I am sure that I am not the only one offended by the picture above. Chavismo not only blatantly violates Human Rights, but on top of it, has the audacity to hold an event to promote the content of its 2015-2019 National Plan for Human rights, under the heading: “Venezuela a country guarantor of Human Rights”
The plan itself ignores the country’s Human Rights reality. In Geneva, the UN found the Venezual’s homicide rate to be one of the most profound violations in Human Rights, there have been 231 thousand homicides under Chavismo, but the document presented by the Maduro Government fails to mention homicides at all and the “consultation” period for the plan ends in only a week.
And while this plan is being built up, written and delivered, the Maduro Government created out of the blue, a series of violations of Human Rights at the Colombia/Venezuela border, which are not mentioned either. To say nothing of the infamous OLP’s, police and military operations, which come into barrios and kill people, like on the Cota 905 in Caracas in July, when around 18 people were killed in these “operation”, without the People’s Ombudsman, ironically called the People’s Defender in Venezuela, saying anything about it.
To someone like me, who was born under the Perez Jimenez Dictatorship in the 50’s and witnessed the horrors of the South American Dictatorships in the 60’s and 70’s, the ability of Chavismo to ignore and disrespect Human Rights is quite difficult to understand, let alone the deafening silence by those Governing Chile, Argentina, Brasil and other countries, whose Presidents and Government officials and their families were victims of the same Dictatorships.
But while those that followed the Dictatorships in the 70’s and 80’s made sure to guarantee Human Rights in the future by creating legal instruments that bound all countries by commonly accepted Human Rights principles, those that followed them in Government, all “left wing”, seemed to have forgotten the past and decided to simply ignore Human Rights.
And while the Government holds these bombastic Human Rights events, officials screw up at every turn in clear demonstration that Human Rights is not even discussed extensively within the Government.
Take Jacqueline Faria, for example, a PSUV member who dared say “All of those that are legally in our territory have their Human Rights guaranteed”
How cynic can you get? If you are illegal, you simply have no Human Rights, as has been clearly demonstrated by the treatment of Colombians along the border, which has actually caught some legal Colombians in the process, but nobody is around to defend them anyway.
And the People’s Defender had the gull to say that student Marcos Coello’s accusations of torture had no validity, because he had become a fugitive of Justice, as if Coello was supposed to stay and suffer more torture, as a way of promoting his cause. The truth is that Coello had denounced repeatedly how he was tortured in Mr. Saab’s office, before Mr. Saab became Ombudsman, but the case was simply shelved. Coellos’ mother wrote a wonderful letter to Mr. Saab, noting that on March 17th. 2014, Coello’s case was presented to his office and the Prosecutor’s office, which were followed up later in March and once again in June, but to the date, as Mr. Coello decided to leave the country and become a “fugitive” with no Human Rights, according to Saab, the Prosecutor’s office has not moved a finger to investigate the student’s torture or his tortures.
And let’s not forget Ines Gonzales, “Inesita La Terrible“, a Ph.D. in Chemistry, who was jailed 18 months ago for taunting the intelligence police in her tweets. Today we hear that Saab will “mediate” so that the Judge can allow her to leave jail and have a complete hysterectomy. But Saab should mediate to have her freed, because tweeting your opinions is a right guaranteed by the Constitution.
But what does he know?
But Saab, much like his predecessors in the position, could care less about Human Rights. Human Rights are Human Rights, they do not depend on whether you are free, in jail, a fugitive or “legally” in Venezuela or not. They have to be respected and those in charge of enforcing them are supposed to do just that. In fact, I am sure that Farias and Saab are careful enough not to say that Human Rights are guaranteed only to those legally in Venezuela and those that support the Government. Because in the end, Chavistas seem to have more “rights” than others, or opposition members seem to have fewer rights than Chavistas. But in the end, Chavismo could care less about Human Rights. Those that are victims of homicides are more likely to have been or be Government supporters than opposition and the rate of homicides has never been a priority since Chávez arrived in 1998. And neither are many of the rights guaranteed by the Venezuelan Constitution.
But maybe I am just an innocent flower child of the 60’s and 70’s.
But wait, so were Bachelet, Roussef and many of those that today ignore the Human Rights gains of the 80’s and 90’s and place their commercial interests above Human Rights and Democratic (With a capital D) rights in Venezuela…
And yes, I may have been an innocent, naive, flower child of the 60’s and 70’s, but I will not forget. If we ever get rid of these people, I will be around to write about the barbaric acts and statements by Saab, Farias and their cohorts. I will use my blog and records to emphasize that I will only reconcile with those that were not involved in Human Rights violations and that crimes against humanity never expire.
Maybe nobody will listen, but I will be there…