Popping the Party

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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 UNITED STATES APPLIES THE PALERMO CONVENTION: CASTROCHAVISM IS ORGANIZED CRIME AND NOT POLITICS

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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.

Are We Shutting Ourselves??

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“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.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC: CASTROCHAVIST DICTATORS’ CRIMINALITY AND THE HELPLESSNESS OF THE PEOPLES. 

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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.

WHY IS UNITY SO HARD WHEN FACING CASTROCHAVIST DICTATORSHIPS?

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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.

It Takes a Virus to Bring Sanity Back

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The corona virus pandemic while dreadful and daunting is beginning to unleash incentives for positive behavior that could be key to the full entry of the human species into the 21st century. All over the world people are realizing that there is only one neighborhood for our specie and that while we do not conquer other planets, the only way to survive is through collaboration. And as we all hunker down to contribute to the  flattening of  the development curve we are rediscovering the beauty of neighborhoods; surrounding landscapes and life in family. And…  finally having time to thoroughly read literature.

THE DICTATORSHIP IS WINNING THE ELECTIONS IN BOLIVIA AND THE IMPACT IN THE AMERICAS WILL BE DEVASTATING.  

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The fall of dictator Evo Morales and the establishment of an interim government to start the transition towards democracy surprised everyone because it was the result of an authentic grass-roots civil resistance process which kept whittling down Morales until he was left without a government. With terrorist acts directed by Evo Morales from Mexico and with the vigorous criminal mobilization of; his coca leaf harvesters’ unions from Chapare, his social (collective) movements, and the intervention of the FARC’s armed groups and others, the dictatorship opened negotiations with the interim government. The result was a well-simulated split in Evo Morales’ and the narco-traffickers’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) political party in Bolivia, that appeared to be the mainstay of the interim government from the National Assembly. The dictatorial strategy works. As a matter of fact, if candidates Añez, Camacho, and Mesa do not join forces, something that looks implausible, Evo Morales’ dictatorship that never left power, will retake the government in Bolivia with devastating effects that guarantee the continuity of the narco-state. With Bolivia returned to Castro Chavism through an electoral victory; impunity, narcotics’ trafficking, and political persecution are guaranteed to happen and the Americas will be under a greater threat than the attacks against Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador.

La Calle Pou : A Balancing Act?

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New, right-of-center President Luis Lacalle Pou took office in Uruguay on Sunday. This article describes just what the ascendance of this 46 year old surfer and son of a former president means for the economy, rule of law, generational change and the future of this nation of 3.4 million. President Lacalle Pou thus comes with a clear mandate to preserve the stability that has marked the democratic period while getting tough on crime and jumpstarting the economy. And he is quite well armed and position to meet these goals. From the personal view point he represents a new generation that has no ties to the highly ideological agendas that presided the early days of the return to democracy. He also is a fruit of Uruguay’s globalization. As such knows how to manage other countries interests in favor of Uruguay. He has given signs that he understands that Uruguay can be the moderating power in Merco Sur and a reliable asset to the US in South America. In short,   Lacalle Pou might succeed in playing a successful balancing act for Uruguay that could ignite growth while continuing to strengthen democracy and rule of law in a continent where these are scarce assets.

WITH PRESIDENT LACALLE, URUGUAY’S NEW FOREIGN POLICY REPUDIATES CUBA, VENEZUELA, AND NICARAGUA’S DICTATORSHIPS.  

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Uruguay’s new president, Luis LaCalle Pou, starts his mandate installing a new foreign policy based on the principles and values of freedom and democracyThe State’s foreign policy is linked to its internal policy and is understood to be “the set of public decisions that a government makes according to its national interests and with regard to the rest of the international system’s actors”. Is “part of the general policy and is comprised by the set of decisions and proceedings through which objectives are defined and the means of a State are used to generate, modify, or suspend its relationships with other actors from the international community”. LaCalle announced he will recognize Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s President.  He has decided that “Uruguay will distance itself from the so-called Montevideo’s mechanism”, Uruguay’s new Foreign Policy robustly helps the fight against “Castrochavism” dictatorships. Everything shows that Americas’ Organized Crime’s dictatorships have already placed as their objective the destabilization of the democratic government of President LaCalle Pou, against whom they will attempt to repeat the crime committed last year in Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, and others.