Totalitarianism is Solidifying in Nicaragua

            

by Carlos L. Diaz

Recently the world has witnessed many protests, most notably, those in Brazil and Turkey. But there is one which has been sidestepped by the international news media. Last Tuesday, a group of approximately one hundred senior citizens occupied the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute to demand partial pensions which the Sandinista government has refused to pay.

The country’s National Police reacted in a very repressive manner, leading some protesters to compare it to the National Guard that terrorized citizens during the Somoza dynasty.  The tactics used by this police force are strikingly similar to that of the most brutal Roman Legions. They shut off the power and water supply to the building and prohibited anyone from bringing food, water or medicine to the protesters. The use of such tactics motivated many younger people, mostly university students, to join the protest and look for innovative ways to get supplies to the elder blockaded protesters–some young demonstrators climbed to the surrounding roofs and tossed food and bottled water to the elderly before the government forces managed to bring them down. The occupiers were forced out of the building on Thursday at 1 a.m.

The source of the protests can be traced to an election strategy used by Daniel Ortega–the country’s totalitarian president, drunkard, pedophile, and well-rounded idiot. Before the last election, Mr. Ortega offered help to many elder voters who were not eligible to receive pension or social security payments because they did not meet the required 750 weeks of payments to the system. Once Ortega was reelected these benefits rapidly vaporized.

This unnecessary use of police force against pacific protests on behalf of reasonable demands–protesters were asking for a $50 a month pension after a lifetime of work–show the latest phase in Daniel Ortega’s plan to remain in power indefinitely, while draining the scarce resources of the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Ortega was never able to overcome his loss in 1990, this explains why, when he came back in 2006, he was determined to exercise total control through violence. In 2011 he was reelected in what was an obvious violation of the Central American nation’s constitution, which clearly states that consecutive terms are not allowed. He overcame this constitutional hurdle by replacing ambivalent supreme court justices with loyal ones. In his efforts to become his country’s Fidel Castro, Ortega has made access to many state-run programs available only to members of his party, in a nation this poor people are willing to do anything to receive any help they can.

Ortega, like Chavez, has decided to add another totalitarian ingredient to his slogan of socialism, Christianity. It is not news to anyone that totalitarian socialism as a political system has been losing its appeal since the demise of the Soviet Union. To make it more appealing to the disenfranchised masses of poor Latin American nations, Chavez and Ortega added a strong religious aspect to the system.  This Machiavellian tactic seems to be effective, especially because the poorest people in Latin America also happen to be the most religious ones. The late Venezuelan leader went as far as claiming a sort of divine inspiration or command to justify his authoritarian policies.

The United States has remained oblivious to the situation in Nicaragua. Apparently Washington does not want to intervene for fears that it might remind some of the actions it took throughout the 20^th century, when it actively aided the repression of the Nicaraguan people. I can understand this fear, but I feel this is a chance for the United States to show the world that it regrets its past actions and it is willing to help its neighbors reach a stable liberal democracy. I am not proposing any form of military intervention. There are many other tools at the disposal of this nation to aid Nicaragua and other countries before it is too late. The United States can put pressure on many international aid organizations which are currently aiding the Ortega regime. The U.S. is the main provider of funds to the  Organization of American States (OAS). The United States can use the power vested in the OAS to pressure the Nicaraguan government to change course.

The End of Chavismo

by Carlos L. Diaz

Living conditions in Venezuela have been on a steady decline since the death of caudillo turned demigod, Hugo Chavez. Apparently the statements made by Diosdado Cabello, the gang’s head minion and president of the National Assembly, were spot on. Back in March, a few weeks before the elections,  Cabello warned the opposition about their prospects after the death of “El Comandante,” he told them that Chavez was the “retaining wall” for his “crazy ideas.” Now that the wall is underground and Cabello’s puppet, Nicolas Maduro, is president the “crazy ideas” and their consequences can be seen in action everywhere.

