Arrests, disappearances and torture: United States released new report on human rights violations in Venezuela

The administration of US President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned the constant abuses and violations of human rights committed by the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro against the opposition and the Venezuelan population. The State Department denounced the role of the regime’s security forces and paramilitary groups – such as the Chavist collectives – in implementing the plan of repression and persecution.

“Members of the security forces committed numerous abuses, and a UN report concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that government authorities and security forces had committed crimes against humanity.” the State Department said in a report. of human rights in Venezuela in the year 2020.

The portfolio led by Antony Blinken indicated that among the most important human rights issues “Illegal or arbitrary executions, enforced disappearances, torture and cases of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the security forces”, as well as the presence of hundreds of “political prisoners” and the “serious problems of the independence of the judiciary”.

Faced with this long list of human rights violations, the American authorities indicated that the Chavista regime “has taken no effective measures to identify, investigate, prosecute or punish those responsible” for these abuses.

The State Department recalled that NGOs Foro Penal and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights documented 753 enforced disappearances of political detainees between 2018 and June 2020. Likewise, an OHCHR investigation found that almost all of those detained by the General Directorate of Military Counter-Espionage (DGCIM) – one of the armed weapons of the dictatorship – “were victims of enforced disappearance for periods of seven to 40 years. days after their arrest, which increases the risk that they will also be victims of torture and abuse ”.

Despite international condemnation and the intention to deepen investigations on Venezuelan soil, “the Maduro regime continued to refuse the requests of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to visit the country.”

Among the regime’s security organs involved in crimes against humanity, the Special Action Forces (FAES), the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC) and the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) stand out. ).

UN investigators concluded that “some high-level authorities knew about and contributed to the crimes, while others who knew or should have known about the crimes failed to take action to prevent or stop them “. “The media and NGOs have reported that security forces attempted to cover up the extrajudicial killings by filing evidence or altering crime scenes to suggest an altercation or attempted flight on the part of the victim. The FFM concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the authorities and security forces planned and carried out serious human rights violations, including assassinations, some of which amounted to crimes against humanity , since 2014. “

The report of the Independent International Mission also indicated that “There are reasonable grounds to believe that Maduro and other regime officials ordered, contributed to or participated in the commission of the crimes and human rights violations documented in the report.”

According to reports cited by the State Department, Chavist authorities “They subjected the inmates to suffocation, electric shocks, broken bones, limbs hanging down, and were forced to spend hours on their knees.” “The detainees were also subjected to low temperatures, sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation; they were handcuffed for long periods of time and received death threats against themselves and their families. The detainees reported that the regime-linked security forces transferred them from detention centers to houses and other clandestine places where the abuses had taken place ”.

Among the cases of torture, it was also reported that detainees were not allowed to receive medical treatment.

The NGO PROVEA has identified 574 cases of torture by regime-linked security forces in 2019, resulting in the deaths of at least 23 people.

Despite reports of these cases of abuse, disappearances, crimes and torture, Venezuelan justice also resembles the Chavist dictatorship, which is why judicial procedures lack transparency and respect for the Constitution.

The US government, for its part, has once again denounced the presence of Cuban agents serving the regime’s security forces.

In Monday’s report, the US State Department also criticized “severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press and the Internet, systematically blocking signals and interfering with the operation of television, radio and radio. and other private media., Or shutting them down ”. . In this regard, the United States contends that Maduro’s dictatorship “criminalized freedom of expression by declaring information unfavorable to its policies such as libel and slander, incitement to violence or terrorism, including accurate information on COVID.19 infection rates ”.

For its part, the government of Joe Biden rejected the last “fraudulent” elections in Venezuela – both the presidential elections of 2018 and the legislative elections of 2020 – which prevented the population from “peacefully changing government through elections. free and fair ”. In this sense, Washington has criticized the increase in persecution against deputies of the National Assembly (NA) and against the legitimate government of interim President Juan Guaidó.

“The corruption of Nicolás Maduro has worsened the terrible humanitarian crisis of the Venezuelan people”Blinken wrote in the opening portion of the report.

These State Department discoveries come weeks after President Biden extended duration of national emergency decree on Venezuela, considering that the situation in the Caribbean country under the Maduro dictatorship “continues to represent an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”.

In a letter to the US Congress, Biden explained the extension of the executive order signed on March 8, 2015 by then-President Barack Obama. “Section 202 (d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 USC 1622 (d)) provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, within 90 days of the anniversary date of its declaration, the President issues in the Federal Register and give Congress a notice that the emergency will continue in effect after the anniversary date, ”he said.

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