From State Terrorism to the Rule of Law in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 21/09/2026

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Of the 21st-century socialist dictatorships, Cuba and Nicaragua continue to wield absolute power, Venezuela is being dismantled under US tutelage, and Bolivia, with its system intact, has ceded part of the government but not all power. In all of them, the essential elements of democracy remain absent, and the people will only be free when state terrorism is replaced by the rule of law.

The suppression of the people's freedom by the dictatorial system of 21st-century socialism, or Castro-Chavismo, is founded on state terrorism, which consists of "the use of illegitimate means and the commission of crimes by the government with the purpose of instilling fear in the population in order to subdue it and thus maintain power indefinitely." Terrorism is the exacerbation of fear; it is "a succession of violent acts carried out to instill terror"; it is "criminal activity designed to create social alarm."

“Access to power and its exercise subject to the rule of law” is one of the essential elements of democracy that Article 3 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter establishes as an obligation for all States of the Americas. The “rule of law” is a legal and political concept that describes the existence of a just and equitable legal system in which all persons are subject to the same laws, the law is the same for all, and the decisions of any authority are subject to oversight and review.

The objective of the rule of law is to "limit the power of the State with the law to prevent abuses of power and violations of rights."

In Cuba, over 67 years of dictatorial oppression have institutionalized state terrorism, which is expressed in its constitution, laws, procedures, and regulations that violate human rights and fundamental rights in their entirety. These include the right to life, liberty, dignity, work, private property, civil and political rights, personal integrity, the prohibition of slavery and servitude, and due process. In Cuba, there is no justice, only infamous laws that normalize crime and the impunity of those in power.

The first 25 years of the 21st century have been marked by the expansion of the Cuban dictatorship in the Americas, fueled by oil and money embezzled by Hugo Chávez since 1999 and by Lula, the creator of the São Paulo Forum. Its main conquest has been Venezuela, which it completely controlled after Chávez's death in 2013; it controlled Bolivia after the 2003 coup, bringing Evo Morales to the presidency in 2006 and replacing the republic with a plurinational state in 2009; it reinstated the Sandinista dictatorship with Daniel Ortega in 2007; and it controlled Ecuador and established its plurinational system under Rafael Correa from 2007 to 2017.

The Cuban dictatorship is the oldest narco-state in the Americas, dating back to the 1980s when Fidel Castro partnered with drug traffickers Pablo Escobar and Roberto Suárez. As part of its expansion into the 21st century, Cuba transformed Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador into narco-states, along with territories, states, and provinces in countries like Mexico, Argentina, and others. The establishment of these narco-states, in addition to guaranteeing the disappearance of the rule of law, has resulted in the violation of all international conventions combating drug trafficking, terrorism, and transnational organized crime.

Of the five dictatorships of so-called 21st-century socialism, only Ecuador, through the decision and government of President Lenin Moreno, has recovered the rule of law, and with President Daniel Noboa, it is fighting to preserve it, end the narco-state, and recover the economy.

Cuba, with Fidel Castro dead in abject impunity, and with Raúl Castro, Diaz Canel and their military/criminal consortium, continues to lead narcoterrorism and hybrid warfare in the hemisphere, while aggravating the oppression of the people through misery and sustaining itself with state terrorism.

Nicaragua, under Ortega and Murillo, makes an international display of state terrorism by stripping exiles of their nationality, installing an infamous hereditary tyranny with reforms to its dictatorial statute that it calls a constitution, and is suspected of extra-territorial assassinations of exiled opponents.

In Venezuela, since the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2016, the United States has been carrying out a delicate process of "dismantling the narco-dictatorship with its own cronies," who offer concessions in exchange for impunity. However, these cronies are essentially "ceding ground but buying time," much like the Cuban dictatorship has always done to survive. There is hope, but the rule of law is still lacking.

In Bolivia, the painful experience of 2019 is being repeated, when “the dictator left but not the dictatorship.” President Rodrigo Paz has assumed part of the government but not the power; he maintains the Plurinational Constitution, which is null and void, and governs a narco-state over which he does not even have complete territorial control.

To change all this, there is an urgent need to replace—not merely transition to—state terrorism with the rule of law.

*Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy

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