United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, arrived on Wednesday 19 July to Venezuela for a 3-day visit. On Thursday afternoon, the High Commissioner, human rights organizations and multiple victim groups met. In this space of one hour, 26 spokesmen were able to make requests to the High Commissioner. 20 of these interventions are registered in this document, which represents an overview of the activists’ demands for the human dignity of the country in a context characterized by the lack of democracy, increase in poverty and forced migration.
Below is one of such interventions.
1) We appreciate and support the visit. It has been 17 years from the last one of similar importance when the Secretary General of the OAS, Cesar Gaviria, visited us.
2) We reiterate the absence of democracy in the country. After winning the support of the majority, after the death of Hugo Chavez and the emergence of the economic crisis, Nicolas Maduro became the representative of a minority who wishes to remain irregularly in power. The previous High Commissioner described the elections held in May 2018 as neither free nor credible. You must help us to restore the rights to political and electoral participation of Venezuelans, as the first step towards the democratic reinstitutionalization of the country. This absence of rights has also prohibited the democratic sectors of Chavismo from participating in elections with their own party organizations.
3) We request to further maintain the complaint about the citizen security policies that systematically violate human rights. The Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales, FAES (Special Action Forces) who today lead these operations in the slums do not have training in the proportional and differentiated use of force. In addition, using armed civilians in citizen security work must cease.
4) We have opposed the imposition of financial sanctions against the country that aggravate the suffering of Venezuelans. We have drafted a report that demonstrates the impact of these measures, clarifying that the economic crisis resulting from bad decisions and lack of independence of powers appeared long before the first financial sanction against the country. Although these sanctions will be without effect tomorrow, the increase of poverty, recorded since 2013, would continue to increase.
5) We support the establishment of a permanent Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) in Venezuela. In the absence of independent institutions, the Office will allow different human rights victims to have at least the symbolic reparation of counting on receptive ears for their complaints and try to promote justice mechanisms. There are thousands of examples, but this Office would allow for the relatives of Alcedo Mora, a militant of Chavismo disappeared for 4 years, Rubén González, a trade unionist detained for 7 months, or indigenous communities affected by the Orinoco Mining Arc, a ray of hope for their demands.
