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Massive Human Rights violations taking place in Venezuela

By Miguel Octavio

Caracas 04.03.04 - At this point, I am more concerned about Human Rights than about referenda or ratifying signatures. What is going on in Venezuela does not and should not take place in any civilized country. There are right currently at least 380 people who have been jailed illegally. I have seen videos of military and National Guardsmen kicking people, without mercy and with hate as they lie on the floor. In one video six guards kick a kid on the floor, over and over. In the other the throw another guy against a car, punching him, the body bouncing back with incredible force.

A TV channel shows a man with a vest that says DISIP (military police) at the entrance of a barrio, his face covered and with an assault rifle shooting at all cars that go by. Pictures of people with severe injuries from plastic bullets are a dime a dozen. Today, a kid’s foot was blown away with a bullet shot from an assault rifle that came from a building (Torre Britanica) that has been occupied by the National Guard for three days. Everyday and additional person dies. Some are simply missing!

There are reports of torture, with the Coordinadora Democrática denouncing massive violations of human rights and citing the names of specific people being tortured. Karla Melo, the daughter of Bandera Roja leader Carlos Melo, says her father is a political prisoner and bravely vows to fight the Government if pushed. A mother describes how her teenage son and friends were arrested, placed in a military prisoner truck with open sides and then repeatedly gassed inside the truck by the National Guard.

Like in some sort of autistic Opera, the Vice-President comes on TV and accuses the opposition of not wanting to go to the confirmation process because of massive fraud, ignoring the OAS/Carter Center statements. The Minister of Infrastructure quantifies the damage done by the protesters, which is less than what the Chavez administration n spends on the mobilization of their people for a march, but fails to tells us how much was spent on tear gas canisters to repress the population or in the new Robocop outfits that the Nazi Onal Guards inaugurated with festive repression last Friday.

And while people are repressed, tortured, disappeared and assassinated, the two men responsible for guaranteeing the respect for the law and the Constitution (Art.285) and Human Rights (Art. 280) are nowhere to be seen. One, the Attorney General/Prosecutor (“Fiscal”) has said nothing since he warned Mayors and Governors to maintain order in their respective areas, while the other, the pitiful People’s Ombudsman, goes to the Supreme Court to ask for an injunction against one Governor and three Majors of the opposition for their omission in guaranteeing the right to safety of the population.

Torture and kill a few so that the majority can be safe? No, they are simply acting as lackeys of Hugo Chavez, and as they leave any sense of morality, if they ever had any, behind, with every additional crime and human rights violation committed, the sink deeper in their complicity with the cesspool of the Chavez revolution.



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