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Report on the Periodic Universal Examination of Venezuela in accordance with Resolution 5/1, approved on June 18, 2007 March, 2011
1. COFAVIC, acting as an interested and concerned observer, presents this report on the compliance of Venezuela with its international obligations on human rights. COFAVIC is a non-governmental organization that was born 22 years ago in Venezuela, dedicates itself to the protection and promotion of human rights independently of any doctrine, or party or religious institution and is registered as a non-profit civil association with juridical personality. The information and analyses that are contained in this presentation are all supported and easily verified by published official data.
Executive summary 2. COFAVIC provides in this document information in accordance with the stipulations of the General Guidelines for the Preparation of Information in the Framework of the Periodic Universal Examinationi. This presentation makes known to the Human Rights Council (HRC) the issues of main concern to COFAVIC relative to the difficulties observed during the last four years in the country with regard to the effective fulfillment by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of its obligations under the UN Human Rights Treaties. 3. COFAVIC presents in section A the main legal and institutional frameworks of the State related to the matters of civil protection, right to life, personal integrity and due process. In Section B, questions are posed related to violations of the right to life, personal integrity and freedom in the context of activities of parapolice groups or death squads in Venezuela. Paragraph C highlights the motives of worry to COFAVIC on the violation of the rights of victims to truth, justice and reparations and the
feminization of impunity in cases of violations of human rights committed by death squads or parapolice groups. In Annex 1, COFAVIC sets out recommendations to action directed at the State on how to tackle the motives for concern.
Introduction 4. The phenomenon known as “death squads” or “parapolice groups in Venezuela” is intimately tied to the widespread impunity that characterizes the administration of justice in the country. According to official numbers that we will detail presently, approximately 8,000 people in the last 9 years have been the victims of extrajudicial executions committed by death squads or parapolice groups. 5. As will be illustrated further on, the activities of death squads or parapolice groups are taking hold as a pattern of violations of human rights and are principally a product of institutional insufficiency, high levels of corruption, non-professionalism of the police organizations and impunity. In the last four years this situation has already become general and reached national dimensions.
A. Legal and Institutional Framework of the State 6. Internationally, Venezuela has signed and ratified important instruments for the protection of human rights.ii Although in Venezuela some legal advances have been made related to the prohibition of torture and of the crime of forced disappearance, particularly in the Constitution of 1999 and in the Organic Procedural Penal Code, and the most important International Agreements relative to the forced disappearance of persons and other serious violations of human rights have been ratified, both torture and forced disappearances are not protected adequately in the Venezuelan Penal Code; this causes serious difficulties when the persons responsible for these practices are to be punishediii. 7. The right to protection that the State is to provide within a framework of respect to Human Rights when faced with threats against public safety and security is guaranteed in article 55 of the Venezuelan Constitution. We see with worry that there exist provisions in the Constitution, such as in article 328, that allow for the participation of military forces in the safeguarding of internal order in Venezuela. In this manner, article 20 of the Organic Law for the Security of the Nation provides for the cooperation of the Armed Forces in the preservation of internal order. COFAVIC believes that, in a democratic system, a clear and defined separation is fundamental between interior
security and safety as a function of the Police and national defense as a function of the Armed Forces. The national government created the National Bolivarian Police in 2009 as mandated by the Organic Law for Police Service and the National Bolivarian Police Force, with officers chosen from the Metropolitan Police, the Transport and Terrestrial Transit Vigilance Force and the University Institute of Scientific Police.iv 8. It is of special worry to witness the systematical nonperformance on the part of the Venezuelan State of the recommendationsv and decisionsvi of the Inter-American system of Human Rights in local cases relative to the disproportionate use of the Public Force and the plans for adequate control of public ordervii.