We have learned that basic products like eggs, sugar, milk, flour, and, most recently, toilet paper have become scarce in the country with the world’s largest oil reserve. The cause for this scarcity is simple, the government has implemented price controls on the price of goods. Many times the price is below that of production and producers refuse to lose money. Now the Catholic Church is saying that it is having a hard time finding the wine it needs to perform mass, this time the scarcity lies solely on the government’s shoulders again.

It turns out that other things are rapidly vanishing as well. Since Chavez took power in 1998, the Venezuelan press has been losing freedom and today it has lost most of it. The last bastion of anti-government rhetoric was Globovisión, but that changed recently. The sale of Globovisión to investors with close ties to the regime was the coup  de grâce to the opposition. Friday night one of the network’s hosts was fired after transmitting a speech by opposition leader Henrique Capriles–yes, broadcasting Capriles is now a crime. When political tactics have failed in silencing different opinions, Cabello has turned to techniques that are more fitting to his bully personality. There have been various reports and videos of members of parliament being physically assaulted inside the assembly for speaking against the regime. When it comes to silencing voices, the current Venezuelan government even attacks its own. Recently a video was released in which Mario Silva, Chavismo’s favorite journalist, is heard talking ill of Cabello with a Cuban intelligence officer. On his next appearance Silva claimed that his show would not continue, citing a health problem as the cause.

This state of affairs gives hope to many that Chavismo will finally die and democracy will be established, or reestablished, depending on your view of the past. It is true that the leadership of the government is in disarray and some fault lines seem to be emerging, but there is no clear sign that the end is near. The death of this regime will probably come, but in a slow manner. Popular support has been dwindling and the recent shortages only contribute to this trend. Other indicators which hit people where it hurts most, like crime, inflation, and corruption, have also been on the rise.

All of us who promote and support the virtues of pluralism and liberal democracy should pay close attention to the developments in Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro’s six year term seems to be headed for an early end. What or who replaces him is the key to knowing what the future of Venezuela will look like. I think that Venezuela can come out of this looking like other Latin American countries, such as Peru, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile. In those nations the link between the left and totalitarianism has been erased. They have elected leaders who are avowed leftist but have no dictatorial aspirations, as a matter of fact they are defenders of democracy and even free market policies.

The Faces of Cuba’s Democratic Opposition

 

 by Carlos L. Diaz

In the past few weeks, there has been a pilgrimage of Cuban dissidents arriving in Miami. Some of these democratic activists are better known than others. Yoani Sanchez–the most famous of these activists–writes a blog from Cuba and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. Antonio G. Rodiles is a mathematician and physicist who runs a mini think-tank for the Cuban opposition. Berta Soler is the leader of the Ladies in White. Rosa Maria Paya is the daughter of the deceased founder of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Paya. These have been some of the most notable names to arrive in Miami recently. Unlike previous dissidents, these have only come to visit the country, present their case and ask for help. After a short stay they will go back to the island. Some might ask: why are they coming now? The answer to that question seems to be in the recent changes implemented by Raul Castro regarding the ability of Cubans to travel. This sudden change in policy by the Cuban regime has given a new spark to the debate regarding that nation’s political future.

I was able to assist to two of the conferences, one by Yoani Sanchez, and the other one, yesterday, by Antonio G. Rodiles. Listening to these democratic activists speak in person reignited my hopes for a change towards a democratic and pluralistic Cuba. There are a few details which are encouraging about the new democratic activists in Cuba. There is no set ideology, no apparent rivalry, a clear goal, and more importantly, no visible Caudillo.

