AlertaVenezuela has warned on previous occasions about the risk that technical assistance could be used by the government as a distraction, to evade its responsibility for the serious human rights violations committed in the country. The last few weeks have shown an additional dynamic that consists of using technical assistance as a bargaining chip, similar to the perverse revolving door used with political prisoners, and which is now beginning to include the staff of international organizations.
After the denunciation of the American Convention on Human Rights, and especially since 2014, Maduro’s diplomacy made great efforts to position Venezuela in the international system of human rights protection, inviting – unsuccessfully – the then High Commissioner of the United Nations. United Nations Human Rights Council member Navi Pillay, securing a seat on the Human Rights Council, catching up on overdue reports to all treaty bodies, and agreeing to the establishment of a presence of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Caracas, to install the narrative of alleged cooperation by Venezuela with the human rights system.
That narrative of cooperation faded as the regime showed its true face of repression and became uncomfortable with the OHCHR reports, despite the more cautious tone of the same in recent years. The alleged cooperation took a dramatic turn in February 2024, when Maduro gave the OHCHR 72 hours to leave Venezuela, after the publication of content on the social network X that referred to the situation of human rights defender Rocío San Miguel as a potential case of disappearance.
Throughout 2024, Maduro has deployed his cruelest strategies of repression and harassment of civil society, he has advanced in the isolation of the country after the maximum violation of the political rights of Venezuelans through electoral fraud, he has broken relations with at least seven countries, he has insulted the UN, the OAS, the European Union and even the governments that were until then allies, like Colombia and Brazil; he also dared to arrest several foreigners, mainly from Spain, the United States and Colombia, who will undoubtedly swell the inventory of exchange tokens in the international revolving door. The nationality of those arrested does not seem to be a coincidence. At the same time, he has winked at those who remain in Venezuela, even inviting the highest representative of the UN in Venezuela to an event marked by sectarianism and exclusion in the name of “anti-fascism”.
Suddenly, when it had shown its worst side, the regime began a process of realignment in preparation for January 10, the date scheduled for the swearing-in of the winning candidate in the July 28 election. The urgency of normalization is in the air, and it is in this context that a technical mission from the ICC visited Venezuela. Some political prisoners were released – but not freed – during the visit, without the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the Ombudsman announcing any kind of investigation into the allegations of torture, the arbitrariness of the detentions, responsibility for the denial of due process, or coercion of detainees to incriminate themselves.
However, following the announcement by the Public Prosecutor’s Office that it was reviewing 225 cases of people detained in the post-election context of this year, it has been possible to verify the release of more than 130 Venezuelans since the weekend of November 16. However, the number of cases that the Prosecutor’s Office has decided to submit for consideration represents less than 10% of the official total of 2,229 arrests made by state security forces in the days following the presidential elections. Added to this figure are more than 300 Venezuelans who were detained for political persecution before July 28. The situation reflects an unprecedented number in the country’s contemporary history.
The regime’s recent nods to the ICC Prosecutor’s Office and the dubious recusal filed against Khan have not gone unnoticed. The Public Office for the Defense of Victims of the International Criminal Court (“OPCV”) published a document of Opinions and Concerns of the victims regarding the request for the recusal of the Prosecutor, which has already been commented on by AlertaVenezuela. The pirouettes before the ICC, however, do not seem to be yielding the expected results, taking into account the recent statement by Prosecutor Khan before the Assembly of States Parties, in which he suggested the possible exhaustion of the complementarity approach in the Venezuela I case.
At the end of November, the return of an OHCHR official to Venezuela was known and two more are expected to arrive. After its expulsion, the OHCHR had assured that it would not return to the country in conditions less than those it already had. However, this return occurs in the shadows, without public announcement and in conditions that cannot be considered equal, since it is impossible to imagine that three people can do from Venezuela the work of the thirteen positions assigned to work within the country.
The fact that Maduro accepts the return of the OHCHR to Venezuela just days after the presentation of a report in which the High Commissioner Turk must report on the country’s (non)compliance with the recommendations of the UN human rights system, does not seem coincidental. The acceptance of a technical mission by the ICC, the partial return of the OHCHR, the holding of a meeting on the Rosario Islands in Colombia between senior officials of the Petro administration and the Venezuelan defense minister, the desperate approaches to the new US administration, are elements that point to normalizing by an internationalization of the revolving door, through which Maduro allows or prevents the passage of international organizations and governments, according to his convenience.
If governments and international organizations allow themselves to be caught up in the normalization discourse, January 10th could come as a slap in their faces, as Maduro will do whatever it takes to stay in power, including playing the revolving door. But the election theft continues and cannot be normalized. The illusion of normalization that is sold abroad contrasts with the stick that is maintained at home, as just happened in the last week of November with the approval of the Organic Law Liberator Simon Bolivar against the Imperialist Blockade and for the Defense of Venezuela, which establishes up to 30 years of prison and disqualification from holding public office for up to 60 years against those who express support for unilateral coercive measures, without distinguishing between individual and generic sanctions. The law, approved in an express manner, as is often the case with this type of instrument, incurs in the same type of broad, vague and indeterminate concepts of other recent laws that aim to restrict civic space, limit free expression and suppress any dissent.
It cannot be considered normal that partial access to the country of international organizations is allowed with one hand and with the other the repression of the population continues and the popular will expressed in the election of July 28 is openly ignored.
The international community must evaluate any invitation and approach by Maduro that is not accompanied by genuine and unequivocal signs of rectification, must reject the manipulation and strongly denounce the theft of the election and the violations of human rights that continue and worsen as January 10, 2025 approaches.