UN Probe Links Maduro to Crimes Against Humanity
By Albert Otti (dpa)
HAVANA TIMES – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro bears responsibility for grave rights violations including crimes against humanity, UN investigators said on Wednesday.
In a 411-page report, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela documented evidence of crimes aimed at quashing the opposition. These include systematic and widespread imprisonment, disappearances, torture, sexual violence and murder since 2014.
There are “reasonable grounds” to believe that the president, as well as the interior and defense ministers “ordered or contributed to the commission of the crimes documented in this report,” the UN-appointed experts wrote.
The report is set to be discussed by the UN Rights Council in Geneva next Wednesday.
The fact-finding mission reviewed more than 5,000 killings by security forces. These included more than 400 killings carried out in the crime-fighting operations known as the “Operations for People’s Liberation.”
“The killings appear part of a policy to eliminate unwanted members of society under the cover of combating crime,” said mission chairperson Marta Valinas, a Portuguese rights experts who previously worked at the International Criminal Court.
The mission documented numerous cases in which intelligence agencies tortured political dissidents and activists. Those acts included beatings, mutilations, rape, asphyxiation electric shocks and drugs.
A clear policy of torture and mistreatment of prisoners
The report highlighted the government’s violent crackdown on demonstrators, which has resulted in the death of dozens of people.
There was a clear policy to torture and mistreat detained protestors, according to the report.
The fact-finding mission urged governments and the International Criminal Court to take legal action to prosecute the reported violations if Venezuelan authorities are unable to do so.
Democracy and the rule of law have broken down in Venezuela in recent years. The opposition-dominated parliament was shut down, the government expanded its powers and judges faced increasing pressure, the UN investigators said.
Six American countries already lodged a request at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in 2018 to launch an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela.
The fact-finding report was based on interviews with victims, their families and lawyers, as well as Venezuelan security and justice officials. The UN experts also used other sources such as satellite images, videos and photos.
Venezuela refused to interact with the fact-finding mission and did not let the experts visit the country.
I agree. I also ask you to include the murder of farmers and white people a crime against humanity.
The political party in South Africa must be sanctioned for the white policy also a crime. In the white squatter camps people are being fined for feeding and caring for homeless people.
The stealing by people of PPE funding by government for their own use should be charged with crimes against humanity.
Government have discussed the issue but no action taken yet the government borrow money from the UN and want to borrow money or take money from the government pension funds.
Corruption in 90% of government departments is rife with no action or action taken
Plenty of white people are being murdered and raped on a daily basis.