  These activists have risen to prominence at a crucial time. Today the Cuban regime is in disarray. When, back in 2006 Fidel Castro stepped down as the country’s top leader, it was clear that the Cuban regime was close to the end and that its current leaders were interested in one thing only, remaining in power to enrich themselves even more. The recent announcement by Raul Castro, that he too would be stepping down, serves to confirm this idea. A great description of the current regime was given by Christopher Hitchens in 2006 “the Castro era is effectively finished … a uniformed and secretive and highly commercial dictatorship is the final form it will take.”[i] The kind of third-world-capitalism which the Cuban leaders want to implement is starting to look like a total failure. The regime looks desperate and they are trying to make very minor changes which they expect the international community will interpret as significant reforms. A change in attitude by the international community and especially by the United States will give the system some oxygen to live another day. That is why today is not the moment for a change in policy towards Cuba. If Castrismo is reaching its end, biologically or politically, then now is the time for those who admire and support democratic and pluralistic values to speak up and show Cuba and the world that there is an alternative to dictatorship.

These activists are not a monolithic group, for example Sanchez opposes the United States’ embargo towards Cuba and Rodiles supports it. Even though they disagree on certain issues, they always remind us that their main goal is to have a democratic change in Cuba and they do everything they can to produce that change.

The fact that the opposition is made up of varied ideas and faces is a magnificent sign for those who worry about one dictatorship being replaced by another one, something that happened in 1959. In the past, revolutions used to have a leader, or a caudillo as they are known in Latin America. France had Napoleon, Cuba had Fidel Castro and Russia had Lenin. In Cuba today there are different individuals and some of them have claimed that they have no interests in any official political roles after a transition is complete.

If these individuals can translate the support they have received abroad to support in Cuba, where they are barely known, changes will occur much faster. After all, tyrannies often look stronger than they really are.

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[i] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/08/the_eighteenth_brumaire_of_the_castro_dynasty.html

The Aftermath of the Election in Venezuela

by Carlos Diaz

This past Sunday millions of Venezuelans all over the world went to the polls to decide who should lead their country for the next six years. But the election was  about much more than that. It was the first election since Hugo Chavez’s death. The election was supposed to answer several questions. Can there be Chavismo without Chavez? How divided is Venezuela? How much would the centralization of the state apparatus at the hands of Venezuela’s Socialist Party (PSUV) influence the election? These questions and others were answered on Sunday. But a bigger one presented itself. Who won the election?

Shortly after midnight eastern time, Venezuela’s election authority the CNE announced that interim president and Chavez’s hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro had won the election. The president of this body emphasized that this decision was “irreversible”. That would have been fine, except for the fact that Maduro’s advantage was about 1% or 235,000 votes. The opposition candidate Henrique Capriles did what many candidates do all over the world in a similar situation, asked for a recount of the votes. His demands were ignored. Shortly after the results were announced Maduro went on television and delivered his victory speech, in which he stated that a “victory is a victory.”

Thousands of Capriles’ supporters took to the streets in protest of these results. These marches took a violent turn and now the Venezuelan authorities are accusing Capriles and his supporters of causing these protests, which have claimed the lives of at least eight people. The opposition candidate had call for a march to the CNE, but cancelled it citing the violence which had taken place.

The response from Maduro and his minions has been utterly belligerent. The president of the National Assembly and the party’s number two, Diosdado Cabello, prohibited opposition members of the Assembly to speak until they recognized Maduro as President. He also called members of the opposition fascists and two of them were attacked by pro-government representatives- one of the victims received more than fourteen stitches in his forehead. Maduro has threatened with “radicalizing the revolution” and has said that he now does not recognize Capriles as governor of the state of Miranda- a position he’s held since 2008. The country’s Supreme Court has also given hints that Capriles could be put in prison for his “actions”.

The United States, the European Union, and the Organization of American States have not recognized the results of the election yet.

It is hard for me to understand why a recount has not been allowed. More likely than not, even if the votes are counted again Maduro will still be the winner by a narrow margin. From the over-blown actions taken by the government it looks like they are trying to use this issue to solidify their power and instill more fear in the population. Although I doubt that Maduro and his minions committed significant fraud in the actual elections, this race was far from  being a clean one. The PSUV’s candidate used countless state resources to his advantage including media- coverage was about Maduro 95% of the time- and material gifts- thousands of houses, cars and other items were handed out by the government within days of the elections.

