If democracy is defenseless and unarmed, the international system has failed and violence is coming

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 25/09/2024

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It urges us to remember that the existing international system was the result of the triumph of democracy against World War II fascism that cost millions of lives to rescue freedom as a principle in a society and between the State and society. The United Nations Organization (U.N.) was created to “maintain international peace and security” based upon the “respect for human rights,” and not to maintain complacent bureaucracies. The victory of Venezuela’s peoples over the dictatorship, in the presidential elections of the 28th of July (28-J), is testing a system that -due to its inefficiency- gives rise to the “supreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression.”

In a democracy, the monopoly of violence belongs to the State -sustained by the people’s popular sovereignty- to protect the freedom of the citizenry, it is called “law enforcement,” which is the coercive power of the law, the legitimate use of force to enforce the laws, protect the common good, the community, the society, the nation, the homeland. In a dictatorship, that principle is counterfeited and law enforcement becomes a tool to promote “State terrorism” to subject the people and deprive them of their liberty.

The difference between law enforcement and the manipulation of a system to oppress the people is clear. It is, therefore, incomprehensive how, for over 65 years, the world has not stopped what happens in Cuba. It becomes painfully obvious the world does not understand the expansion of that system of organized crime that today controls Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, a system that now serves as a platform for extracontinental dictatorships of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and international terrorism with para-dictatorial governments in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.

It would seem the international system has become a great stage for simulation, wherein nothing is what it must be and all is only what is convenient for the regimes. They label it as diplomacy or international politics, as the art of the possible, but becomes a constant surrendering and divestment of the principles and values of freedom and democracy, somethings that are not negotiable. It is the tragedy of the submission of the peoples caused by adjustments to bad geopolitics, to avoid confrontations that due to the lack of commitment and resolve, the goons from transnational organized crime end up wining.

That laws are breached is a signal of their value, it is also an indication of the existence of criminals and the need for a kick-start to get the system going to sanction and restore the respect for standards in which we have deposited our freedoms, security, and life itself. But when laws are breached with impunity, with repetitiveness, with malice afterthought, and these are turned into falsehoods that counterfeit the popular will and are -instead- presented as a defense of dictatorial regimes, we are faced with organized crime wielding political power and using State-terrorism.

Venezuela’s situation is not an internal matter, is not even a question that only impacts the Americas, it is a test of relevance and survival of the international system, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the International Criminal Court, the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, the dozens of signed treaties against crime, narcotics trafficking, illegal migration, human trafficking, money laundering, and more. Either the international system works, or every actor State has to defend itself no matter how, or negotiate with organized crime with no intermediaries, nor dogmas.

It is enough just to observe that in this 21st century there is a very convenient double standard that benefits 21st Century Socialism, or Castrochavism, with an unexplainable submission to the transnational organized crime’s narrative led by Cuba, strangely accompanied by policies of international organizations and democratic potencies.

Venezuela’s situation, in which a nation with extraordinary democratic leadership has defeated the organized crime that wields governmental power in their own dictatorial vote-catching system, is a breaking point in the history of the Americas and the globalized world: Either the international system shows its relevance or it will be overcome by the courage of a people that are not willing to be negotiated or betrayed again.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states; “Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression…” Facing the lack of protection for the will of the people, the lack of law enforcement, respect for human rights, the application of standards against organized crime, the delay of justice at the International Penal Tribunal, … and more, violence as a last recourse to defend life and liberty will be unavoidable and is just a matter of time because it is part of the history of humanity that has always fought for and won its freedom.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».