Venezuela abuse report drives protesters back to streets

Caracas CNN — On Venezuela’s national Independence Day, rival demonstrations kicked off in the capital city Caracas, fueled by a new UN report describing political detentions and thousands of extrajudicial killings in the country. It was created by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a group Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza has repeatedly criticized as “biased.” The report vividly described a state that’s failing to deliver basic necessities to its people, including the right to food, medical care and freedom of speech. His wife has accused counterintelligence officers of torturing him — an accusation that OHCHR’s findings support: The report described arbitrary detention as a “principal means” of social control for the Maduro administration, and offered evidence of systematic torture for political detainees. 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’.” In 2018 alone, 5,287 Venezuelans were killed while “resisting authority,” the report said, citing the Maduro administration’s own figures. Asked by CNN’s Isa Soares if the country’s opposition movement had lost its momentum after failing to unseat Maduro, Guaido -— who has been recognized by the US and more than 50 other countries as Venezuela’s legitimate leader — nevertheless responded that “the momentum of liberty cannot be lost.” “Our strategy has been to build a majority, to out into the streets, to have international recognition, to denounce the human rights violations, document them, the way they are being presented to the world today,” he said.