Columnistas invitados/Guest columnists

Part I

Based on his critical analysis of the evolution of criminal power in Venezuela, Fleischman exposes the deep symbiosis between the state, the military, and powerful criminal networks, as well as the decisive role of the Orinoco Mining Arc, the Cartel of the Suns, and alliances with armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). His assessment paints a picture of a fully consolidated narco-state, whose criminal operations not only sustain the regime but also pose a direct threat to the stability and security of the entire region.

Diálogo: You have stated that the Nicolás Maduro regime now depends more on criminal economies, especially drug trafficking, than on oil. What is the strongest evidence that illicit income has become the main source of financing for the political and military elites in Venezuela? And, under this logic, what criteria and indicators allow Venezuela to be defined as a narco-state?

Luís Fleischman, expert in international relations and founding co-chair of the Center for Democracy in Palm Beach: The evidence comes from numerous reports documenting how the Nicolás Maduro regime is sustained by drug trafficking and its cooperation with criminal organizations. Analysts, international organizations, and testimonies, such as that of former [Venezuelan] intelligence chief Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, have consistently described these practices.

To understand this phenomenon, one must look at the collapse of the Venezuelan economic model. The severe deterioration of PDVSA, coupled with international sanctions on the energy industry, left the regime with virtually no legal income.

Net zero climate change means balancing human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with removals from the atmosphere, primarily by cutting emissions drastically (to near zero) and then absorbing the rest (like CO2) through forests or technology.

Only by treating “climate change” as a profoundly theological issue can we discover—in part by rediscovering—a better understanding and appreciation of nature and ourselves.

 

Panic, fear, and loathing concerning atmospheric warming and the “existential” threat alarmists claim it to be have failed so far to encourage a reconsideration of modern man’s relationship with the natural world and the Promethean attitude toward it that has prevailed in Western civilization since the 16th century. The current project to replace fossil fuels with “green” energy signals merely a change of technique in the effort to manage, adapt, control, and repurpose nature to humanity’s material ends, rather than an early attempt at reimagining our relationship with nature and the way in which we think about it.

All that has changed in mainstream thought is a greater attention to how the human race might learn to be less wasteful, destructive, and irresponsible in its exploitation of nature, while maintaining the West’s historically unprecedented levels of production, consumption, comfort, and profit and at the same time “leveling up,” in current British jargon, the non-Western nations by encouraging them to substitute “clean” energy for the dirty kinds.

The green movement—the scientific and governmental parts of it, anyway—is not proposing to replace human arrogance vis-à-vis nature with humility, as environmentalists have been urging for a century or more. Rather, it is raising arrogance to a higher level by assuming that humans are capable of dominating and controlling nature even more completely in the future than they did in the past, repairing the damage already done while simultaneously preventing further harm in future centuries by their quasi-divine powers of imagination, invention, manipulation, and control.

In short, the new project is one of dominating nature by healing it, instead of by continuing to injure it.

La educación nos hace libres. No hay países subdesarrollados.
El subdesarrollo está en la mente del individuo.
Msr. J.J. Salcedo Guarín

Las verdaderas revoluciones son pacíficas y constructoras. Eso lo demuestra un proyecto educativo que nació en Colombia, encaminado a solucionar el problema de la violencia que degeneró en terrorismo, azotando al país como la ha hecho por más de un siglo.

La idea de las escuelas radiofónicas, implementada por un sacerdote y un grupo de educadores en el valle de Tenza, fue diseminada exitosamente a través de Radio Sutatenza y Acción Popular en los campos colombianos (1947-1989). Ese programa alfabetizó a 5 millones de colombianos en poco más de cuatro décadas. Amenazado por los desintereses y recelos políticos y religiosos, la negligencia social y la incultura de la violencia, su creador terminó sus días exiliado en Miami, tratando de que no se extinguiera la llama.

Los herederos del legado, entre ellos muchos de sus exalumnos, lo consideran un apostolado y esperan que una nueva generación de lideres reactive el proyecto, cuyas admirables ideas son ahora estudiadas y aplicadas en otros países y lugares del mundo.

Con ese fin es que se fundó en 2021 la Academia de Historia y Medios de Comunicación Monseñor José Joaquín Salcedo Guarín, una institución dedicada a la investigación y difusión del pensamiento, ideas y obra del sacerdote, fundamentada en la educación a través de la comunicación. Msr. Gabriel Ángel Villa, arzobispo de Tunja, la instaló formalmente bajo la presidencia del periodista e historiador Javier Hernández Salazar y la secretaría general de la Dra. Nubia C. Monguí Merchán. Esta Academia está asociada con la Academia de Historia Eclesiástica que preside el Dr. Jerónimo Gil Otalora.

Hoy es 10 de diciembre, Día de los Derechos Humanos.

Y voy a decir lo que demasiados callan: La ONU y su Consejo de Derechos Humanos (CDH) han sido capturados por las mismas dictaduras que deberían vigilar. El zorro no solo está en el gallinero. El zorro dirige el gallinero.

Cuando el CDH nació en 2006, yo estaba en una prisión cubana condenado por recabar firmas para el Proyecto Varela y por escribir para la prensa independiente.

Mientras la ONU hablaba de “esperanza y renovación”, yo veía desde una celda cómo Cuba pasaba, sin mejorar en nada su récord en Derechos Humanos, de ser país observado… a ser observador dentro del mismo sistema que hacía solo unos meses mantenía para el país un Relator dedicado.

Esa es la ONU que existe hoy: una institución donde los violadores de derechos humanos se reparten cargos, presiden comités y eligen relatores “a la medida”.