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.
