Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
On January 10, 2025, a dictatorship was officially installed in Venezuela. Few countries attended the event of the imposition of Nicolás Maduro after the electoral fraud carried out by himself and his party. The Presidents of Cuba and Nicaragua attended the dismal event. The other two countries present from Latin America were the foreign minister of Bolivia and the ambassador of Mexico. No other Latin American country attended to validate the most scandalous and repressive electoral fraud in the history of the continent. Four Latin American countries joined the ranks of ignominy: Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Mexico. Venezuela completes the quintet.
To measure the ideological character of the event, it is worth mentioning the other countries attending: representatives of Russia and China, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Nigeria, Bali, Belarus, Serbia, the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union, and, finally, Turkey.
This confabulation of dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, and servants of the Venezuelan patron is where, apparently, Morena and the 4T feel comfortable and very committed. What commitments has Mexico acquired with the Chávez-Maduro duo as to feel obliged to attend the inauguration of a dictator? Why is Mexico willing to squander all its diplomatic history to support a dictatorship in Latin America? Is Maduro’s cause so pressing that it could not simply “say nothing and not attend”, as Brazil and Colombia did? What is so different in the Mexican case than in the Brazilian or Colombian case as to feel obligated to endorse a dictatorship amid the construction of “the new Mexican democracy”?
Let us remember that while the dictatorships of Somoza, Batista, Videla, and Pinochet persisted, the left in Mexico denounced them for their repressive and anti-democratic practices. Solidarity committees emerged to support the libertarian struggles of the people of Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile, and Cuba. Mexico’s foreign policy was a beacon of hope for the people resisting the repression they suffered in their countries of origin.
Spanish exile was already a proud historical experience. Leon Trotsky is undoubtedly the most famous exile Mexico has received. Mexico also received refugees from Central Europe fleeing fascist and Soviet repression, such as Victor Serge. Intellectuals and poets came from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, seeking refuge, protection, and, most importantly, the right to a dignified life. Mexico was the strategic rearguard of all the democratic and libertarian movements that came to our country.
Mexico’s foreign policy allowed it to influence other countries and their internal or bilateral conflicts. The Contadora Group and the negotiations to achieve peace in Central America were achieved because of Mexico’s earned reputation of being a reliable and capable actor, diplomatically and politically, to bring to a successful conclusion negotiations between warring parties.
Thus, Mexico was considered reliable because it was a negotiator whose word was respected. Its word was respected, among other reasons, because it did not take sides in conflicts. It could find solutions without being a partisan of one of the parties in dispute, even when Mexican public opinion leaned towards one side.
The arrival of the 4T to power in Mexico completely changed its foreign policy. Mexico now operates and acts like 4T, not as Mexico. It is a political force that operates based on its ideology and political platform, not on the best interests of Mexicans as a national entity.
Mexico voluntarily ceased to be a party to the settlement of disputes. Now, Mexico is part of the problem. And the explanation of how this change happened is defined by the path of alliances that López Obrador and the 4T chose to come to power.
That change, apparently minor, has meant a leap into the void in foreign policy. It has led Mexico to strain and alienate the relationship with its natural partners by proximity, such as the United States and Canada, preferring a relationship with the declared enemies of those natural partners. The privileged relationship with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, along with Russia and China, has strained foreign policy.
While the PRI, with its perfect dictatorship, came to power by its own means and without subordination to unmentionable alliances (even if it had them), López Obrador came to power, as we now know, subordinated to unmentionable alliances. These alliances are national but also international.
The national alliances are becoming known, and soon, we will know more about them. The main political-electoral alliance to win elections built by the 4T has been organized crime. The slogan “Abrazos, no balazos” (Hugs, not bullets) summarizes this alliance brilliantly. But to mislead the interrogators about such infamy, building other alliances outside the country has been necessary.
Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua function according to the same strategy of confronting the “evil empire” so as not to allow their internal alliances to be questioned. Mexico’s foreign policy today seeks, among other things, to prevent the questioning of its internal alliances and, in the extreme case, consolidate its strategic rearguard trench.
But what is this strategic rearguard trench? A strategic rear trench means having countries as close allies where disgraced politicians can take refuge in extreme need. There are many comments in the United States that Mayo Zambada’s statements are aimed at dismantling the 4T for its alliances and agreements with drug traffickers. Those agreements brought the 4T to power; today, they can destroy and remove it from power forever.
The strategic rearguard trench is that place where assets take refuge when the harassment they suffer is too much, and they have no other recourse but to hide. Venezuela, more than Cuba, is that strategic rear trench where the 4T and its militants may need a safe place to hide from harassment, for example, from the US justice system. It is the case, then, that it seems that several important leaders and assets of the 4T have been and/or are frontmen for drug trafficking. Members of the previous government and the current one are being pointed out by the Chapitos and by El Mayo Zambada as their close allies whom they made rich by their support to secure the drug transportation routes and the laundering of the cartel’s capital.
Lopez Obrador’s policy was to “popularize” the relationship of secretaries of state, legislators, governors, and mayors with drug trafficking actors to create a vast army at the service, like him, of drug trafficking. He gave the go-ahead to legitimize this procedure in politics, and all the Morenistas began to enrich themselves. It was very easy to put all those hands in the pot of money that the relationship produced. It created a popular contingent of drug addicts.
Like most politicians, they believed this paradise and the river of money would continue forever. They did not consider (and many still do not realize) the possibility that it would end in a thunderous apocalyptic fall.
But now that some see this possibility as real, they preemptively prepare their strategic rearguard trenches. That is where the importance of maintaining the relationship with Venezuela comes in. It is their preferred place of refuge if things get complicated in Mexico. AMLO saw the phenomenon of hard exile when he granted refuge to Evo Morales and all the Ecuadorians in Rafael Correa’s government. They all needed a reserve trench—a safe rearguard.
The 4T does not care about Maduro’s electoral fraud, the international opprobrium of that regime, or the criticism of Mexico for supporting a dictatorship. Venezuela, as a refuge, has more resilience than Cuba, today in a comatose state. Caracas will be the new Shangri-La of the Mexican left at the moment of its greatest need for refuge and exile, just when international justice is harassing them and pointing in their direction. The current Mexican government has shown that, instead of defending the historical foreign policy and democratic ethics of Mexico as a nation, it prioritizes, above all else, the survival of the leader and his party, even if he is exiled in the Venezuelan narco-state.
@rpascoep
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