Juan Guaidó replied to Alberto Fernández: “Human rights violations do not disappear, human beings disappear”

Mid-May, the Argentine President Alberto Fernández gave his opinion in a radio interview on the human rights situation in Venezuela and stressed that this “problem” was “disappearing” in the Caribbean nation which experienced a serious humanitarian, political and social crisis unprecedented for years under the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.

“I say it very frankly: many on the left criticized me because I supported the report of (Michelle) Bachelet (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) when he highlighted the actions of the government Venezuelan who violated human rights, but I help Bachelet establish a permanent office in Venezuela to monitor the functioning of human rights. And this problem little by little in Venezuela was disappearing. There is a way to solve the problems that does not go through entry into the countries, whether armed or with blockades, ”Fernandez said in statements to a radio station in Buenos Aires.

Crude and straightforward, Juan Guidó refuted the statement: “Human rights violations do not go away, human beings go away.

Thus was concise and brutally honest the response of Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan leader recognized by more than 50 countries as interim president of his country, in dialogue with Conecta2, the program of Argentinian journalists Ernesto Tenembaun and María O Donnell in CNN, whose extract has already been broadcast.

The Venezuelan is currently leading a new attempt at dialogue to achieve free and fair elections in his country. For this, he hopes that the Maduro regime will finally engage in serious negotiations. “The Fernández government can be an approximation, because of the obvious links that Cristina Kirchner has with Maduro, it can be a guarantee bridge for all sectors. If this is the role they want and can fulfill, all will be well for Venezuelans, ”he said. But he warned: “What is happening here cannot be put into perspective.”

Guaidó’s reflection is a desperate cry from the Venezuelan opposition which denounces the systematic violations of human rights in their country. In fact, Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, detailed in a new report It was revealed on July 1 that the system of abuse and torture applied by the Chavista regime to opposition dissidents is still in effect in Venezuela.

“The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) continued to receive credible reports of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Received some reports of beatings, electric shocks, sexual violence and threats of rape″ Says part of the file.

OHCHR has documented new cases in which people have been victims of enforced disappearances, during which they were held incommunicado and the authorities refused to share their whereabouts with their defenders or their families. “These practices expose detainees to a greater risk of ill-treatment,” the agency said. In addition, they have also received reports of sexual violence against women in pre-trial detention, claiming that most facilities are not adapted to meet gender standards and that detainees are often supervised by men.

The report also denounces the precarious situation in detention centers where detainees are malnourished and have restrictions on receiving visits from family members.. In addition, OHCHR is concerned about deaths in detention, particularly due to the high incidence of tuberculosis, malnutrition and other illnesses among those deprived of their liberty.

According to Foro Penal, an NGO that continuously monitors the human rights situation under the Chavist military dictatorship, to date, there are 306 political prisoners in Venezuela. Moreover, according to this institution, “more than 9,000 people continue to be subject to arbitrary measures restricting their freedom”.

Guaidó was not the only one to condemn the Argentinian president’s statements. One of the first to speak out on Twitter was Venezuelan opponent María Corina Machado. “Mr. Fernández’s cynicism is an admission. It’s cruel. And an obscene lie “, he said in his account on the social network.

In the same tune, Delsa Solórzano, President of the Citizen Encounter Party and human rights defender, said: “Mr. Alberto Fernández, in Venezuela all human rights are being violated at the same time. For this reason, anyone who usurps power in my country and their accomplices are now under investigation by the International Criminal Court. They are criminals against humanity. What a shame!”.

For its part, Tamara Suju, human rights lawyer, executive director of the Casla Institute and delegate to the International Criminal Court, he underlined: “I invite all Venezuelans to speak to the unpresentable Alberto Fernández about the human rights situation in our country.”. “In addition, he should live 6 months in the catacombs of the regime of prisoners or 1 month in any city, without water, electricity, cooking gas, without gasoline, without food,” he added.

Elisa Trotta, representative of Juan Guaidó in the Argentine Republic, expressed his indignation: “We reject the recent statements of the president, where he assured that the problem of human rights was disappearing in Venezuela. It is a false declaration which, in addition, constitutes an offense for the tens of thousands of victims of the criminal dictatorship of Maduro ”.

The former metropolitan mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma, imprisoned for more than a thousand days and currently in exile, also reacted: “This is a response to the unusual statements made by the President of the Republic of Argentina, Dr. Fernández. Do you think that with these statements, the archives of the more than 7,000 extrajudicial executions certified by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, will disappear?Do you think that with these statements you will revive the dozens of students who were murdered? Are you going to ease the sentences for the human beings who have been tortured in Venezuela?

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