Venezuela expels the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Yvan Gil, announced this Thursday the expulsion of the staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from the country.

The measure occurs amid the tensions generated by the arrest of the activist Rocío San Miguel and the complaints made by various organizations about the repetition in this case of a pattern of forced disappearances committed by the security forces.

A total of 13 officials installed in Caracas since 2019, after the visit to the country of former High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, must suspend their activities and have 72 hours to leave Venezuela.

“This office has been used and instrumentalized as an international sounding board to maintain a discourse against the Bolivarian government,” Gil stated at a press conference.

Chavismo has retreated and has thus broken the channel that had been opened to investigate complaints of human rights violations on the ground and channel humanitarian aid and recommendations to improve the justice system in the country.

The official pointed out that the commission has fulfilled "an improper role" that "far from showing it as an impartial entity, has led it to become the private law firm of the coup plotters and terrorist groups that constantly conspire against the country."

Venezuela will carry out a comprehensive review of the terms of technical cooperation described in the Letter of Understanding during the next thirty days and until the members of the commission “publicly rectify before the international community their colonialist, abusive and violating attitude of the Charter of the Nations. United.”

The presence of the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner, authorized by the Government of Nicolás Maduro in 2019, when the diplomatic siege had worsened after the international community questioned his 2018 re-election, allowed the worrying reports that have been presented to be documented. in Geneva on the human rights situation in Venezuela and the occurrence of cases of torture, arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances and other serious violations.

Added to this was the work of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission, whose mandate was renewed last year, despite Venezuela's refusal, which has dedicated itself to systematizing the patterns of persecution of opponents and groups critical of the administration.

Local NGOs have pressured the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to point out the violations of due process that they have denounced in the case of lawyer San Miguel, who six days after her arrest at the Maiquetía airport remains incommunicado and was presented to a hearing without private assistance, in an event in which she was charged with the crimes of conspiracy, terrorism and treason.

The international community has once again raised alarm about this case and both the European Union and the United States have demanded his release.

But for the Venezuelan Prosecutor's Office, San Miguel is involved in one of the five conspiratorial plots to supposedly assassinate President Maduro, denounced by the Venezuelan authorities last month.

Until now, he has only presented as evidence in this case the recording with edits and cuts of the statement of a former military officer detained in December.

Tensions between the Government and the United Nations also worsened from another angle.

This week, in addition, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, made a two-week visit to the country, after which he concluded that the food crisis persists in the country and made harsh statements about the sales program. of low-cost food bags from the Clap (Local Supply and Production Committees), pointing out that it had become a “customer system” and that it did not meet the nutritional and quality values ​​that the State should guarantee.

Chavismo has hardened again in the race for the presidential elections to which Maduro arrives at his worst moment of popularity and when more than 85% of the population wants political change for the country, according to most polls.

Through judicial means he has blocked the candidacy of María Corina Machado, the main opposition leader, and has also arrested and implicated several of his collaborators in the alleged conspiracy plots.

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