President Lula da Silva inaugurated in Brasilia last June a meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum, which he founded in 1990 together with Fidel Castro and other self-described “socialist and anti-imperialist” Latin American and Caribbean politicians.

In the final session, he condemned the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, for “dismantling democratic spaces”, establishing a “hegemonic party”, “violating human rights”, “modifying election rules”. , “arbitrary arrests of thousands of people”, death of prisoners “in state custody”, “persecution of social actors” and his “unconstitutional candidacy for a second presidential term”.

In fact, this has been happening in that country since Bukele subjected all the powers of the state to his authority, limited freedoms, rights and constitutional guarantees, established a practical dictatorship and decided to run for a new mandate, in violation of express constitutional prohibitions. Despite previously admitting that “the Constitution does not allow the same person to be president twice”. All this with the pretext and justification of the fight against criminal groups, so far successful, which have terrorized and killed tens of thousands of Salvadorans for decades.

These challenges to Bukele’s government by the Sao Paulo Forum, while true, are not unrelated to what the dictators Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua did or are doing in their time. In these countries, the rule of law has been replaced by an autocratic and lifelong dictatorship, constitutional freedoms and guarantees have disappeared, extrajudicial executions of opponents are carried out, there are hundreds of political prisoners, human rights are systematically violated and crimes against humanity are committed. . These crimes, due to their seriousness and repetition, are being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court.

In 2020, a United Nations mission accused the government of Nicolás Maduro and his interior and defense ministers of establishing a repressive “state policy” that included “extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and the systematic use of torture”. “Crimes against humanity”, committed by the “security and intelligence agencies” of the Government, and left unpunished by systematic ignoring by the authorities.

A report prepared by a group of UN experts in 2023 held Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo responsible for “committing serious and very diverse violations of human rights, which amount to crimes against humanity,” including murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, forced deportation and persecution for political reasons.

None of these attacks on human rights and crimes against humanity, committed by the dictatorships of Maduro and Ortega, were condemned by the Sao Paulo Forum, at the meeting in Brasilia, nor at the previous ones held in the 21st century. (OR)