Feliciano Reyna, president of Venezuelan NGO Acción Solidaria expressed that the harassment of social organizations is an authoritarian practice. He warned that, with the arrest of Azul Positivo activists, many people were left without the help provided by the UN, which leaves these citizens in a situation of total defenselessness.

The first month of 2021 witnessed new attacks by the ruling party on freedom and human rights in Venezuela. On public TV, the vice president of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela, PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, assured that NGOs in the field of human rights are coup plotters; the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) raided the Azul Positivo headquarters; the equipment of the VPI digital television channel was confiscated; the headquarters of the newspaper Panorama, in Zulia state, were temporarily closed, and five executives and activists of Azul Positivo were arrested.

Cabello warned the director of Provea, Rafael Uzcátegui, of an investigation over an email published on social media that discussed the funding of the ruling PSUV by a state institution in the United Kingdom. Next, several NGOs such as Prepara Familia and Acción Solidaria were threatened by the government of Nicolás Maduro over alleged illegal financing.

It is an attempt to silence the voices of NGOs, says Feliciano Reyna

The president of the NGO Acción Solidaria, Feliciano Reyna, said that these types of practices against human rights organizations are typical of authoritarian regimes and stressed that, if the attacks manage to bring the action of these organizations to a halt, the people in vulnerable situation will be greatly affected because they are the beneficiaries of the assistance and the action of this organizations.

“There is a clear attempt at restricting and preventing human rights NGOs from continuing to work, and it is done in two ways, as Rafael Uzcátegui, from Provea, has mentioned. One is trying to block and give a character of irregularity and illegitimacy to the mobilization of resources that these organizations need to do in order to operate, including human and financial resources. So there is an attempt to delegitimize the action as if raising awareness on the human rights situation, the complex humanitarian emergency, or, in the case of the media, disseminating information to people across the country were a move to undermine the foundations of the State”, indicated Reyna.

He considers that these actions if they deepen and get to harm some NGOs, will affect the population as a whole and the communities that come together in the defense of their rights and receive support when they are in a situation of vulnerability.

With or without NGOs, citizens will keep demanding their rights, Feliciano Reyna says

-Diosdado Cabello ordered to open an investigation against Rafael Uzcátegui, Provea coordinator, for saying that the ruling party received money from international cooperation

“Even in the most enclosed spaces, people eventually find cracks through which they continue to demand guarantees and respect for their rights. They continue to fight for conditions to live with dignity, and even in situations in which it is temporarily possible to restrict those spaces, the demands of the population will emerge if the people are not respected and conditions are not created for a dignified life”, argued Feliciano Reyna.

He cited as an example the protests that have multiplied across the country over public services, such as cooking gas and water or the lack of food. “They are forms of discontent that find a way to express themselves. In this attempt, there may be some moments when they manage to silence one voice or another, but in the end, there is no way to silence an entire society if the conditions to live with dignity are not created”.

Monetary transfers are allocated to people under specific protocols

-The UN suspended the payments of the Monetary Transfer Program under the Venezuela Humanitarian Response Plan. What is the situation of humanitarian aid at the moment?

The first thing to make clear is that the suspension only affects cash transfer programs to vulnerable people, it does not refer to the humanitarian response as a whole. This seems to have generated confusion, leading many to believe that the collaboration was suspended. The solely affected program is the monetary transfers by different modalities to vulnerable people. Suspending the programs that have already been in operation since the Venezuela Humanitarian Response Plan was designed, back in 2019, has a severe impact on the people who have been selected through specific identification protocols used in different places in the world where these programs operate. The selection is not arbitrary but very specific for people in particular conditions of vulnerability.

No reservations on the work of NGOs

“Another very important thing is the use of the language that we have disagreed with at the United Nations regarding the management of the resources and what becomes public as if our work had signs of irregularity. We emphasize that these mechanisms are used in the same way everywhere these programs are applied, and there is nothing that can be considered as promoting a fraudulent use of a cash transfer mechanism or an attempt to use those mechanisms illegally”.

Reyna added that, as a result of the arrest of the Azul Positivo activists, meetings were held to determine what could be causing reservations from the government of Nicolás Maduro, and then, precisely because of those reservations and even though the programs are registered under the Humanitarian Response Plan, it was decided to suspend the program to find a mechanism that avoids reservations and suspicions, with the participation of the regulator of the national banking sector.

In any case, a program registered in the Humanitarian Response Plan or deployed according to regular protocols for the assistance of people in special situations of vulnerability should never lead to arbitrary detentions and imprisonment against humanitarian actors acting in good faith to alleviate suffering, even if some aspect of the program creates those types of reserves.

On alert

-How has the arrest of the executives of Azul Positivo affected Venezuelan NGOs?

