stamp of legal approval, repressing the real opposition, and wrecking the country’s institutional legal system. They are “despicable judges” whom I define as “those in charge of administering justice who deliberately shy away from their basic duties of probity, impartiality, and legality by subordinating their official roles and their rulings for the benefit of those who hold power, turning their activities into vile prevarication that violate human rights and individual basic freedoms”. This “detestable judge” Maikel Moreno is the symbol, but he is not the only one. It is urgent for everyone to understand that in order to regain democracy and end dictatorships, we must uncover their “despicable judges” so they can be nationally or internationally charged and prosecuted. This is why we must know the names of those detestable judges, and we will soon and quickly see the benefits they have reaped from their heinous crimes.
U.S. criminal indictments against Venezuela’s Maduro and 14 other current and former officials for drug trafficking and what it means for the rule of law in Latin America. “Criminal groups have wasted no time in embracing today’s globalized economy and the sophisticated technology that goes with it. But our efforts to combat them have remained up to now very fragmented and our weapons almost obsolete. ”These were Kofi Annan’s opening remarks at the signing ceremony for the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNCTOC) . Thursday March 27th 2020 when the US unsealed indictments against the President of Venezuela and the Chief Justice and the Minister of Defense as well as 11 other top dignitaries. Charges were drug trafficking money laundering and terrorism. From the political view point the unsealing of indictments also indicate the US does not recognize Mr maduro as a legitimate head of state. Also by virtue of posting rewards for anyone producing information leading to the arrest of the indicted dignitaries creates around each of them an environment of fear and mistrust in everyone surrounding them that could lead to desperation. And as we all too well know desperation is divine poison as it leads persons to take wrong and hurtful decisions. Ultimately it is their own doings that brings them down. Because as Annan indicated .”They are powerful, representing entrenched interests and the clout of a global enterprise worth billions of dollars. But they are not invincible”. Because they cannot withstand the universal enforcement of rule of law.
The “mechanism to fight Transnational Organized Crime more efficiently” established jurisdiction in the United States’ justice system, thus formalizing the concept that “Castrochavism” is organized crime and not politics. This is about the rule of law. This is what the accusations of criminal wrongdoing filed in United States’ district courts. The “narco-terrorist conspiracy” involving the production and trafficking of cocaine was undertaken by this criminal group who controlled the de-facto political power under the label of “21st Century Socialism”, today known as “Castrochavism”. In columns, books, and conferences I have asserted -and today I insist- in that criminals who hold or held power in countries with Castrochavism dictatorships do not enjoy any type of immunity or privilege, nor are they protected by any concept of sovereignty, non-intervention, nor territoriality, because they are an “organized criminal group” (Article 2 of the Palermo Convention) who commit “serious crimes of a transnational nature” (Art. 2, Subparagraph 2). This is not a political matter, neither is it a matter of international affairs. This is a matter of justice, of transnational crime.
“The question is whether it is necessary to adopt the Chinese formula and shut the whole country down,” Could not we strike a kind of Nash balance in public policy-making and create incentives for people to work harder and to protect themselves from the virus without suspending economic activity? In the West those of us that live in fully operational democracies need to advocate balance in our public policies so that lockdowns serve the purpose of planting the pillars for a strong rebound. And this could be achieved if Americans get the much heralded cash aid wrapped in distance learning courses that teach them robotics, coding and software writing. But just giving the public cash — without using the opportunity to offer retraining — could worsen their predicament as many economic activities are going to use the lockdown period to deepen their digitalization. This means less traditional jobs and more digital valuable jobs.
The pandemic has proven the criminal nature of the Castrochavist dictators and the extremely serious situation of helplessness of the peoples from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental conditions that demonstrate the strength of democracy. “Castrochavism” is “the name that describes the transnational organized crime’s system that usurps political power which must be dealt with as a structure and undertaking of organized crime and not as a political process”. The COVID-19 pandemic found Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua’s dictatorships in terminal economic and social crises, in a situation of misery with humanitarian crises, as narco-states, with their health systems practically non-operational due to the inexistence of resources, means and supplies and with their citizenry’s living conditions well under the minimum sanitary and feeding standards, with hundreds of political prisoners and millions of exiled. Under these conditions, now facing COVID-19 the lead-dictatorship from Cuba, seeking to generate needed income, chose to take advantage of the situation by offering up -without any takers- its “enslaved physicians” to other countries. Venezuela’s usurper regime uses the pandemic to regain “Maduro’s de-facto power” with the backing of the military. In Nicaragua, they decided to face “the pandemic with love and marching”. These dictators are using the pandemic to strengthen themselves in the power they are usurping, committing more crime, affirming their de-facto power in order to continue subjugating and oppressing. It is a situation that can become a “catastrophe” or a “genocide” against peoples whose degree of helplessness only increases.
Democratic voting does not always produce good goverments. Thus, understanding voting behavior has become one of the most studied subjects in the social sciences straddling the disciplines of economics, political science, psychology and sociology. The romantic theory of democracy also posits that voters can asses the qualifications of competing candidates and then vote for the candidate that best matches their own political values. An alternative theory of democratic voting is the “retrospective theory of voting”. In contrast to the prospective romantic theory of democracy, the retrospective theory regards the voters as appraisers of the past performance of leaders. That is, voters need not be informed or engaged as demanded by the romantic theory of democracy. Voters identify good or bad government performance according to how it has impacted their lives. Retrospective voting expresses approval or disapproval for past performance and, as such, is a powerful instrument of electoral accountability. Retrospective voting induces leaders to strive for good economic outcomes in order to retain their jobs. In essence, and perhaps inelegantly, it is not political ideology but a look at the rearview mirror that best explains why we vote as we do.
The first two decades of the 21st century in the Americas has been a period for the installation and expansion of dictatorships that, although are now weakened, cannot be removed because there is no unity in the fight to regain freedom and democracy in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, and nations where Castrochavism established itself as a transnational organized crime’s system that wields political power. To stay in power, some of Castrochavism’s control and sustainment ingredients are; corruption and narcotics’ trafficking as producers of unlimited resources, the “judicialized political persecution” and the use of force to subjugate, along with massacres and torture, political prisoners and exiled, fear and the institutional breakdown, the setting up of de-facto regimes with a uniform methodology and the manipulation of information. Under these circumstances what is desirable is the unity of all leaders opposing the dictatorship in each country, but that does not happen and by contrast the visible split and confrontation between members of the opposition is a characteristic feature that enables the Castrochavist dictatorial system to remain in power. Facts reveal that the unity needed to defeat Castrochavist dictatorships is constantly sabotaged by “functional opposition members” who respond to the regime’s interests -which turn out to be their own interests as well- helping to maintain the dictatorial status quo. Moreover, the absence of unity of command and strategy weakens democracy’s options and portrays the dictators’ false image of strength. Now is the time to show that the unity needed, to remove dictators and end dictatorships, is possible to achieve.
