The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances warned in a report Tuesday of an alarming rise in enforced disappearances of Venezuelan citizens committed by the socialist regime since December 2023.
The U.N. Working Group stressed that Venezuelan citizens who have been subject to disappearance by the state have largely been people exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, and participation “in matters of public interest.”
The majority of the disappeared, the report stated, are “members of the main opposition political party, as well as members of the Army.”
“As the country gears up for the presidential election in July 2024, enforced disappearances could have a chilling effect and hinder the people’s right to vote freely,” the U.N. Working Group’s experts said.
“These prolonged incommunicado detentions amount to enforced disappearances. They appear to follow a pattern whereby individuals are deprived of their liberty by State authorities, taken to recognized detention facilities and denied fundamental rights and protections such as contact with the outside world and access to legal assistance,” the experts continued.
In the past few months, the regime launched a fierce dissident crackdown known as “Bolivarian Fury.” Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has claimed that the crackdown is necessary to “dismantle” purported foreign conspiracies against him and other members of his authoritarian regime.
The crackdown has so far targeted more than a dozen members of Venezuela’s only mainstream center-right party, Vente Venezuela, and people close to opposition leader María Corina Machado, as well as other civilians and members of the military.
Among the best-known cases of forced disappearances by the Maduro regime is that of Venezuelan activist and lawyer Rocío San Miguel, who was arrested in February and has not been publicly seen since. The regime accused San Miguel of being involved in a dubious assassination plot against Maduro.
The U.N. Human Rights Office expressed concerns over San Miguel’s arrest — to which the Maduro regime responded by banishing the office’s stationed staff in Caracas.
Maduro “invited” the banished human rights office to return to Venezuela in April after meeting with International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan, who is overseeing a lengthy ICC investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity by Maduro during the 2017 wave of protests, which left some 125 dead.
Another case is that of Venezuelan activist Carlos Julio Rojas, who was arrested in mid-April and has also been accused of joining a conspiracy to assassinate Maduro. Rojas was one of the organizers of this year’s “burning of Judas” traditional Catholic ceremony in Caracas during Easter, which saw the public burning of an effigy that resembled the socialist dictator.
Rojas is believed to be presently detained in one of the many detention centers of the SEBIN Bolivarian Intelligence Service, known for its use of torture, sexual violence, and other inhumane treatment against dissidents. Rojas has reportedly been denied the right to a private attorney, has no communication with the outside world, and his physical state is presently unknown.
The most recent disappearance is that of Oscar Castañeda, a Venezuelan citizen and sympathizer of Machado and the Vente Venezuela party, who was forcefully dragged out of his home by SEBIN agents on Sunday due to his participation in one of Machado’s rallies held on Friday, April 26.
Castañeda, during Machado’s Friday rally in the city of Turén, stated that he had returned “defeated” from Colombia with his family and publicly expressed his support for Machado while encouraging others to support her, as well. The video went viral on social media over the weekend.
Charly Rodríguez, Castañeda’s cousin, told local media that Castañeda was taken out of his town with his face covered by a black hood and has been missing since then.
Rodríguez stated that the local police “assured” Castañeda’s family that the detainee is “in good health” and that his life is “guaranteed,” but they have not been told where he is beyond being told that he was transferred to Caracas, nor they have been able to see him.
“Depriving an individual of their liberty, followed by the refusal to acknowledge their detention, or concealing their fate or whereabouts, places them outside the protection of the law,” the U.N. Working Group experts said. “This constitutes an enforced disappearance, regardless of the duration of such deprivation of liberty or concealment.”
“It is crucial that accurate information on people deprived of liberty be guaranteed without delay to those with a legitimate interest, such as their relatives and legal representation of their choice,” the experts continued.
The U.N. experts stressed in the report that the crime of enforced disappearance entails the violation of multiple human rights, including the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security, and the right to be free from torture.
“The fundamental rights of the relatives of the disappeared person are also being violated,” the experts said.
“In these situations, relatives of those forcibly disappeared are often left with the burden to search for their loved ones, in detention centers where they are systematically denied information about their fate or whereabouts and may be exposed to reprisals,” they continued.
The report concluded by urging the Maduro regime to:
prevent, eradicate, and sanction all acts of enforced disappearances, to provide information on the fate and whereabouts of individuals currently detained incommunicado by the State, and to provide them with all legal guarantees, including the right to communicate with, and be visited by, their relatives, access to legal counsel and the right to be produced before a court of law with jurisdiction to determine the lawfulness of their detention.
The Maduro regime launched the ongoing Bolivarian Fury crackdown weeks after having received a now-expired oil and gas sanctions relief package from U.S. President Joe Biden in October 2023.
The sanctions relief package, which lasted six months, was a “reward” provided by the Biden Administration to the Maduro regime after it had agreed to commit to a series of vague promises towards holding a “free and fair” presidential election sometime in 2024 in negotiations held in Barbados with representatives of the Venezuelan opposition.
Despite the generous sanctions relief package, Maduro and his regime never upheld the terms of the electoral agreement, and ultimately replaced it with a tailor-made one that calls for a new sham presidential election scheduled for July 28.
The Biden Administration reinstated the oil and gas sanctions on the Maduro regime at the relief package’s April 18 expiration date.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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