To escape narco-terrorist dictatorships, we must abolish their legal system, refuse to negotiate impunity, and outlaw their political instruments.

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 23/11/2025

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The peoples of the Americas are experiencing a time of hope and anticipation for the end of the narco-terrorist dictatorships that subjugate Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, bringing to a close decades of narco-states, state terrorism, and hybrid warfare against democracies. The United States' foreign policy aims to remove the criminals who hold power, but removing them is an internal task that can only be accomplished by dismantling their legal system, prosecuting and punishing the criminals, and outlawing the political instruments of narco-terrorism.

The United States' identification of drug cartels and narco-terrorist mafias as wielding political power, and its corollary, "Operation Southern Spear," have changed geopolitics. "Southern Spear" is an ongoing operation, led by Southern Command and a Joint Task Force, described by the U.S. Secretary of Defense as "the mission that defends our homeland, expels narco-terrorists from our hemisphere, and protects our homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America's neighborhood, and we will protect it."

The change is strategic because it removes the narco-terrorist groups that usurp power from the sphere of politics, from representing countries, from being representatives of states, and from being subjects of international law. Starting with Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro is no longer—or even—the dictator; he is the head of the “Cartel of the Suns,” and what they call his government is an organized criminal group.

This recognition of the criminal status of Maduro and his Cartel of the Suns as usurpers of Venezuela's sovereignty is more than the rejection of a dictatorial and usurping regime; it is "the identification of the enemy" that aggresses against the US and democracies with narco-terrorism and other means of hybrid warfare.

This is not a conflict between the US and Venezuela; it is a counter-narcoterrorism operation to halt the aggression involving drugs and terrorism, the ultimate goal of which is to restore Venezuela's sovereignty. This is not a confrontation between two subjects of international law; it is an action of "law enforcement" against criminals like Maduro and his cronies, each of whom has a reward of up to $50 million for their capture.

The transnational organized crime group calling itself “21st-century socialism” is determined to perpetuate the narrative of Maduro's state institutions because they know that his capture or downfall would mean the downfall of the entire criminal organization directed by the Cuban dictatorship. That's why we see Díaz-Canel, Petro, Lula, Sheinbaum, and others in action.

The Cartel of the Suns is the final trench of defense for the criminal group that has subjugated Cuba for 67 years and has expanded its system throughout the Americas in this century, establishing itself in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador with Correa and in quasi-dictatorial governments in Brazil with Lula, Mexico with López Obrador and Sheinbaum, Colombia with Petro, Chile with Boric and Honduras with Castro.

In the last century, democracies were attacked by focoist (Castroist) narcoterrorism, such as that of the FARC, the ELN, and the M-19 in Colombia, or Shining Path and the MRTA in Peru, among others, and were infiltrated by "narco-links," as in the Samper case in Colombia. But with 21st-century socialism, it is narcoterrorism that has seized power and supplanted politics. In the last century, narco-terrorists financed candidates to influence governments, but in the 21st century, they have taken power and established state terrorism as a method of internal domination and international terrorism as a means of expansion and domination.

Narcoterrorism in the Americas has control and the status of a “subject of international law” with the usurpation of power in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador with Correa, organizing its support structure with the control of governments such as those of Kirchner in Argentina, Lugo in Paraguay, Humala in Peru, Boric in Chile, Lula in Brazil, López Obrador and Sheinbaum in Mexico, Caribbean countries and more, to the point that at the Summit of the Americas in Panama 2015 the Cuban dictatorship was treated as a leader of Latin America.

Narcoterrorism supplanting sovereignties and holding the status of subjects of international law, with immunities and privileges, with diplomatic protection, with embassies exercising "diplomacy of terror", with expansion in international organizations (such as Insulza's control of the OAS and several specialized UN agencies), participating in and manipulating national and local elections, are the dream scenario of crime in power instead of just influencing politics, but they are the objective reality of the Americas in the 21st century.

This is the aberration that "Lanza del Sur" offers to correct by liberating peoples who, subjugated by state terrorism, have struggled for decades under conditions of inequality. Separating narcoterrorism from the government is only the beginning, because national leaders have the mission of assuming power and regaining control, for which it is essential to "end the legal system of the dictatorship, not accept impunity agreements, and outlaw the political instruments of narcoterrorism."

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

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