The U.S. National Security
Council defines Transnational Organized Crime as follows:
Transnational
organized crime refers to those self-perpetuating associations of individuals
who operate transnationally for the purpose of obtaining power, influence,
monetary and/or commercial gains, wholly or in part by illegal means, while
protecting their activities through a pattern of corruption and/ or violence,
or while protecting their illegal activities through a transnational
organizational structure and the exploitation of transnational commerce or
communication mechanisms. There is no single structure under which
transnational organized criminals operate; they vary from hierarchies to clans,
networks, and cells, and may evolve to other structures. The crimes they commit
also vary. Transnational organized criminals act conspiratorially in their
criminal activities and possess certain characteristics which may include, but
are not limited to:
·
In at least part of their activities they commit violence
or other acts which are likely to intimidate, or make actual or implicit
threats to do so;
·
They exploit differences between countries to further their
objectives, enriching their organization, expanding its power, and/or avoiding
detection/apprehension;
·
They attempt to gain influence in government, politics,
and commerce through corrupt as well as legitimate means;
·
They have economic gain as their primary goal, not only
from patently illegal activities but also from investment in legitimate
businesses; and
·
They attempt to insulate both their leadership and
membership from detection, sanction, and/ or prosecution through their
organizational structure.
Reading this
definition immediately brings to mind a group of Latin American political leaders,
which reached maximum power during the
first decade of this century and which is now significantly weakened due to a
combination of destiny, political events and the action of justice This group
included as main members Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Argentina’s Nestor and
Cristina Kirchner, Brazil Lula da Silva and Dilma Roussef, Nicaragua’s Daniel
Ortega and Cuba’s Raul and Fidel Castro, as well as second-level members Evo
Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Jose Manuel Zelaya of
Honduras, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay and
cheer leader Jose Mujica of Uruguay. They put together an alliance, a criminal
organization that controlled much of the political power and national wealth in
Latin America during the first ten to twelve years of this century, through the illegal use of state-owned companies, large private corporations such as Brazil’s construction
companies and Venezuelan financial sector, rogue military institutions and fascist-like civil
organizations such as the Piqueteros in Argentina and the Colectivos in
Venezuela.
In the course of
developing a large and strongly interconnected criminal network this political mafia frequently
linked with terrorist organizations such as the Colombian FARC and Hezbollah,
and with rogue governments and failed states in other areas of the world, such
as Gadhafi’s Libya and Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
With the exception
of Cuba, leftist or rightist autocratic governments in Latin America largely
kept to their territorial boundaries, without
attempting to impose their ideologies abroad. Fidel Castro’s Cuba engaged in ideologically
driven foreign excursions to consolidate
their communist revolution. Castro found
much intellectual and sentimental sympathy among the Latin American left but little echo or real support from regional governments.
In fact, the regional democratic forces of the times, led by men such as Romulo
Betancourt, John Kennedy and Jose Figueres prevailed over Castro’s efforts, who
had to retrench until being, today, at the point of extinction. Other strong,
populist, autocrats, such as Argentina’s
Peron, Nicaraguan Somoza, Dominican
Republic Trujillo or Chile’s Allende and
Pinochet never attempted to create a regional school of thought or to form a political
alliance to prevail over the region.
In 1999 the coming
into power of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, a military man with a chaotic ideology, coincided with a surge in the price of oil
that gave him, for about six years, almost unlimited financial resources to buy
adepts at home and abroad for his mixture of Marxism, Bolivarianism and
Fascism. Continuing where Castro had left off Chavez developed a major
geopolitical objective of becoming the voice of the Latin American peoples,
even of the world, against the "satanical empire of the north". To this
messianic aspiration he dedicated almost all of his energies and most of the
Venezuelan national income. A man driven by inferiority complexes derived from
his upbringing and from his undigested Marxist and other type of leftist
readings, he rapidly extended his goals of becoming an absolute leader at home
by trying to become a main global leader, in the mold of Mandela, eventually
settling for Mugabe.
The initial
successes of Chavez gave him an image as the successor of Fidel Castro, as the
owner of his political legacy. He rapidly generated a large following in the region,
which included leaders of several important countries. In succession he created
ALBA and PetroCaribe, economic groups
in which he dispensed prodigal financial handouts and received political
loyalty as payment. He also forced his way into Mercosur, due to the lure of
subsidized oil.
