The government of Nicholas Maduro had lobbied intensely to retain his chair in the United Nations Human Rights Council. But this Tuesday he has not reached the votes for his re-election and Chile and Costa Rica have entered the Latin American quotas that were renewed. The loss of this space occurs days following the report of the Fact-Finding Mission was debated in that same instance, documenting human rights violations in Venezuela, for which Maduro and other high-ranking officials have been held responsible, and that the same council decided to extend the mandate of this investigative body for two more years.
The record of torture, arbitrary arrests and persecution of opponents has been fueled by reports from the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the independent mission and also the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court, which opened an investigation into Venezuela, currently paralyzed at the request of the Government. which tries to show that local justice has acted in the cases for which it is accused and has imprisoned those responsible.
Venezuela entered the Human Rights Council in 2019 for the period 2020-2022 and presented its candidacy for re-election during a vote at the UN headquarters in New York, while 12 other countries won a seat on the body. To repeat, 97 votes were required and Venezuela only obtained 88, while Chile reached 144 and Costa Rica134.
Member countries are elected by majority vote by the UN General Assembly for a three-year term and countries are not eligible for immediate re-election following serving two consecutive terms.
The director of the NGO Acceso a la Justicia, Alí Daniels, celebrates that the government of Nicolás Maduro, which is “marked for crimes once morest humanity”, has not been elected to the council. “The fundamental requirement to be a member of the council, in accordance with the regulations that regulate it, is that it meets the standards of compliance with human rights and, obviously, this is not the case in Venezuela,” said the lawyer. “It would have been an enormous injustice if consolidated democracies that respect human rights like the Chilean or the Costa Rican were defeated by Venezuela,” he said.
Last Friday, despite the warnings from Venezuela to condition bilateral relations with the countries that support renewing the mandate of the Independent Mission to Determine the Facts in the South American country, the members of the United Nations Human Rights Council decided that this instance will continue its work. The three reports that the mission has issued have been among the strongest blows that the government of Nicolás Maduro has received, which is struggling to open up to the international community that condemns it for the authoritarian drift in Venezuela. For the Venezuelan authorities, the complaints collected by the UN experts are “fake news”.
The resolution to continue the mandate of the mission, proposed by Paraguay, was approved with 19 votes in favor, 5 once morest, 23 abstentions. The Maduro government obtained the support of its usual allies: China, Cuba, Bolivia, Eritrea and its own vote of rejection. Among the abstentions were those of Argentina, which chairs the council, Mexico and Honduras, with governments that have recently resumed full relations with Miraflores, following leftist leaders came to power.
