The recent visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, and his conclusions on his farewell to Venezuela, left me, as a great friend of mine says, with a taste of nothing. Contrary to the local press, which catalogued the visit as a great success in the direction of respect for Human Rights in Venezuela by the criminals who rule the country, High Commissioner Turk reinforced the thesis of the regime according to which sanctions are responsible for the serious economic and humanitarian crisis in the country:
“I heard from across the spectrum of people I spoke to, including humanitarian actors and UN agencies, about the impact of sectorial sanctions on the most vulnerable segments of the population and the hurdles sanctions create for the country’s recovery and development, not least in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. People I met described their struggle to get basic and essential products to sustain their livelihoods, the impossibility of finding medicines their loved ones so badly need, and the mental impact, anxiety, and depression of falling ever further into debt to survive. While the roots of Venezuela’s economic crisis predate the imposition of economic sanctions, as I highlighted in my interactions, it is clear that the sectorial sanctions imposed since August 2017 have exacerbated the economic crisis and hindered human rights” (see UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk concludes his official mission to Venezuela, in https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/01/un-high-commissioner-human-rights-volker-turk-concludes-official-mission
The High Commissioner met, according to his statement, “with more than 125 members of civil society, human rights defenders, victims of human rights violations and representatives of victims’ organizations from across the country”, and it seems that none of them indicated to him that the human rights situation in the country is precisely the cause of these sanctions, not the other way around, and that it is due to the merciless plundering of the Nation's assets carried out -and still being carried out- by the regime's criminals with whom he met.
The exacerbation of the economic crisis mentioned by the High Commissioner has nothing to do with the sanctions imposed on those in charge of the regime and the State-owned companies they manage, with which they launder capital from the illicit businesses they manage, including drug trafficking and the illegal extraction of minerals in the country, but rather with the application of economic policies that have destroyed business and private property, and which are in line with the socialist plan imposed on Venezuelans more than 20 years ago. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights did not talk about this during his visit to Venezuela.
In other words, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights puts us before the classic millenary dilemma
according to which humanity has asked itself, which came first, the chicken or
the egg, resolving the discussion once and for all, taking the side of the
progressive UN policy of protecting the type of government run by the criminals
in power in Venezuela, that it is the sanctions that have caused the
humanitarian crisis in our country.
While it is true that the UN official requested what all Venezuelans have been demanding for years, such as the release of political prisoners, detention conditions and judicial delays, he places the origin of the crisis in the wrong place, so the possible answers of that UN office to the Human Rights problems in the country will be inapplicable and at best wrong.
When the very origin of the human rights situation is the same government of the country, it cannot be solved with the measures that would be applied to any other country in which human rights violations are generated simply by errors or deviations of its justice system.
The International Community, and especially the UN, cannot treat the Venezuelan regime as any other government and request "reforms to the justice and security sectors" because those are precisely the ones that are configured and designed especially to sustain them in power, and the violation of Human Rights is nothing more than a consequence of that preservation structure. When they definitively understand that the policy of the Venezuelan regime is precisely the violation of Human Rights to sustain them in power, then from there will come an aid that can be successfully applied in Venezuela.
If this is not understood by the UN High Commissioner when he concludes that: “Based on my discussions, I perceive that there is a general recognition across the political and social spectrum of the need for reform”, by referring to reforms in the justice and security systems, then he has not understood or has not wanted to understand the real problem of Venezuelans.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is coming to Venezuela to give the image that the UN is watching Venezuela and can do something about the seriousness of what is happening, when the reality is like that of a doctor who goes to the home of a seriously ill person and prescribes aspirin knowing that he can do nothing for him and lies to the face of the family members. That is the true meaning of Mr. Turk's visit to Venezuela.
In urging ratification of the Convention on Enforced Disappearances and the Latin American and Caribbean regional Escazú agreement on the environment, the High Commissioner knows for certain that he is making a salute to the flag and even more so when he has listened harshly to information from civil society “about the often dire situation in prisons and the lack of adequate food, medicines and access to adequate and timely healthcare”.
Does the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights really believe that the regime will open the doors of the military prisons of La Tumba and the dungeons of the DGCIM in Boleita to the UN to know the situation of prisoners like Caiguaripano? What it will give them is time to prepare a parody to present to the world and continue hiding what is happening in Venezuela.
But what surprises me the most is that all the press in Venezuela and the world reports that things will improve in the country in terms of Human Rights, because that official came and the first thing he says is that sanctions are the problem, when the underlying problem is a regime that has caused with its plundering the biggest migratory and humanitarian crisis in the American continent. It would be good for humanity if the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in deciphering the enigma of the chicken and egg in Venezuela, would take the next step by telling us how to achieve world peace...
Caracas, February 2, 2023
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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