Venezuelan Deathsquads denounced

It's not new that Venezuelan government use illegal forces and militia to murder the population in order to maintain the Chavist government in power. Recently the Security Forces were accused on use the Death Squads to make up and fake situations to murder the oppositon in a systemic using these situatons to make up the scenarios, as resisting prison, reacting armed or using the deathsquads to simulate robbery following of murder. The situation was taken to UN and came in public for investigation.

The register is over 5.200 murders in 2018, pleading that the occurrences was resisting the authoridy commands, as according to the High Comissioner of UN for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. She also related that other 1.569 deaths were registered in the first semester of 2019 and many of them were out-of-court executions. According to the data, Maduro's regime executed a strategy to neutralize, repress and criminalize the political adversareal, and critics of the government.

US also complaint that there is a high level of militarization in the public/state Institutions during the last dacede, pointing the civilian and military forces for arbitrary prisons, torture, kidnap and mistreatment of the oposition. The specialists made almost 600 interviews with victims of these violations and the results were that the government is using force against the own population and commiting crimes to shut the population by fear of the systemic machine.

The families of the victims describes the militias as masked men of the Venezuela Special Action Forces (FAES), uniformed in black and come in pickup trucks with no register plaque. According to these relates, the deathsquads invaded their houses, take material belongings, and use violence and sexual harassement against women and girls, taking their clothes and touching them in front of the men, fathers, etc. "They separate the young men to the others before shoot them".

In every case, the witnesses related that FAES manipulated the crime scene and the proofs, planting weapons and drugs, shoot against the walls, doors, to insinuate a previous confront before the murdering.

According to UN the security are also blamed by sexual violence, rape, sexual abuse in prison, during the family visits or friends.

The document describes specific cases of civilian armed groups that suports the governments known as "Colectivos" (Collectives), and the document points 66 deaths that happened in the protests realized between january and may of 2019. 52 of these are related to the security forces and its alies to the chavist.

UN brings related abusive force, force prison, between them women, deputies, and the arbitary liberty privacy of Juan Guaidó, that lost the parliamentary immunity in abusive form. Bacelet requested a impartial investigation about the death of the Captain of Venezuelan Navy Rafael Arévalo Acosta, that seemed to be tortured and murdered in prison.

The lack of freedom of speech is being also deterioraring, with the attempt of the government impose the own version of the facts and forma a scenario that the independent media and journalism must be under their own bias. Few people relate it because they are afraid of retaliation.

Após a divulgação do documento, o governo venezuelano contestou as conclusões e acusou a ONU de parcialidade.

Caracas hypocritically accused the UN on use 82% of the interviews out of Venezuela.

Venezuela's army death squads kill thousands — UN

A UN report has detailed the extrajudicial executions of thousands of young men by special forces. The report says that the death squads are carrying out President Maduro's strategy for neutralizing political opponents.

https://www.dw.com/en/venezuelas-army-death-squads-kill-thousands-un/a-49477147

Venezuelan security forces have been sending death squads to commit extrajudicial killings of young men, according to a United Nations report released on Thursday. The crime scenes are then staged to make it look like the victims were resisting arrest.

Caracas has said that about 5,287 people died last year when they refused to be detained by officers, and that this has been the case for a further 1,569 through the middle of May this year. However, the UN report suggests that many of these deaths were actually extrajudicial executions.

The report relays the accounts of 20 families, who say that masked men dressed in black from the Special Actions Forces (FAES) arrived at their homes in black vehicles without license plates. They then broke into their houses, assaulted the women and girls and stole belongings.

"They would separate young men from other family members before shooting them," the report said.

"In every case, witnesses reported how FAES manipulated the crime scene and evidence. They would plant arms and drugs and fire their weapons against the walls or in the air to suggest a confrontation and to show the victim had 'resisted authority.'"

Venezuela calls report 'biased'

According to the report, the deaths were an integral part of President Nicolas Maduro's campaign of "neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing political opponents and people critical of the government."

Venezuela said the report "privileges negative testimonies to the extreme, while hiding or minimizing measures adopted to advance human rights." It added that the research was "not objective or impartial."

