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Venezuela and Brazil have high rates of civilians killed by state agents, report says

2019-09-03T18:22:24.076Z


In 2017, 4,998 civilians were killed by state agents in Venezuela, 4,670 civilians were killed in Brazil, 371 in Mexico, 407 in El Salvador and 169 in Colombia. These are the findings of e ...


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(CNN Spanish) - In 2017 there were 4,998 civilians killed by state agents in Venezuela, 4,670 civilians killed in Brazil, 371 in Mexico, 407 in El Salvador and 169 in Colombia. These are the findings of the Monitor Use of Lethal Force in Latin America study, which made a comparative analysis between these five countries.

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The report, published in August of this year, indicates that abuse of force by state agents is a problem in many countries in the region, and that it is often presented as an "inevitable cost of security."

“Despite the significant number of people killed by the State, the vast majority of cases of use of lethal force are not investigated by presuming that they occurred in a context that makes them legitimate. As a consequence, there is no accountability, assumption of responsibilities or incentives to contain the excessive use of lethal force. In various countries, human rights reports point to the existence of lethal force abuses or extrajudicial executions by police and military, ”says the report of the Lethal Force Use Monitor Program in Latin America.

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To analyze the situation in these countries, the report took into account a list of indicators divided into two groups: indicators of incidence of use of lethal force and indicators of abuse of lethal force. To these were added a series of context indicators.

It is important to highlight that the analysis cannot determine in which events the use of force was “excessive or illegal, as this implies an analysis of the specific circumstances of the case, something that is alien to the indicators. The determination of the legality of a specific case can only be established by an investigation through the criminal justice system that cannot be replaced by a system of indicators ”.

However, they point out, the indicators can "determine whether, in a set of cases, the use has been abusive."

The findings of the report highlight the situation in Venezuela and Mexico, countries where the information came from the press due to "lack of information," according to the investigation.

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“In Venezuela it was possible to access the number of civilians killed, but only based on an occasional disclosure of public officials, not a regular publication of information. In Mexico, official information was even scarcer than in Venezuela, since only official figures of dead state agents were published, ”he explains.

For this organization, this demonstrates the lack of transparency of the countries of the region regarding this issue.

Opposition protests in Venezuela. File photo
(Credit: Horacio Siciliano)

Look at the main findings of the report:

1. The rate of civilian victims in Venezuela is extremely high

Although Brazil has a population much greater than that of Venezuela, the number of civilian deaths in the country controlled by Nicolás Maduro is the highest of the 5 states compared.

In Venezuela, according to the report, there are 15 civilian deaths per 100,000 inhabitants "a record higher than the homicide rate in the vast majority of countries in the world."

2. State agents victims of homicide while exercising their functions

The list of dead agents for every 1000 agents is led by Mexico (0.5), followed by Colombia and Venezuela with 0.3 (although Venezuela is a press source). Brazil and El Salvador are at the bottom of the list (0,1).

3. Abuse of force: an extreme case in Venezuela

In this country, more than a quarter of the homicides are due to “intervention by state agents”. Colombia, on the other hand, is the only country that reveals reduced values. This is the list of percentage of homicides by State intervention:

Brazil: 7.3%
Colombia: 1.5%
El Salvador: 10.3%
Mexico (press and possibly underestimated): 1.2%
Venezuela: 25.8%

Operation of the military police in a favela in Brazil on February 1, 2018. (MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP / Getty Images)

The effect of lethal force abuse

In addition to the victims, the excessive use of the force of agents of the State has negative effects because "it erodes the image of the security institutions - and of the State, in general", explains the document, and "can lead to the increase in violence "

The risks are also for the police and military, because violence against them is encouraged.

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Brazil and Venezuela: already documented cases of abuse of state forces

In Venezuela, international organizations such as Amnesty International and the UN have denounced the "widespread and systematic use of excessive force", especially in the context of protests in the country, by police forces and state agents.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, presented in July a report stating that "there are reasonable grounds to believe that serious violations of economic and social rights have been committed" in Venezuela, including abuse of State forces.

The besieged president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, was critical of him and said when he was presented that it is a report "loaded with lies, manipulations, inaccurate data, false data."

In Brazil, on the other hand, according to a Human Rights Watch report of January 2018, “police abuses continue without brake”. For HRW, the situation is aggravated by legislative projects such as the one that does not allow members of the armed forces "accused of illegal use of force against civilians to be tried in ordinary criminal justice, and transfer those judgments to military justice."

In August 2019, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, in an interview on YouTube, expressed his support for the law because he said that “the offender has more right than the citizen of good” and that the criminals “will die in the street as cockroaches, and it has to be like that. ”

extrajudicial police abuse

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2019-09-03

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