Henrique Capriles should have been the winner of this race not because he received more votes, but because he was a better candidate. Maduro proved to be what I had expected him to be, a total imbecile. He went around claiming to see Chavez in the form of a little bird, showing a lack of knowledge of Venezuelan geography, rapping, and acting like knock-off version of the deceased Caudillo. Christopher Hitchens’ description of George W. Bush can easily be applied to Maduro “He’s unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things”- by coincidence they both refused to allow a recount in a close election. Capriles was far from perfect, but the reality is that anyone could have beaten Maduro if it wasn’t for the near total control the executive branch has acquired in Venezuela since 1998.

Venezuela’s Next Leader

From left to right: Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello.

By Carlos L. Diaz

     There are many rumors floating around about the health, or lack thereof, of Venezuelan president/caudillo Hugo Rafael Chavez Frías. Recently, a Panamanian diplomat went on CNN Chile to proclaim the leader’s death which, according to him, occurred at the end of last year. Things have gotten so wild that even those in the caudillo’s inner circle are contradicting each other. This peculiar set of claims leads me to inquire about what is going on in Venezuela.

There are a few things which most observers agree on. First is the fact that Chavez has not been seen in public since December 11. The only evidence that he was alive came in the form of a picture, which showed the ailing elected dictator reading the February 14 edition of Granma–Cuba’s official Communist party newspaper–in the company of his two daughters. Second is the information provided by the Venezuelan government which states that Chavez traveled to Caracas and is being treated at a military hospital in the Venezuelan capital.

Due to his trip to Cuba, for health reasons stemming from his struggle with cancer, Chavez missed his inauguration which was scheduled for January 10. The critical reader might ask: Who is running Venezuela if nobody has been sworn in? The answer is Chavez’s Vice President, former bus driver, and designated heir Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela’s Supreme Court allowed Mr. Maduro to act in the function of president arguing that since Chavez had been reelected there was no major problem with prolonging the swearing in.

The solution to this crisis seems to lie in the Venezuelan constitution which stipulates that if the president dies, resigns, or is incapacitated to serve, elections must be held within thirty days. Why a group of qualified doctors have not been asked to determine if Chavez is able to continue as president is beyond my knowledge.

As of now, it looks as a question of when and not if Chavez will lose the presidency. His medical condition, as secret as it has been, seems to be critical if not terminal. The pressure from both critics and supporters for more transparency will not allow this to go on forever. What will happen after he steps down is a crucial question Venezuelans, and others interested in the region, are eager to know.

The person who will represent the Venezuelan opposition to Chavismo will clearly be Henrique Capriles who lost to Chavez in October of last year, but was nonetheless able to give Chavez the best fight he ever had in an election . But who will represent Chavismo? In a recent article in the New Yorker Magazine, Boris Munoz describes the differences and the rivalry between the two figures that seem likely to replace Chavez [i].

Nicolas Maduro represents the civilian wing of Chavez’s Bolivarian movement. He believes in socialism based on the very flawed Cuban model–this comes as no surprise since it is also known that the Vice President has a cozy relationship with the Castro brothers and the Cuban leadership in general. One of Maduro’s accomplishments was to finally lead Venezuela to join MERCOSUR- a trade bloc for South American nations.

On behalf of the military wing of Chavismo stands Diosdado Cabelllo who is the president of the National Assembly and a long time member of the armed forces. He is known as a tough guy who has helped “the boss” in closing several news outlets in Venezuela like RCTV. He is connected to the Venezuelan Socialist Party (PSUV). Some speculate that he will have a less close relationship with Cuba and will instead rely on the armed forces and the newly created upper class of Venezuela.

If either one of these men win the presidency–polls show they are favorite over Capriles–Venezuela might deviate a little from the course in which Captain Chavez placed it, but the dictatorial aspects will be as strong or even stronger than during Chavez’s reign.

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[i] http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/02/chavezs-countdown-watched-by-a-team-of-rivals.html