As humanitarian conditions worsen in Venezuela, the government seeks belief in the unbelievable.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on July 4 published a report critical of the Nicolas Maduro regime.
Partly from interviews with 558 individuals and meetings with Venezuelan officials, the study documented “arbitrary detentions, ill-treatment and torture of government critics and their relatives, sexual and gender-based violence in detention and during visits, and excessive use of force during demonstrations,” according to a summary.
The report attributes 66 deaths to government security forces or “colectivos” militias during January-May protests instigated by opposition leader Juan Guaido, whose constitutional claim to the presidency is recognized outside the country.
According to the government, security operations resulted in 5,287 killings last year followed by 1,569 in January-May. “Other sources suggest the figures may be much higher,” the report says.
As of May, 739 people “remained arbitrarily deprived of their liberty, including 58 women.” Twenty-two deputies of the National Assembly, including Guaido, its president, have lost parliamentary immunity.
The oil-dependent economy has collapsed. Oil production, recently 830,000 b/d, is one fourth its level before Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, took power in 1999.
People, mostly women, sometimes spend 10 hr in line waiting to buy food with newly devalued bolivars.
Hospitals lack staff, supplies, medicines, and electricity. Between November 2018 and February 2019, deaths from lack of hospital supplies totaled 1,557.
In an official response, the government faulted the study’s methods and blamed the US for Venezuelan problems.
It also insisted Venezuela has no humanitarian crisis, an assertion difficult to reconcile with the emigration in recent years of at least 3.4 million Venezuelans.
A letter from Maduro to the UN called the report, according to a press statement, “a compendium full of false claims” that “assaults the dignity of Venezuela.”
For the resident of a country wrecked by its government, sick and waiting hours to buy scraps with worthless currency, that must be a howler.
But who would laugh?
(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted July 19, 2019. To comment, join the Commentary channel at www.ogj.com/oilandgascommunity.)