QCR — Recently, there has been persistent and repeated circulation of social media posts speculating that the U.S. government might revoke the U.S. visa of former president and dual-portfolio minister Rodrigo Chaves.
There was even talk of the possibility that his extradition might be requested.
“I never took any of that seriously. I dismissed it from the very start. Furthermore, I am convinced that as long as Trump is president of the United States, Chaves will be protected,” writes Luis Paulino Vargas Solís, a prominent Costa Rican economist, academic, author, and political figure, on his Facebook page.
Solís continues:
“I cannot know—nor do I claim to know—whether the United States might have grounds to take such actions against Mr. Chaves. But I highly doubt that, even if they did have grounds, they would want to take action.
“That said, it has not escaped my notice that Mr. Chaves’s administration made many decisions that were strangely favorable to the interests of drug trafficking mafias.
“This quite rightly gave rise to talk of a ‘narco-government’.
“And things have not improved much under the Fernández administration.
“All their proposals address the symptoms of the problem rather than the structures underpinning the power of the mafias—whose criminal activities generate those symptoms or consequences.
“This approach is demagogic precisely because it strives to convey to the public that action is being taken against what causes the most distress—criminal acts and murders—while, in reality, it fails to combat the underlying network that drives it all.
“Moreover, the Fernández administration is dedicated, with relentless zeal, to undermining the OIJ—Costa Rica’s most professional police force and the one that has achieved the best results in the fight against organized crime. To top it all off, this is a government that is dismantling—at a brutal pace—all the public policies essential for creating the social conditions of inclusion, opportunity, and equity needed to prevent the pernicious influence of organized crime, especially among the youth.
“Furthermore, when one sees a figure—currently awaiting possible extradition to the United States on money laundering charges—moving within President Fernández’s inner circle, it is impossible not to be alarmed and, consequently, ask: What happened here? What connections did this man have to the Chavista leadership that allowed him to move in such “exclusive” circles?
“One would have to be completely indifferent—utterly detached from reality—not to be concerned about all this.
“It is an entirely different matter to imagine that the Trump administration would want to target Chaves.
“That is highly unlikely.
“For Trump, the issue of drug trafficking is merely a smokescreen concealing his true strategy: entangling Latin America in a web of far-right, fascist regimes that are typically criminal and mafia-like in nature.
“Anyone who acts as a loyal pawn in service of that strategy enjoys Trump’s full protection.
“We have evidence that confirms this.”