The Chavista government describes the UN report denouncing torture in Venezuela as a “pamphlet”

Diosdado Cabello, in an image from last July. MANAURE QUINTERO (Reuters)

The Government of Nicolás Maduro took a couple of days to give a formal response to the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission regarding the situation of Human Rights in Venezuela.

The document directly points out to the president, Diosdado Cabello and other Chavista leaders to personally monitor the execution of torture and cruel treatment of political prisoners.

The investigation maintains that it was a systematic way of acting.

“Venezuela expresses its most categorical repudiation of the false and unsubstantiated accusations made by the alleged International Fact-Finding Mission, in a new pamphlet presented on September 26, 2022 before the United Nations Human Rights Council” says the statement from the Foreign Ministry.

The text laments "the politicized use of human rights as a tool to undermine sovereignty" and reiterates "its ignorance of this type of parallel, barbaric and interfering mechanisms."

Héctor Constant, Venezuelan ambassador in Geneva, had given a speech after the presentation of the investigation, made by Marta Valiñas, head of the Mission, in which he described the conclusions of the panel of experts as a "pseudo report", bearer of "dark interests" against the country "We regret having to come once again to this Council to confirm its terrible politicization, evidenced again by the recent intervention that we have just heard, as well as by the supposed report that accompanies it and that we categorically reject in the form and bottom”.

This would be the third installment in three years made by commissions of independent experts from the United Nations documenting systematic violations of human rights in Venezuela, the terrible state of the prisons, the murder of opponents in the streets, or documenting the serious humanitarian crisis that hit to the country from 2014 to 2021 due to food and medicine shortages.

Although its results have been widely commented on by various spokespersons, civil activists, human rights NGOs, academics and opposition leaders on social networks, its conclusions and impact have been clearly neutralized and censored in the country's media, which have omitted the theme.

Political parties have generally made few comments on this debate.

The Government of Venezuela has promised to take political and diplomatic retaliation against those nations that support or vote affirmatively on its content in future events, or against those countries that support the extension of the mandate of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela.

“Our investigations and analysis show that the Venezuelan state uses the intelligence services and their agents to repress dissent in the country.

This leads to the commission of serious crimes and human rights violations, including acts of torture and sexual violence.

These practices must cease immediately and those responsible must be investigated and prosecuted in accordance with the law,” Valiñas, president of the UN Mission, had declared, pointing to the directors of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service, Sebin, and the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, Dgcim, as directly responsible for such atrocities.

Diosdado Cabello, first vice president of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, was the first Chavista leader to openly refer to the issue in a press conference televised by the state-owned Venezolana de Televisión.

“They continue to accuse us of a thousand barbarities, but at this point we do not accept blackmail from anyone.

They believe that by attacking President Maduro, me, or others who point out there, with that we are going to be scared, or that the people are going to believe it”.

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