Dictatorships never do as they promised because they negotiate to gain time, not to give up power

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 13/12/2023

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State-terrorism, as a method of 21st Century Socialism or Castrochavism’s dictatorships that under the command of Cuba is comprised by Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, is being repeatedly used in Venezuela where the regime knows that with free elections it would lose and now conducts deceiving negotiations while it falsely accuses, imprisons, persecutes, and hopes to revitalize its “functional opposition.” Dictatorships’ “negotiations” are but one of its methods of survival, a mechanism to gain time and not to give-up power.

Let us not forget that State-terrorism is “the use of illegitimate methods, the commission of crimes by a government, aimed at instilling fear or terror in a civilian population in order to reach its objectives or achieve behaviors that would otherwise not occur by themselves.” This is the method with which dictatorships wield unrestricted, unpunished power in Cuba since 1959, in Venezuela since 1999, in Bolivia since 2006, and in Nicaragua since 2007. Their most notorious means are; the judicialization of political persecution, the imprisonment of opposition members with a “revolving door” system, the existence of political exiles, use of torture, assassinations, and organized crime.

Leaders of Americas’ and the whole world’s democracies, appear not to accept the fact that dictatorships seek to wield power indefinitely. The dictators’ main agenda is to continue to be in power because that is the only way to continue to have impunity for the crimes they have committed and continue repeating. To die unpunished has been a fulfilled objective for criminals against humanity such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, creators of Castrochavism that expanded Cuba’s dictatorship to now control Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and the para-dictatorial governments of Mexico with Lopez Obrador, Colombia with Petro, Chile with Boric, and Brazil with Lula da Silva.

Negotiations are defined as; “a procedure in which two or more parties, who have common interests, attempt to reach an agreement over those issues they do not agree on, with the intention of resolving the differences and achieving an agreement that is beneficial to both parties.” In order to resolve something through negotiations, there have to be -at the very least- three conditions: “The existence of a minimum of common or complementary interests of the parties; the existence of a motivation, for both parties, to reach an agreement; the existence of a reciprocally recognized autonomy.”

In negotiations, the dictatorships’ strategic objective always is to indefinitely remain in power, and that of the opposition or counterpart is to regain freedom and democracy. These are two positions with no common interests, reason why tactical elements of common interest such as; the release of prisoners, easing off some restricted freedoms, modification of a dictatorial guideline, suspension of sanctions to the dictatorship, are introduced. These “negotiations” always end favoring the permanence of the regime. Negotiations never accomplish even an agenda for the ending of dictatorships.

It is not that negotiations may not be applicable for the liberation of subjected peoples by dictatorships, the point is that if negotiations are not conducted with the objective of ending dictatorships, with agendas and timelines, then negotiations are helping them to remain in power. As currently is, they only address procedures such as; “elections in dictatorships,” “humanitarian aid to dictatorships,” “releasing prisoners,” “investigations,” or others so that opposition’s candidates and peoples who do not have the conditions of neither freedom nor democracy attempt -in total inequality- to defeat a criminal group that controls power with State-terrorism and with a “functional opposition” that operates to favor the dictatorship.

This is the framework of reference of dictatorial practices and of negotiations as an instrument for survival of dictatorships in the Americas. In this objective reality we see the replication of this method in Venezuela with the persecution and imprisonment of new political prisoners by the regime, naïve members of the electoral campaign team of the one and only candidate from the opposition Maria Corina Machado. It is the same context in which with maneuvering and great weakness of the negotiating group representing the opposition, the dictatorship continues to manipulate the disqualification of the candidate that won the internal opposition’s primary with nearly 93% of the votes.

This is not about avoiding, renouncing, or repudiating negotiations with dictatorships, the issue is to know that the only thing that can be negotiated is the end of dictatorships with precise deadlines and conditions and with a real alternative for the same objective to be accomplished by international pressure if the dictatorship reneges or distorts the negotiation. Negotiations with non-compliance are only a way to sustain dictators and their narco-States.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

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