By Gustavo de Arístegui

September 03, 2025.

The Communist-Chavista Narco-Dictatorship Laid Bare

There are forms of complacency that are unforgivable. It is nothing short of scandalous to see how certain countries, political parties, and public figures — or those who aspire to be — continue to show an almost obscene indulgence toward one of the most execrable and criminal regimes of the 21st century: chavismo, today fully morphed into a narco-dictatorship.

From Hugo Chávez Frías’s first electoral victory in December 1998 — that one was clean, transparent, and beyond dispute, unlike all subsequent votes, each manipulated or rigged to some degree — Venezuela was taken hostage by an ideological-criminal organization of colossal proportions. The scale of its machinery of repression, propaganda, and plunder is matched only by the immensity of the tragedy inflicted on its people. This was no accident of history, nor merely bad governance: it was the deliberate project of a mafia. As Moisés Naím wrote in Foreign Affairs: “Venezuela went from being an imperfect democracy to a mafia state.”

The Myth of the “Good Chávez”

It is gravely irresponsible that even among some opponents of chavismo, there is an effort to draw a line between Chávez and Maduro. Such an exercise merely whitewashes the architect of the catastrophe. To suggest that the mafia-like, communist clique now oppressing Venezuela is solely an accident tied to Maduro implies, contrario sensu, that with Chávez alive the regime would have been different. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chávez was more brutal, far more ideological, infinitely more charismatic and cunning than his successor. To believe he would have prevented Venezuela’s degradation is a dangerous fallacy. Maduro is not the degeneration of chavismo, but its logical consequence. The criminal and narcotraffickingDNA was incubated in Chávez’s project from the outset.

A State in the Service of Crime

The chavista apparatus — army, intelligence services, police, bureaucracy, and single party — exists entirely to serve oppression, organized crime, and the obscene enrichment of its leadership. It has committed horrific crimes against its own people, bankrupting a country once immensely wealthy — the world’s largest proven oil reserves, the second largest in gas. PDVSA, the jewel of Venezuela’s crown, was gutted. Once a symbol of professional management, despite the endemic corruption of the old democracy, it has been reduced to a petty cash drawer for generals, politicians, and cronies. As Harvard professor and former Venezuelan minister Ricardo Hausmannobserved: “The destruction of PDVSA is the greatest case of politically induced corporate suicide in modern history.”

A Humanitarian Tragedy Without Parallel

The scale of the human tragedy is staggering. This ruthless regime has provoked the largest exodus of the 21st century: more than eight million Venezuelans forced into exile, according to UNHCR — surpassing the displacement from Syria or Africa’s Great Lakes. No other political catastrophe has torn apart a society so profoundly in so short a time. The incompetence, greed, and cruelty of its leaders have no parallel in the past three decades.

The West’s Shameful Divisions

In the face of this disaster, the West has — as so often — fractured into shameful camps: those who openly backed the chavista mafia; those who benefited from it while feigning distance; those who opposed it with empty rhetoric; and a minority — those of us who have cried in the wilderness for 27 years — who denounced the brutality, plunder, and systemic corruption.

Without the lifeline of narco-chavismo, once funded by oil and now by crime, Cuba’s dictatorship would have collapsed years ago. And without that axis, the resurgence of the radical left across Latin America — and beyond, even into Spain — would never have had the same force or bite. Tens of millions more would be free today. The moral responsibility of those who have supported, justified, or profited from this band of outlaws masquerading as a government is immense. They have been accomplices in the hijacking of the sovereignty of 30 million Venezuelans.

Washington and the Cartel of the Suns

Europe has often criticized Washington’s policies when they clashed with our interests. But it must be acknowledged that the Trump administration took a firm line against chavismo. It was largely Senator Marco Rubio who shaped the strategy to encircle the narco-dictatorship. Maritime controls aimed at the Cartel de los Soles — the monstrous narcotrafficking enterprise run by Venezuelan generals — may finally be nearing fruition. As Douglas Farah, a senior fellow at the National Defense University, has noted: “The Cartel of the Suns is the largest criminal enterprise in Latin America, protected by the Venezuelan state.”

An Axis of Destabilization

A state cannot claim legitimacy or sovereignty when it traffics in the deaths of millions through drugs. It cannot be a respectable member of the international community when it promotes radical leftist movements across the world, heirs to the bloodiest strains of communism. Nor when it allies itself to Cuba’s dictatorship, to grotesque tyrants like Ortega in Nicaragua, or when it acts as a client of the Iranian regime in the Western Hemisphere. Chavismo is the epicenter of an axis of destabilization stretching from Tehran to Havana. As French scholar Frédéric Charillon has written: “Dictatorships that endure in the 21st century owe less to internal solidity than to the external alliances that shield them.”

Toward an Inevitable End

The day Venezuela regains its freedom will reverberate across the globe. It will not only bring joy and relief to Venezuelans; it will mark the fall of one of the most repugnant machines of oppression, crime, and narcotrafficking of our century. Václav Havel once warned: “Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself.” And Venezuela has been surrounded by far too much indifference.

The communist-chavista narco-dictatorship is a lethal fusion of ideology, crime, and repression. It has ravaged a wealthy nation, sown anguish among its people, and contaminated an entire hemisphere. Its demise will be cause for universal celebration. Until then, those of us who continue to denounce this ignominy have a moral duty not to remain silent.