International sanctions to para-dictatorial governments of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, for sustaining dictatorships

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 26/12/2024

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Dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia have wielded power with impunity for decades, violating human rights and repressing their peoples’ outcry for freedom, because they are sustained by governments of democratic countries who back their narratives, provide them with financial support, coverup their crimes in international organizations, and subject the foreign policy of their States. This is the flagrant case of the governments of Lula in Brazil, Petro in Colombia, and Sheinbaum in Mexico, whose violation of obligatory fundamental standards, demands the application of international sanctions.

“The peoples of the Americas have the right to democracy and their governments have the obligation to promote and defend it,” so it says Article 1 of the Interamerican Democratic Charter and its Article 2 mandates; “The effective practice of a representative democracy is the foundation of the rule of law and of constitutional regimes of Member States of the Organization of American States (OAS).”

The American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), also known as the Pact of San Jose, gathers and explains the foundations of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and is obligatory. This standard establishes and expands on the “right to life, right to personal safety, prohibition of slavery and servitude, right to personal freedom, right to legal due-process, right to have freedom of thought and speech, right to have nationality, right to have freedom of movement and residency, political rights, equality before the law,” and more.

Chapter II of the ACHR “Civil and Political Rights,” Article 23, acknowledges that democracy is a human right and mandates that citizens have the Right to Participate in Government, declaring; “Every citizen shall enjoy the following rights and opportunities: A. To take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives; B. To vote and be elected in genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the will of the voters; and C. To have access, under general conditions of equality, to the public service of his country.”

The Rome Statute, in its Article 7, typifies the following as “Crimes Against Humanity”; “assassination, extermination, slavery, deportation or forcible relocation of the population, imprisonment or any other deprivation of physical freedom, torture, rape, persecution of a given group or community with its own identity and founded on political or national reasons, forcible disappearance of people. . .”

Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico are signatory States and part of the Interamerican Democratic Charter, the American Convention On Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court’s Statute of Rome. By sustaining and protecting dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, who violate the existing and binding norms, their current presidents and governments breach all cited standards and many more international laws that are obligatory in their application. International Law clearly states there is no impunity for accomplices, facilitators, apologists, abettors, accessories, or any other type of criminal participation similar to that perpetrated by presidents Lula, Petro, Lopez-Obrador, and now Sheinbaum.

A Para-Dictatorial government is “a government elected in democracy that represents a democratic country but serves dictatorial regimes to contribute to their sustainment and permanence with actions of legitimization and support, breaching international legal obligations and hindering their own national interests.” This is the concept that now embodies the governments of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.

These three governments hire people, in the areas of medicine and other fields, from Cuba’s dictatorship, people who have been identified by international organizations as being enslaved and in servitude, where host-governments pay the Cuban regime for the services of these people who do not receive those payments and whose families are kept in Cuba as some sort of hostages. These three democratic governments murkily buy, facilitate, and provide financial support on behalf of the peoples the regime oppresses since almost sixty-six years ago, and this sustains the dictatorship.

Regarding the electoral fraud committed by Nicolas Maduro this past 28th of July and the State-terrorism unleashed in the aftermath of imposing his crimes, the governments of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico are sustaining and covering up the dictator. Their actions, declarations, and voting record prove it.

Previously already, back in May of 2023, Lula had tried to introduce Maduro as a Head of State, welcoming him to Brazil before and during a Summit of Heads of State from Latin America as his own guest and in-spite of protests by the presidents from Chile, Ecuador, and others. Lula also sponsored a European Union and CELAC Summit to help dictators from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, incorporated Brazilian foreign affairs to be closer to Russia, China, and Iran, along the line with Cuba and Venezuela and along the same line subordinated itself in the terrorist attacks against Israel.

Data and proof provided by Armando Benedetti, Petro’s ambassador in Venezuela, are a self-confession regarding the financing and funding of Petro’s -Colombia’s current president- electoral campaign. In all cases, the Para-Dictatorial support to sustain dictatorships encompasses notorious and public acts that demand a stern attitude from the international community.

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

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

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