A UN rapporteur affirms that the sanctions against Maduro "have aggravated the calamities of the Venezuelans"

Alena Douhan, UN rapporteur, at a press conference in Caracas (Venezuela) MIGUEL GUTIERREZ / EFE

During her visit to Caracas, the United Nations Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan affirmed that the US sanctions on the Venezuelan Government, applied within the framework of the political struggle that both countries have maintained for a few years, have aggravated the deprivations and calamities of the country. .

Douhan spent 12 days in Venezuela and had conversations about the Venezuelan situation with President Nicolás Maduro and with 50 other political leaders.

Douhan's statements have been well received by Maduro.

"Today the UN rapporteur, Alena Douhan, has called on the governments of the United States and the European Union to lift the sanctions against Venezuela, because they have exacerbated a huge humanitarian crisis against the people."

"Before the blockade," said Douhan, "Venezuela used 76% of its oil revenues to invest in social programs and now it cannot even invest 1%."

The UN rapporteur added that the country "cannot buy vaccines because it does not have the right to use their money," alluding to assets frozen by the Bank of England and other international assets confiscated after a disputed 2018 presidential election in the that Maduro was reelected.

Since 2014, Maduro's economic strategy, inherited from the times of Hugo Chávez, was shipwrecked in the midst of a currency crisis that resulted in property damage to the then large monetary reserves of the country.

The worsening of the economy made Maduro harden his revolutionary tone against the private sector.

Thus, he established draconian controls on the marketing of products that caused severe shortages, and, in the long run, along with corruption and monetary and fiscal disorder, hyperinflation.

The statements of the UN special rapporteur have been welcomed by Chavismo, who have made the "blockade" their watchword of the moment.

But they also provoked great indignation in the political sectors of the opposition, which blames the current Venezuelan shipwreck on the waste and corruption in force in Chavismo.

The words of the official have been commented on and magnified by the official media in their spaces of opinion, especially highlighting the enormous current difficulties that Caracas has to commercialize oil and obtain fuel in international markets, one of the arguments that assist Chavismo to condemn the measures adopted in the past by the US government of Donald Trump against the country.

The civil sectors of the opposition placed a label on social networks that has become a trend in which it is stated that #LaCrisisFuePrimero.

The opposition - including human rights organizations, civil activists and lawyers, political leaders and parties - argues that the complaints about the existence of a humanitarian crisis in the country are seven years old and that for a long time they were denied by Chavismo.

“Today the special rapporteur on coercive measures presented her report on Venezuela.

We regret that a United Nations official lends himself to the propaganda and narrative that excuses the regime from its responsibility in the humanitarian emergency and the violation of human rights, ”said Miguel Pizarro, Commissioner for Juan Guaidó before the UN and member of the Primero Justicia party.