As the task of
toppling the U.S. became too complex, in spite of the money at hand, this main
objective was progressively changed into one of staying in power indefinitely. In an early
stage the Chavez strategy of eliminating Congress in favor of a Constituent
assembly with unlimited powers was
adopted by Correa in Ecuador with success and was attempted by Honduras’s
president Zelaya with less success. This model was proven to be unsuccessful in
countries without the significant amount of money in the hands of the
government that had allowed Chavez and, to some extent, Correa, to do their
bidding.
The alliance
against the U.S. required to stay in power indefinitely, This was the objective
that led to the progressive creation of a mafia
controlled economically by Chavez, who, in turn, was politically
controlled by Castro’s Cuba. From being a political and economic alliance it rapidly
developed into a Transnational Organized Crime Organization.
Examples of
concerted, criminal action
Chavez buying Argentinean
bonds to bail out Nestor Kirchner, a transaction against the Venezuelan nation
and which benefited Chavez banking friends in Venezuela,
Members of the
Kirchner governments promoting export deals with Venezuela at gross
overpricing, so that members from the Argentinean and Venezuelan corrupt regimes
could benefit. No wonder they call Chavez’s daughter “the Rice Queen”,
Venezuelan oil
company, PDVSA, sending the Kirchner bags full of money to finance the presidential
campaign of Cristina
Chavez’s financing
of the first Umala bid for president,
The financing of the
presidential campaign of Lopez Obrador in Mexico,
The financing by
Chavez of the Front Farabundo Marti in 2008-2009
The financing by Chavez and Maduro of Castro’s
Cuba, at the tune of some $4000 million per year in subsidized oil, some of
which was re-exported by Cuba at international prices. Widespread corruption by
members of the regimes in the Venezuela in sugar mills, Ports, Housing, Identity
documents, Cuban refineries and other joint deals
The business deals
between Lula and Chavez, via the Brazilian construction companies such as
Odebrecht. Massive corruption by these two criminals is being unveiled in
Brazil
The Venezuelan subsidies
to Jose Mujica in Uruguay, including the sending of oil and the bailing out of
financially broken Uruguayan companies in the agricultural and health sectors
The visit of Maduro to Paraguay, as Foreign
Minister, to promote a military coup to put corrupt Fernando Lugo back in power
The attempts by
Foreign Minister Maduro to put Zelaya back in power and his hiring by Venezuela,
including the use of PDVSA aircraft
Money transferred
by Chavez to Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega to consolidate him in power. Money
dedicated to oil projects that were never built ended up in the pockets of the Ortega
family
The deals with Petro
Caribe countries, through which the countries could pay oil deliveries in black
beans and bananas and pay their debts at 50% of the value, as long as they
remained politically loyal to Chavez
The amounts of
money given by Chavez to Kirchner’s piqueteros and to the corrupt Mrs. Bonafini,
the head of the Madres de Mayo, to act as allies of the “Bolivarian revolution”
And so on,
For ten to twelve
years this group of presidents and accomplices kept amassing power and wealth
and then….
Chavez died, Nestor
Kirchner died, Fernando Lugo was ousted, Zelaya was ousted, Lula was accused of
grand larceny, Dilma Roussef has been impeached, the OAS has a democratic
Secretary General, Cristina Kirchner was ousted, Jose Mujica is out of power,
FARC is being forced to simulate a mutation from wolf to sheep, Umala was converted
into a democrat and international public opinion has finally recognized the rogue group for what they are, not defenders of the poor but thieves and scoundrels ,
members of an Latin American mafia.
Mafia pockets still
exist. Ortega is stronger than ever in Nicaragua and might pass power on to the
Nicaraguan version of Lady Macbeth. Raul Castro is attempting to hypnotize the
U.S. into giving the “revolution” a renewed lease on power. Thanks to Juan Manuel
Santos the Colombian FARC might survive military defeat with their money almost
intact and without fear of retribution for their crimes. Helped by a corrupt
high military command, Venezuelan Maduro clings to power, albeit precariously.
However, he is a viper without oil money fangs and can no longer poison the
region.
There should be an investigation of this group as an
organized mafia and not as individual, unconnected leaders. By acting
collectively, as fellow conspirators, they were able to do much more damage to
the region than if they had acted individually, as the old dictators used to do.
