Human rights organizations called this Wednesday for the renewal, for at least two years, of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela, created at the end of 2019 at the United Nations Human Rights Council. Next month it will be discussed if this instance should continue working.
“He has been a great ally for us. The most important truth mechanism we have about the serious human rights violations that have occurred since 2014. That is why we think it is very important for the victims,” said Rafael Uzcátegui, coordinator of the non-governmental organization Provea, at a press conference.
He expressed that the organizations, victims and relatives hope that justice will be achieved and that the Venezuelan authorities continue to make decisions to avoid appearing in the Mission’s reports. He added that based on these investigations by experts, the government of Nicolás Maduro has been forced to initiate some legal cases that were frozen for a long time.
In a report published last year, the Fact Finding Mission revealed the lack of judicial independence in Venezuela and the complicity of the authorities in the abuses that were being committed. The experts will soon present a third investigation, in which will delve into the chains of command and the serious human rights violations in the Orinoco Mining Arc will be included.
Participating in the press conference were Tamara Taraciuk, deputy director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch; Beatriz Borges, director of the Justice and Peace Center; Clara del Campo, in charge of campaigns for South America at Amnesty International; and Elvira and José Gregorio, the parents of Juan Pablo Pernalete, a young man murdered by the Bolivarian National Guard during an opposition protest in 2017.
“Crimes against humanity were committed”
“The Mission is still the only independent United Nations monitoring mechanism on Venezuela, with a mandate to investigate abuses and systematic violations of human rights,” he said. Taraciukwho recalled that this instance concluded that crimes against humanity were committed in the country and that, in fact, it has assured that it has evidence that would confirm that most of the abuses were committed in a context of widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population. .
That evidence, Taraciuk added, They can be used for the investigation carried out by the International Criminal Court. “The Fact-Finding Mission has identified managers or superiors who knew or should have known of the documented abuses and collects evidence of individual responsibility. The conclusions can serve as inputs to the Court to determine criminal and individual responsibility”, he added.
Counsel also noted that the Mission’s investigations can also serve as inputs to the United Nations system in general because they can highlight what are the necessary structural reforms to prevent further violations of human rights.
They tried to hinder the investigations
Taraciuk pointed out that before the creation and renewal of the Fact Finding Mission on Venezuela, in 2020, Venezuelan authorities made an effort to obstruct United Nations investigations giving a signal that they would be willing to cooperate with the Human Rights Council, the mechanisms and procedures.
“It is to be expected that this strategy of apparent and not genuine cooperation will take place in the discussions next month in Geneva and it is important to note that the previous promises to cooperate in reality what they did was avoid serious international scrutiny. And what we see in Venezuela is that they have not resulted in real improvements in the human rights situation in the country,” he said.
Elvira and José Pernalete recalled that their son Juan Pablo died on March 27, 2017 after a soldier fired a tear gas canister at him in the chest at close range. They affirmed that the murder occurred within a preconceived plan and that it responded to a State policy and the excessive use of force to silence dissidents.
Juan Pernalete: arbitrary deprivation of life
They stated that the Independent International Mission documented and recorded the murder of their son in its two published reports. In the first (2020), based on the events that occurred in the murder, he found reasonable grounds to affirm that the young person was the victim of an arbitrary deprivation of life and that the Bolivarian National Guard was involved. In the second report (2021) he detailed how the deficiencies of the justice system have been decisive in a pattern of serious human rights violations and crimes under international law.
“The Mission observed in the crime charged by the Public Ministry, of complicity in preterintentional homicide, that it does not reflect the seriousness of the relevant conduct in the murder of our son, therefore, the Mission determined that it was an arbitrary murder. The qualification of preterintentionality that the Public Ministry maintains is what it seeks to benefit the perpetrators and not give us justice,” they said.
They stated that the reports are essential for international proceedings. Even if there were to be an impartial space in Venezuela, they would be inputs for the search for truth and the application of justice. He denounced that the chain of command involved in human rights violations has been protected.
“The victims make a call to the diplomatic missions: that the mandate be renewed, that they vote, so that its continuity is maintained. It is necessary that all channels of justice remain open and continue the work of these mechanisms on Venezuela. We continue without genuine justice and we request that these mechanisms continue so that people who seriously and systematically violate human rights do not feel untouchable or unattainable”they expressed.
“The situation in Venezuela has changed”
Uzcategui stated that the situation in Venezuela has changed from the beginning of the investigation of the International Criminal Court on the crimes against humanity that would have been committed in Venezuela. “We have never had a formal ICC investigation in the region, it makes supporting a government like Maduro’s politically very expensive,” he added.
The Provea coordinator noted that the Mission’s first report suggested that Maduro had information about the patterns of human rights violations documented in that investigation.