The laundering of dictators

The citizens of countries that are subjected to various dictatorships are the ones who end up suffering international sanctions and the isolation of their dictators, although in recent years the international community and its institutions have been targeting the assets and personal and corporate current accounts of the repressors and their collaborators. The most recent case is that of Russia, which is facing the sanctions of the European Union and the United States with resources that it had been accumulating in anticipation of measures that may be annoying and harmful to its interests, but which it has sufficient means to avoid them, to a large extent.

What is affected, in the medium and short term, is the Russian economy itself to make it difficult for it to continue to maintain the financing of its invasion in Ukraine and its activities of all kinds in other parts of the world but which ends up affecting the population. The big question is whether there is or can be success at the end of the road. In recent weeks we have witnessed the attempted whitewashing of two dictators with limited but sufficient results for their protagonists.

This is the case of the Syrian president, Bashir Al Assad, winner of the war against the insurgent opposition thanks to the military and economic support of Russia, mainly, and Iran. After eleven years of war where the scenario had several contenders with different interests and objectives, and where terrorist groups have played a more than prominent role, we have the Syrian dictator sitting again within the Arab League thanks to the invitation of Saudi Arabia and its allies and after the recovery of diplomatic relations between the Saudis and the Iranian regime of the Ayatollahs.

Mohamed Bin Salman, crown prince and strongman of what aims to become a major regional power with relevant influence in the rest of the world thanks to oil, among other elements, moves his chips with Iran, Syria and other countries in the area accompanied by a good relationship with China and Russia. We will see if the former fundamental ally of the Saudis, the United States, manages to improve the relationship with the visit to Riyadh of its Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken.

Another notable case is that of the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who took advantage of the summit of South American countries organized in Brasilia by President Lula da Silva to break his ostracism and continued his trip to Turkey to attend the inauguration of the re-elected President Recep Tayip Erdogan. In Brasilia, the presidents of Chile and Uruguay denounced the violation of human rights and the lack of freedom of the Chavista regime in the face of Lula's position of blaming the anti-Chavista narrative.

The curious thing is that with Maduro was the president of Hungary, Viktor Orban, a presidentialist with authoritarian overtones squeaking constantly in the European Union and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, forced by Turkey's membership in the Alliance with a controversial but useful and necessary role at this time. In both Syria and Venezuela, the situation is unacceptable, we must not forget that.