-It raised several concerns. First, it showed that even in the humanitarian and human rights field, organizations and actors caring for people in vulnerability can end up facing arbitrary detention and criminal charges as if some illicit act had been carried out. For the humanitarian community and also for NGOs in the field of human rights, it is a terrible sign that requires extreme caution, because in no way legitimate work can put us in a situation of this nature, with different consequences, including arbitrary deprivation of liberty or exposure to coronavirus.

“The other thing that is fundamental for us in our action is assisting people in vulnerable situations and, when we speak of humanitarian or human rights matters, any act against NGOs in the humanitarian or human rights fields ultimately affects the person or the community that benefits from their action. At this moment, the suspension of the money transfers from Azul Positivo and other assistance from different organizations means that thousands of people are left, even temporarily, unattended, ”explained Feliciano Reyna.

Recognizing the right to association and funding

-The first vice president of the PSUV, Diosdado Cabello, said that NGOs are coup plotters… Are they really enemies of the government?

Whenever there is an authoritarian exercise of power, civil society organizations always end up being singled out for having this type of agenda. It is a common practice, we have seen it for many years since the Russian government proposed in 2006 a bill on international cooperation that was severely restrictive for NGOs. It is a well-known practice, but it is faced with two important issues. One of them is that our organizations are duly registered in the country, the regulations that have to do with their operation have been complied with, and two, they are based on a constitutional article that establishes that the State is obliged to recognize the freedom of association and facilitate the exercise of this right.

Reyna added that “the exercise of freedom of association has, in turn, its components and attributes. The fact is that the right of organizations to request, receive and use resources must also be recognized as long as their purposes are legitimate. These accusations have no basis for our organizations. 

An attempt at silencing our voices

Raising the voice for the guarantee and protection of people’s human rights and denouncing situations regarding abuse of power, access to justice inadequate health services, access to food, or oppression of indigenous communities, are all legitimate activities for the defense of human rights; the same for organizations working to provide food or to run schools. As a State official, Mr. Cabello could be affecting the human right to freedom of association”.

The second aspect, Reyna explained, is that silencing the voices of NGOs, preventing them from cooperating, putting severe obstacles on them, and preventing their operation has an immense impact on the population. “People and communities are left unprotected, and this is extremely serious because the international system understands that affecting the work of the organizations will impact the population, especially when these organizations have a relation with international human rights systems and the United Nations system, which protect them from retaliation for contributing to humanitarian and human rights causes”.

Covid-19 tests blocked from entering the country

-The president of the National Assembly who declared administrative continuity, Juan Guaidó, assured that the government of Nicolás Maduro blocked the entry of medical aid. What is the situation?

The humanitarian system is working through United Nations agencies and a set of national and international organizations; it does so with difficulty due to the political environment and the fear that it may face a situation similar to that of Azul Positivo. Some agreements were reached last year between the Pan American Health Organization, the Ministry of Health, and the Commission for Humanitarian Aid of the National Assembly and they started working very well, but now there is an aspect that has just been made public, and that is the possibility of providing thousands of COVID-19 tests as part of the agreements. We understand that these tests are not being used yet.

“Beyond that,” he emphasized, “we prefer not to get involved in the political conflict. Our main concern should be that people are recognized and cared for in their situation of great vulnerability aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic. If an agreement was reached for supplying thousands of tests to the population, massive testing should be done immediately. That’s what we expect”.

Reyna explained that the agreement included the distribution of the tests to designated hospitals, which would allow better handling of cases, with access to information and a map of the evolution of the epidemic, something that has not been done yet.

Multiple needs

-What happened to the UN World Food Program? Will it finally be granted entry to the country?

We call for that. We continue to think that the program should not only be able to operate in the country with the School Feeding Programme but with all of its programs; This would always be done, as is the idea, in dialogue with the government, but the World Food Program, due to this global experience, has its implementation protocols, which in the end benefit the population in a very universal way. We don’t know what happened. We understand that after having advanced and heard of the start of operations in October, it has not happened, and we reaffirm that delaying the operation of such programs ends up damaging and affecting a population that needs help.

“One looks at the situation in some areas; we receive information in Caracas and we realize that the degree of affectation, vulnerability, and need in the whole country is truly immense. There is no way to cover it up, on the contrary, the most important thing should be admitting that there is a significant degree of need. We do not want to have more migrants, who also suffer, We want to be able to solve the problems at home” he added.

Reaching a minimum of agreement

-Do you think there is the intention to eliminate all NGOs in the field of Human Rights and mass media?

-In a situation like this there is no other possibility than, once again, returning to a minimum of agreement between those of us in this daily struggle for better living conditions, in order to create the conditions to gradually emerge from this political conflict that is at the root of everything that affects us. When we see that a window opens for these conversations, an opportunity to reach a minimum of agreement that gives way to the conflict and can generate better living conditions, one feels encouraged and supportive. Hopefully, our society will be able to understand that we are going in the wrong direction and that we will have to reach those agreements for common good.

Translated by José Rafael Medina