The prosecutor and the Ombudsman appointed by the dictatorship recently presented the so-called “Report Against Infamy” to attack the UN Fact-Finding Mission.
The 112-page propagandistic document serves to tell an untrustful recount of the situation in the country. It refers to a series of generalities to analyze the country as if it were in the economic and social situation of a decade ago. It mentions several laws that are effectively related to people’s rights, but fails to say they are not being complied with.
The document rebuffed the different cycles of mass protests, showing them as violent events and ignoring that most of the mobilizations were peaceful and some only turned violent in response to the state repression.
The regime resorts to the worn-out argument of presenting Maduro and his cronies as victims of the “international right” and “North American imperialism” to justify a negligent and ineffective public management and the failure of the so-called Plan de la Patria (National Development Plan) which, by the way, is the most evident proof of the unfulfilled promises to the Venezuelan people.
The so-called report is nothing more than an attempt to evade accountability. A remake of the lies repeated over and over again that luckily the world has ceased to believe. Governments and social organizations around the world are becoming more aware of the seriousness of human rights violations in Venezuela and increasing their solidarity with the Venezuelan people.
A shameless lie can be found in the chapter called “The transformation of the public security model.” A few pages are devoted to the police reform process that began fourteen years ago. The benefits of the process are discussed as if indeed the program was fully implemented.
The police reform aimed to create a police model that respects human rights. True civil police, far from military control and logic. The reform involved training police officers to serve and protect citizens.
The government report adds: “According to the new model, the police will not criminalize the poor or re-victimize them. On the contrary, it favors the poor because they are the most affected by the phenomenon of violence ”.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, indicated a few days ago that the Venezuelan police and military bodies had murdered more than 2,000 people between January and August, that is, 250 people per month. She added: “I am concerned about the high numbers of deaths among young people in marginalized neighborhoods as a result of security operations.”
They not only murder young people but also carry out thousands of arbitrary and violent raids on the homes of poor families. And they take everything they can as “spoils of war”: kitchen items, clothes, toys, food, cell phones, or computers, among others.
The police forces of the so-called “new police model” became a machine of terror against the poorest to kill and steal under the protection of the dictatorship.
Current Ombudsman Alfredo Ruíz has shamefully endorsed the report. A key figure in promoting the police reform, Ruíz knows the initiative went off track and turned to failure. He dedicated many years to denouncing police violence, only to become a defender of atrocities against the poor. He contributes to the spread of lies when the reality of the people is very different from the one they describe. The suffering of millions who cry for an end to police and military violence is hidden.
The Ombudsman should be the first public official to denounce the evils of the current police forces. An increasingly militarized, aggressive police force that violates human rights. Deliberately, Maduro abandoned the efforts for reform and decided to be an accomplice to what he once used to denounce.
The only good thing about the government report is that it serves as further proof of the lack of political will to rectify. And it also reaffirms the existence of an institutional structure at the service of abuse and impunity; as long as it persists, those responsible for crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations will not be investigated and sanctioned.
As a human rights defender, I regret the attitude of the government. Failure to rectify means more torture, more deaths in protests, more executions in working-class neighborhoods, and less quality of life. In short, more suffering and anguish for many poor families in Venezuela.
Translated by: José Rafael Medina
