International
UN mission for Venezuela: the Government is reactivating its most violent repression
The Government of Venezuela is reactivating “the most violent form of repression,” with a new wave of arrests of opponents accused of alleged conspiracies such as the so-called Operation White Bracelet, the UN Independent International Mission for the country said on Wednesday.
The president of the mission, the Portuguese Marta Valiñas, presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council a new report on abuses committed by the Government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela since 2023, where she stressed that “the authorities invoke real or fictitious conspiracies to smedget, arrest and prosecute opponents or government critics.”
In this period, he said, we have moved from a less repressive phase of the opposition, in which Nicolás Maduro’s regime was limited to creating “a climate of fear and intimidation,” to a more violent period “that is activated to silence the voices of the opposition at any price.”
Valiñas highlighted in this sense that in January 2024 Maduro asked to “activate the Bolivarian Fury” after assuring that the previous year four conspiracies had been deactivated to assassinate him or organize coups d’état, and that the Attorney General’s Office then announced the aforementioned Operation White Bracelet, one of the alleged plots to end the life of the Venezuelan president.
In the context of the fight against this last conspiracy, 33 soldiers were degraded and expelled and different critics of the regime were arrested.
Among them, he recalled, campaign leaders of the Vente Venezuela party (the formation of the opposition leader María Corina Machado) and human rights defenders such as Tamara Suju, Sebastiana Barráez or the Spanish-Venezuelan Rocío San Miguel.
Valiñas stressed that San Miguel, arrested on February 9 at Maiquetía airport without a court order, was in unknown whereabouts for five days “until the authorities reported that she was detained in El Helicoide, one of the torture centers documented by the mission.”
He also stressed that that month, shortly after both the mission he presides over and the UN Office for Human Rights expressed their concern for San Miguel, the Venezuelan Government suspended the activities of the technical mission of the aforementioned office and gave its staff a period of 72 hours to leave the country.
The head of the mission completed by the Chilean Francisco Cox and the Argentine Patricia Tappatá added that together with San Miguel they have documented cases of 18 other women who remain detained under the accusation of being associated or involved in “conspiracies” to overthrow the Government.
Valiñas also recalled that in the six months analyzed by the mission, an agreement between the Government and the opposition was signed in Barbados so that it could participate in the elections of July 28 of this year, but subsequent actions highlighted the difficulties for its implementation.
The president of the mission gave as an example the suspension by the Supreme Court of Justice of the opposition primaries of October 22, won by a large majority by María Corina Machado, and the ratification by the same instance of justice of her 15-year political disqualification of 15 years, on January 26.
“These actions highlight the serious difficulties that exist in ensuring that the next presidential elections are carried out in accordance with the right to participate in public affairs provided for in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” Valiñas stressed.
It also drew attention to the arrest warrants against 14 people, including prominent opposition leaders such as Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López, for their alleged connection with a conspiracy against the consultative referendum on Guayana Esequiba, held on December 3.
In the turn of reply, Venezuela’s delegation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva once again rejected the conclusions of the mission and even its legitimacy, created in 2019 by the council itself to investigate human rights abuses in the country.
“The United States, the greatest violator of rights in all history, the European Union and the failed Lima Group designed this mechanism (the mission) with the purpose of applying maximum pressure on Venezuela, manipulating the instruments and purposes of this Council,” said a representative of the delegation.
“They pretend to cover as absolute truths all the barbarities fabricated against Venezuela without verification or sustainable proof,” he added, alluding to the work of a mission that in his opinion “appeals to anonymous and even invented sources.”
International
‘No to animal abuse’, the clamor of a march of dogs and humans in Bolivia
Hundreds of police and activists raised their voices against animal abuse in a march in the Bolivian city of La Paz in which they were accompanied by dogs of different breeds and sizes, including a troop of canine agents and newly recruited puppies.
The march called by animal organizations and by the Bolivian Police, through the unit of the Forest Police and Environmental Preservation (Pofoma), whose national director, Colonel Raúl Rodríguez, explained to EFE that the objective of the activity was to “eradicate violence, mistreatment, cruelty and biocide” against animals.
“With this march the Bolivian Police is giving this message to our population that not to violence, not to mistreatment, not to cruelty, nor to biocide against our domestic and wild animals because they are living beings and as such, they have rights, they are animals that have no voice, but they do have rights,” Rodríguez said.
The police chief emphasized that animals “are living beings” that only ask for and require “a lot of affection.”
He also reminded those who own wild animals as pets, that this is “completely prohibited” by current regulations.
“The Bolivian Police already has the legal instruments to be able to proceed to the arrest and referral to the hands of Justice so that they cannot traffic in these animals,” he said.
