Answering A Question of Human Rights in Venezuela
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The following retrospective has been brought to us from Arcadia Foundation Vice President Robert Carmona-Borjas. It is truly a robust yet insightful report on a tragic situation emanating from Latin America.
Human rights in Venezuela are at a critical impasse. Political discrimination, the lack of independence in judicial power, the attacks to freedom of expression all demonstrate a crisis more serious than Venezuelan history has experiences regarding a fundamental element of its democracy.
The first observation that one must make when examining the political reality and the state of human rights in the country is the clear and present distance of the government from democracy. A distance that is demonstrated by the concentration of powers in the executive, the integral domination of the national institutions, all to the service of a government who represents a consistent political tendency which has faced international scrutiny.
The declarations of Ministers, the Members of the Assembly and representatives of the citizenry, in particular the Ombudsman, showcase a submission to these institutions, supposedly independent, originally conceived for the defense of the interests of the citizens and the nation. The absolute lack of independence between the executive and the judicial system is perhaps the most serious atrocity to human rights that the bolivariano regime shows.
The exigencies of pro-government parliamentarians and the president of the republic represent the main motor for the beginning of the end of judicial processes in the country, especially, of course, when indications are that they are adamantly against citizens who believe in the values of the opposition. Judges have demonstrated enormous efficiency when they choose to process opponents or dissidents of the regime.
Yet another indicative index of the state of the human rights in the country are the attacks to mass media, to journalists, who exert with enormous difficulty the right to inform a free truth domestically and abroad. The arbitrary halting and threats to communication professionals who do not agree with the pro-government policies are more and more evident and serious. The cases of RCTV, Globovisión constitute a flagrant, systematic and generalized violation of human rights, in particular, of the freedom of expression, the right to information and the right of all the citizens to be informed.
The increase of average pro-government officials, destined to promotion in the regime, is also worrisome.
The political discrimination to the dissidence are accentuated more and more. The lists discriminates, known segregates, with the marked ones refuted the right to public power. They are also banned from participation in programs which daily become more handicapped from social and economic order, an order that the government in the country imposes. This political segregation is extremely serious, when it becomes general and when it is accentuated in all the country.
The arbitrary haltings, the persecution of political prisoners constitute the majority of the violations of human rights in the bolivariano regime within Venezuela from 1999 onward. To all this it is necessary to add the controversial relations by the government to certain terrorist forces of the world that somehow must be related to a violation of the human rights, certainly to safety. The promotion of the CRAF, the ETA and other terrorist movements cannot be interpreted other than as a a clear attack against the value of human rights as a whole. In summary, the situation of the human rights in Venezuela is a serious geopolitical issue.
The international community must demand and watch the respect of the fundamental rights of the man in Venezuela without it being interpreted by those who do not know such rights, as through illegal interference, an intervention within internal subjects of the country or other methods. It is an obligation of the international community however, to guard by the respect of human rights, for the dignity and freedom ofVenezuelans.