MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Hundreds of arbitrary killings by Venezuela security forces, claims UN

These officers may have killed more than 500 people since July 2015 as a way to showcase crime-reduction results

Venezuelan security forces have carried out hundreds of arbitrary killings under the guise of fighting crime, the UN's human rights body says. In the report it cites “shocking”accounts of young men being killed during operations, often in poor districts, over the past three years.

The UN's human rights chief said no-one was being held to account, suggesting the rule of law was “virtually absent”. Venezuela has in the past dismissed human rights allegations as “lies”. But the country is going through a protracted political and economic crisis.

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves. When populist President Hugo Chávez was in power, from 1999 until his death in 2013, he used oil money to finance social programs. But the opposition says much of the income was lost to mismanagement, patronage, and corruption.

Critics accuse Mr Chavez's successor, President Nicolás Maduro, of using increasingly authoritarian tactics as the economy collapsed, prompting hundreds of thousands of people to flee abroad.
Last year dozens of protesters were killed in clashes during protests against hyperinflation and food shortages. Mr Maduro was re-elected in May, in a poll boycotted by the opposition and criticised by the UN and other international bodies.

The UN Human Rights Office alleges that extra-judicial killings were carried out by officers involved with the Operations for the Liberation of the People, ostensibly a crime-reduction initiative.

These officers may have killed more than 500 people since July 2015 as a way to showcase crime-reduction results. UN officials were denied access to Venezuela and they made their findings from interviews with about 150 witnesses and victims contacted through “internet-based technologies”, the report says.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, accused Venezuela of failing to acknowledge the depth of its crisis.

“When a box of hypertension pills costs more than the monthly minimum wage and baby milk formula more than two months' salary, but protesting against such an impossible situation can land you in jail, the extreme injustice of it all is stark,” he added.

Mr Hussein suggested the International Criminal Court could become involved.