He also mentioned that the country has rules such as Law 700, ‘For the defense of animals against acts of cruelty and mistreatment’, in force since 2015. Which included the criminal figure of the biocide to punish the murder of an animal with penalties of two to five years in prison.
According to Rodríguez, in 2023 Pofoma treated about 1,400 cases of animal abuse and so far this year there are already 600.
The director specified that eleven people have been sentenced to between three and seven years in prison for these crimes. In turn, about 70 cases are under investigation.
The mobilization traveled through the main streets of the historic center of La Paz. It was led by a troop of canine agents, most of them anti-drugs, who were well uniformed with vests.
Some k-9 agents, such as Vito, a black Labrador, stopped to greet affectionately. Also to receive affection from the people who came to see the march.
Among the most applauded were the new recruits, puppies of German and Belgian shepherds who were in the arms of human agents.
Behind them were groups of ‘civilian’ humans and dogs, such as Oslo, a chow chow puppy that carried a red handkerchief around his neck, and Tony, a huge San Bernardo who caught the attention of the public.
The march was nourished by animal groups and dog clubs of the sausage, pequinese and cocker spaniel breeds, among others. In addition to several police units, such as firefighters, who carried “disguised” cars with snouts and ears.
There was no shortage of boots of ‘Paquito’, the dog that is the mascot of the Bolivian Police, and an enthusiastic group of uniformed policemen with caps that had dog ears and makeup of snouts and whiskers on their faces, who were dancing coordinated choreographies.
International
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, diagnosed with a new malignant tumor
The doctors of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, 85, have detected a new malignant tumor, which is why he will start a new treatment, the former governor reported.
“The results confirm a new tumor diagnosed as malignant,” Fujimori (1990-2000) published on his X social network account.
He accompanied the message of a short video that assured that he will give “a new battle” against cancer.
“Just now that I have regained my freedom, it is my turn to fight a new battle. The results confirm a new tumor diagnosed as malignant, so I’m going to start a treatment with my family,” he said.
In it, he recalled that the first time he was diagnosed with leukoplakia in his tongue was 27 years ago, when he was president, and that then, when he was imprisoned, he was again done “several surgeries.”
“In total, I have had six surgeries in the same place. This is how I have been fighting cancer for more than 27 years,” he said.
On April 30, Fujimori underwent an operation to rule out a tumor at the base of the tongue, as detailed at the time by his daughter Keiko Fujimori.
The surgery was performed “after overcoming (Fujimori) an atrial fibrillation crisis.”
The former president (1990-2000), released at the end of last year thanks to a humanitarian pardon received in 2017, underwent cancer treatment in the past for an injury in the oral area and has had recurrent medical attention for the same reason.
Precisely, his medical record was the reason for former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to grant him the pardon before he served 25 years of sentence for crimes against humanity.
International
Petro calls former President Duque a “terrorist” for the “murder” of young people in protests
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, called his predecessor, Iván Duque, a “terrorist” this Friday, for the “murder” of young people during the social outcuse of 2021, in which, according to social organizations, more than 80 people died violently, most of them from police abuses.
“When 60 young people killed by the State die, burned, tortured, when thousands of young people were arrested, the question is then: who was the terrorist? Who should be described as a terrorist?” Petro asked himself at a government act in the city of Cali, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca (southwest).
He then added: “The president of the republic today has to say that the terrorist was not the popular youth, that the terrorist was the State of Colombia and particularly the Government of the (…) Mr. Duque. The 60 killed in Cali by you were not terrorists, the terrorist was you.”
Cali, and especially popular neighborhoods such as Siloé or Puerto Resistencia, were the epicenter of the protests that took place between April and June 2021 against the Government of then-President Duque (2018-2022), which began because of the discomfort at the possible approval of a tax reform.
The social outsting was 83 dead, more than half, allegedly at the hands of the Police. In total, according to the Ministry of Defense, there were more than 14,000 concentrations, marches and blockades since April 28, 2021.
The ruler explained that there are differences in the financing of the presidential campaigns and charged against his predecessor, former President Iván Duque (2018-2022), from whom he said he received financing with illicit money from the deceased drug trafficker José Guillermo Hernández, known as ‘Ñeñe Hernández’.
“There is a big difference between a campaign, that of Duque, between the money of the drug trafficking of Mr. ‘Ñeñe Hernández’, murdered later (in Brazil), or that in another campaign the money of the Spanish owner of Colsanitas prohibited by the Constitution and by law, to a group of organized workers deliver the little they have so that a left-wing party can become in power in Colombia,” he said.
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