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.
FIRST, I would like to refer to the sanctions as an excuse used by the Venezuelan State to justify the situation in the country.
According to figures presented by the Central Bank of Venezuela, between 1999 and 2015, 875 billion dollars were deposited as concerning oil revenues. During the same period, the external debt tripled. Between 2013 and 2018 the international reserve currency has decreased by 71% and by May of 2019 the reserves were below 8,000 million which equals 0.9% of what has been deposited.
Since 2013 airlines have suspended operations, international laboratories do not sell medicines to Venezuela and the same thing happens with food providers. The reasoning is the same: the massive debt the government maintains makes it impossible for companies to supply the country. It is not an economic war or a blockade. It is an unjustifiable bankruptcy attributed to massive corruption.
While the State spent 5.657 billion dollars on equipment for the armed forces in the last 17 years, it maintained a 3 billion debt with the laboratories. The priorities are clear.
SECOND, the report which you will present to the Council comes at a crucial time of a process which started in 2017 and has been maintained during your term, for which we are happy.
As a process we are hoping the program continues, expands and strengthens, and that it includes a gradual presence in the country.
The UCAB Human Rights Center will be in Geneva in July and, we have been contacting several missions of democratic countries to express them the importance that their governments politically and financially support the program of the Office in Venezuela.