Maduro's government went on to call the document "openly biased" for not also addressing visits to hospitals, jails, and medicine and food distribution centers by UN observers.

"There are countless inaccuracies, errors, facts taken out of context and false assertions," the government said.

Venezuela has been gripped for years by a humanitarian and political crisis, brought on by Maduro's economic policies, power grabs, and declining oil revenues. Maduro has blamed the crisis on US sanctions aimed at forcing Maduro to resign.

UN report: Venezuela death squads kill young men, stage scenes

Security forces conduct 'shockingly high' number of extrajudicial killings, new report by UN rights chief says.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/report-venezuela-death-squads-kill-young-men-stage-scenes-190704170704105.html

Venezuelan security forces are sending death squads to murder young men and stage the scenes to make it look like the victims resisted arrest, a new UN report said.

Government figures showed deaths ascribed to criminals resisting arrest numbered 5,287 last year and 1,569 by May 19 this year. The report, issued on Thursday by United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, decried a "shockingly high" number of extrajudicial killings.

Families of 20 men described how masked men dressed in black from Venezuela's Special Action Forces (FAES) arrived in black pick-up trucks without licence plates. Witnesses said the death squads broke into houses, took belongings, and assaulted women and girls, sometimes stripping them naked.

"They would separate young men from other family members before shooting them," the UN report said.

"In every case, witnesses reported how FAES manipulated the crime scene and evidence. They would plant arms and drugs and fire their weapons against the walls or in the air to suggest a confrontation and to show the victim had 'resisted authority'," it added.

The report - which drew on 558 victim accounts, witnesses of violence and other sources - said the killings were part of a strategy by the government of President Nicolas Maduro aimed at "neutralising, repressing and criminalising political opponents and people critical of the government".

Interviewees consistently referred to FAES as a "death squad" or "extermination group". NGOs say it is responsible for hundreds of killings.  

'Venezuelans deserve a better life'

Bachelet visited Venezuela last month and will present the report to the UN Human Rights Council on Friday.

The UN also released a written response to its findings by Venezuela's government, which called the report a "selective and openly partial vision" about the human rights situation in the South American country. It argued the UN relied on "sources lacking in objectivity" and ignored official information.

"An analysis that privileges negative testimonies to the extreme, while hiding or minimising measures adopted to advance human rights, is not objective or impartial," read the government's response.

Bachelet said in a statement that she had the government's commitment to work with the United Nations to resolve some of the thorniest issues, including the use of torture and access to justice, and to allow full access to detention facilities.

"I sincerely hope the authorities will take a close look at all the information included in this report and will follow its recommendations. We should all be able to agree that all Venezuelans deserve a better life," Bachelet said. 

"A Catholic priest in Caracas said to me: 'This is not about politics, but about the suffering of the people.' This report too is not about politics, geopolitics, international relations or anything other than being about the human rights to which every Venezuelan is entitled," she added.

'Criminal enterprise'

The UN report came after former Venezuela spy chief Manuel Cristopher Figuera told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Maduro's administration was a "criminal enterprise".

Maduro personally commissioned a coterie of human rights abuses under his watch, including arbitrary detentions and the planting of evidence against opponents, Figuera said.

"I am like a soldier who raises the flag upside-down in the international sign of distress. I am looking for help to free my country from the disgrace that it is living through now," he said.

Figuera defected from the Venezuelan government shortly after being blacklisted by the United States in February over alleged "mass torture, mass human rights violations and mass persecution against those who want democratic change".

Maduro has blasted Figuera as a traitor and accused him of working as a mole for US intelligence services for more than a year.

US President Donald Trump's administration has sanctioned dozens of Venezuelan officials, power brokers and businesses it accuses of raiding public coffers and carrying out human rights abuses against people struggling to survive, as the country collapses amid a spiralling economic and political crisis.

The sanctions list includes Maduro, considered illegitimate by Washington since his re-election in a ballot last year marred by opposition boycotts and allegations of irregularities.

The US and some 50 other nations have since backed Juan Guaido, leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly legislature, in his campaign to overthrow Maduro and assume power.

Maduro, whose main backers also include Russia and China, has accused the US of leading an imperialist economic war against oil-rich Venezuela.