UN accuses Maduro's government of crimes against humanity

A report presented on September 23 by the UN International Mission of Investigation assures that there is a pattern in the violation of human rights and crimes in Venezuela.  The first reactions were not long in coming. The South American country's foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, says the document is "full of falsehoods", which is why the Venezuelan government has presented a parallel study this week.  

The UN document, to which Atalayar has had access, states that, since 2014, "crimes against humanity" have been committed by Venezuelan authorities and state security forces. The crimes range from extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and arbitrary detentions to torture itself, in a series of 223 cases that the Mission investigated for months despite not being able to travel to Venezuela. The result of these investigations is a detailed report that the Maduro regime has been quick to dismiss as false.

Chilean Francisco Cox, a member of the Mission, stated that the team found evidence that Maduro had on occasion personally informed the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) of whom to watch and arrest. "We have participation and contribution to Maduro's crime, either directly through the chain of command or sometimes by giving direct orders," he said. Venezuela has been experiencing a serious political crisis since 2015, which deepened in 2019 when opposition leader and head of parliament Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself president in charge of the country, after declaring that Maduro had usurped the post after being re-elected in a disputed election a year earlier.

In view of the rejection of the UN report, the Venezuelan ambassador to the institution, Samuel Moncada, handed over a report on human rights in the country to the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, on Friday. The report is a response by Maduro's regime to the accusations made by the mission. "We submitted to the secretary general the document 'The Truth of Venezuela against Infamy' with evidence of the manipulation made by authors who never went to Venezuela and served purposes other than the UN human rights team that does work in the country," Moncada wrote on Twitter.

The Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, explained in presenting the report that this alternative report is based on legal actions taken by different Venezuelan bodies over the past three years against human rights violators and that it was constituted taking into account the point of view of activists who defend this issue in the country.

For his part, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro blamed the crisis in Venezuela on the Donald Trump administration and its allies on the international stage, and once again called for an end to the sanctions. With respect to the report, he did not acknowledge that any error had been made. He vindicated his management of the coronavirus health emergency and avoided self-criticism, though he conceded that the mass migration of Venezuelans was due to economic reasons. 

Meanwhile, the opposition leader Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, who is recognised as Venezuela's interim head of state by some 60 countries, requested direct action from the governments that support him, as he believes the path of negotiation has been exhausted. "Today I ask all the representatives of Member States to assume the responsibility of assisting the legitimate government of Venezuela in its mission to protect the Venezuelan people, and to consider a strategy that contemplates scenarios after the diplomatic channel has been exhausted. The time has come for timely and decisive action," he said.

Guaidó also referred to the report when reviewing the work of the anti-Chávez forces and the National Assembly to denounce the abuses of the authorities. He called it "unusual" that Maduro's government continues to hold a seat on the UN Human Rights Council at this very moment.

Venezuela has one of the highest police death rates in Latin America. The Mission's text includes 16 cases of police, military or joint operations that resulted in 53 extrajudicial executions. It also examined 2,552 additional incidents involving 5,094 deaths at the hands of the security forces. 

Amnesty International considered the UN's support for thousands of victims as a milestone. "The authorities under Nicolás Maduro continue to commit crimes under international law and serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention and excessive use of force," said Erika Guevara Rosas, Director for the Americas, in a statement calling for the renewal of the mandate of this international scrutiny mechanism. "Not to do so would be to turn our backs on the victims, on truth and justice," she said.

The United Nations mission in the Latin American country concludes that the Venezuelan security forces have committed "systematic violations of human rights".  The report also lists as a systematic practice persecution for political affiliation, which led to arbitrary detentions, with forced disappearances for short periods of time and acts of torture that, according to UN investigations, "were generally committed during interrogations to extract confessions or information, including telephone and social network passwords, or to force a person to incriminate himself or others, particularly high-profile opposition leaders.

The document issues 65 recommendations to Venezuela and the international community. It calls on States to initiate legal action against the individuals identified in the report and asks the UN Human Rights Council to continue investigations into human rights violations in the South American country.