Maduro Attacks Leftist ‘Cowards’ for Human Rights Stance, in Apparent Swipe at Chile President

Chilean President Gabriel Boric, right, gives a joint statement with Peru's President
AP Photo/Esteban Felix, AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos
Christian K. Caruzo

CARACAS — Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro lashed out once more on Wednesday against the region’s “cowardly left,” directing his now recurring rant against those who criticize the authoritarian regime of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. 

Maduro’s words appeared to be in direct reference to Chile’s far-left president Gabriel Boric, who has openly criticized both Ortega’s Sandinista regime and Maduro’s socialist regime on several occasions for years of human rights abuses in their countries. Boric stands alone among the region’s leftist leaders of his stature in plainly condemning human rights abuses by fellow leftists.

“We repudiate the campaigns against Nicaragua of a cowardly left,” Maduro said in Cuba during the 18th anniversary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (ALBA), an “anti-imperialist” free trade bloc founded on Havana in December 2004 by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. 

The Venezuelan socialist dictator emphasized his stance by claiming that Ortega has been “repudiated in campaigns against Nicaragua by a cowardly left that tries to set itself up as an example.”

The acrimony between Maduro and Boric, who took office in March, has steadily intensified throughout the year. In November, less than a month before his latest rant, Maduro similarly vented about Boric — without directly naming him — during his participation in a meeting of the leftist Sao Paulo Forum. 

“There are those who accuse us of being dictators. I understand that Sebastián Piñera [former president of Chile] does it, I understand that Jair Bolsonaro accuses me, I understand that fascism accuses us,” Maduro said. “But, from the left, whoever tries to accuse us will have to sit face to face with us to debate the truth of Venezuela.”

During that opportunity, Maduro claimed that any criticism coming from leftist leaders in the region was meant to “normalize attacks” against the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Much like the communist Castro regime in Cuba and Maduro’s socialist regime in Venezuela, the authoritarian socialist regime of Nicaragua and its dictator Daniel Ortega has continuously engaged in gross human rights violations against dissidents of the Sandinista regime.

The Ortega regime’s repression and systematic culling of dissidents and political opponents have dramatically ramped up since 2018 when protestors demanded the end of Ortega’s dictatorship, to which the Sandinista regime responded with a “battle for peace” that culminated in over 300 dead citizens.

Daniel Ortega, who ”won” a sham reelection in November 2021 against a hand-picked “opposition,” has also continuously attacked the Catholic church in Nicaragua, which continues to stand in defiance against the authoritarian regime.

Ortega has exacerbated persecution against Catholicism in Nicaragua throughout 2022, declaring “war” against the Vatican, arresting dissident bishops, banishing the papal nuncio, forcefully shutting down Catholic television channels and radio stations en masse, and banning and/or severely restricting the nation’s most emblematic Catholic festivities. The United States recently included Nicaragua and other authoritarian regimes on the Department of State’s list of countries that systematically violate its citizens’ religious freedom.

Chilean president Gabriel Boric, a self-declared Marxist, has been openly critical of Nicaragua’s Ortega regime. During his first United Nations speech on the occasion of the organization’s 77th General Assembly held in September in New York, Boric directly called for the liberation of Nicaragua’s political prisoners — estimated to be 219 people as of September 2022.

Shortly after his U.N. address, Boric condemned leftists that fail to criticize human rights abuses committed by leftist leaders during a conversation held in New York, citing Venezuela and Nicaragua as examples.

“So it really pisses me off when you are from the left, so you condemn the violation of human rights in, I don’t know, Yemen or El Salvador, but you cannot talk about Venezuela or Nicaragua,” Boric said at the time. “Or Chile! In Chile, we had several human rights violations in the social unrest. You don’t have to have a double standard.”

Boric, at the same event, quoted what he referred to as a “very brilliant” statement by Russian communist Vladimir Lenin.

Ortega responded to Boric days later by branding the Chilean president a “lapdog” of the United States.

“The governments that wants to receive applause from the Yankee empire [United States] and some governments of the European Union go out there, like lapdogs, to speak that the political prisoners in Nicaragua must be set free,“ Ortega said during an official event in September.

In November, Boric questioned the Ortega regime’s latest sham regional elections, in which Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front “won” 100 percent of the “disputed” offices.

“On Sunday [November 06] municipal elections were held in Nicaragua. Of 153 ‘disputed’ mayoralties, Ortega won 153,” Boric wrote on Twitter. “An electoral process that is carried out without freedom, reliable electoral justice, and [with] imprisoned or outlawed opponents is not democracy anywhere in the world.”

Later that month, during Boric’s official visit to Mexico, the Chilean president stated that “Latin America cannot be silent” in the face of Nicaragua’s political prisoners and human rights violations. 

“We cannot look to the side before the political prisoners in Nicaragua,” Boric continued.

Earlier in February, Maduro accused Boric, alongside now former Peruvian president Pedro Castillo, of being “cowards” after they had criticized the Venezuelan dictator and his socialist regime. Castillo was impeached and arrested on December 7 after he attempted to dissolve Peru’s Congress to remain in power and rule by decree.

The Maduro regime condemned Castillo’s arrest and impeachment – not the coup attempt – this week. The regime blamed the United States for somehow orchestrating Castillo’s announcement that he would rule by decree, triggering his own arrest, last week.

The leftist governments of Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, and Colombia expressed their support of Castillo through a joint statement released on Monday. Chilean newspaper La Tercera reported on Thursday that Chile was invited to co-sign the statement, but Boric refused.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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