MADRID.- This week I participated in a forum in Malaga with the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, and Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, two leaders of democratic defense in our Hispanic world. It was a meeting of a high intellectual and political level, organized by the Popular Party of Malaga, which brought together leaders, academics and members of the Venezuelan diaspora to debate the future of freedom and democracy in our region. The initiative was also presented there “The Office for Freedom and Democracy”conceived as a space for articulation between Spain and Latin America in the face of the advance of authoritarianism.
In my speech I exposed a truth that no longer admits of dissimulation: the Venezuelan collapse is not an internal matter, but a transnational phenomenon that fuels the expansion of populism throughout the continent. I said clearly that Maduro will no longer be the financier of the populism that advances through Latin Americabecause dirty money, drug trafficking and ideological propaganda cannot continue to be the weapons with which consciences are bought and institutions are corrupted. The defense of freedom in Venezuela is, today, a global cause.
This warning connects with a broader reflection on the threads that unite the crises we are experiencing: from populism that manipulates the discourse of the poor to terrorism that uses religion to justify barbarism, to drug trafficking that poisons bodies and entire societies. In all these scenarios, lies operate as a system and impunity as the norm. We have seen it in Cuba, where the revolution promised justice and sowed submission; We see it in Venezuela, where 21st century socialism was degraded into a political poster; and we perceive it in the new routes of organized crime that today traffic not only drugs, but also desperation.
Fentanyl, that opioid that kills silently in the United States and Europe, is another face of the same tragedy: criminal networks sustained by corruption and protected by governments that call themselves revolutionary. It is no coincidence that the Venezuelan regime is today a transit point for these substances. Narcopolitics has become a global threat, as destructive as the ideological wars that disguise as justice what is actually naked power. Be sure to read this new edition in my series of educational pamphlets. (Document at the end of the article).
The same goes for terrorism and hypocrisy with which many judge him. I firmly reject those who condemn some forms of violence while remaining silent about others. There can be no selective justice or human rights for convenience. The massacre of innocents, in Gaza or Venezuela, in Paris or Caracas, must hurt equally. Moral truth has no passport.
We live in a time when borders are no longer drawn between countries, but between values. On the one hand, those who traffic in lies, ideologies or drugs; on the other, those of us who still believe that politics should be an act of dignity. That is why I insist: the truth is today our common border. Defending it requires courage, clarity and perseverance. Not to divide, but to unite free peoples against the organized lie of power.