B. Violations to the rights to life, personal integrity and freedom in the context of the activities of vigilante groups in Venezuela
Generalized violence in Venezuela 9. There has been in Venezuela a significant increase of violence with serious incidence in civil safety and security. 10. It is necessary to highlight that, according to numbers from the National Institute of Statistics (from now on INE), Venezuela registered “19.133 murders in 2009, which places the murder rate of the country at "75 for every 100.000 inhabitants"viii. According to the INE study, of the total of murders registered in 2009, 79.48 per cent (15,191) were committed by firearms, whereas the remainder 20,52 with some other type of weapon. 81.13% of those murdered were men and 18,87% women, according to this official study which also classifies the victims by age and points out that 44.12 percent were between 25 and 44 years; 36.61 percent were between 15 and 24; 14.17 percent between 45 and 64; 2.82 percent more than 65 years and 1.74 percent between 0 and 14 years of age. The INE document adds that the majority of the victims belonged to the most depressed sectors of society: 56.52 per cent (10,802) to the fourth socioeconomic stratum and 27.12 per cent (5.182) to the fifth.ix 11. It is to be highlighted as well that in the study being referred to on VictimizaciĂłn and Perception of Civil Security and Safety 2009, among the results obtained there is that 43.75% of the persons who did not denounce the events affirm that they did not do so because they know or believe that the police took part in the crimes committed. It is also stated that 81.21% of the victims of crimes point out that they did not receive institutional support and in 74.13% of the cases it is demonstrated that the police does
not act with professionalism in its dealings with the citizens and in 16.3%, they act violently. In 83.15%, citizens think that the police do not pay attention to them and in 95,86 % they assess that the police do not act promptly.x Existence of a modus operandi in extrajudicial executions 12. The practice of unlawful and arbitrary detentions followed by extrajudicial executions as well as of the excessive and indiscriminate use of force attributable to police forces is a phenomenon that has deepened in Venezuela. The Attorney General’s Office has admitted that the majority of the persons responsible for these actions are active members of security forces and have had wide experience in detentions and in the raising of leads and clues, which has made difficult the clear identification of the guiltyxi. 13. The most common types of abuse of force are, among others: arbitrary and violent detentions, beatings, maltreatments and humiliations; all of these are considered routine daily acts of police activity, in the understanding that it is not only a case of physical outrage but also the psychological and verbal maltreatment towards individuals.xii The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman (Defensoría del Pueblo) showed that extrajudicial executions happen “as a police mechanism to guarantee safety […] [by which] it was possible to restore capital punishment extra-officially or de facto by the employment on the part of the police forces of mechanisms of violence that damage the fundamental right to life and the principles of justice, solidarity and respect towards a human being".xiii In 2008, the The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman pointed out that a total of 134 denunciations were received related to the arbitrary deprivation of life, all under the pattern of executionsxiv. 14. The number of cases of extrajudicial executions under the form of multiple murders has increased in the last four years. Furthermore, in an important number of cases there are victims affected directly by various crimes against human rights. Some of the victims were murdered at the same time, as was the case in the beginning with the Mendoza familyxv in the State of Portuguesa, or several members of the family group are murdered progressively, as is the case of the Barrios family,xvi in the State of Aragua. In other cases, the victims are detained illegally and arbitrarily and they suffered direct violations to their right to personal integrity. Another way of proceeding in these crimes is done by performing related acts that are also crimes against human rights.xvii. An increasing number of the families affected in these cases are forced to
move from their homes due to diverse threats and harassments made against them and their loved ones, which entails a sudden change in their way of life with important physical and moral damages.
Profile of the victims 15. Young people from the poor urban barrios are the groups most affected by police repression and the so-called parapolice groupsxviii. A confirmation of the affected population group is that the The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman indicated in the year 2006 that of a total of 144 cases registered individually, the profile of the victims showed 135 adults and 9 adolescentsxix. In the majority of these cases some general features repeated themselves: the victims were male (143) and aged between 17 and 33 years (71) that lived in poor urban zones. This information has also been corroborated by the Venezuelan State; in its report of May, 2005, the Independent Expert to the United Nations Secretary General indicated that according to statistics of the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman “41% of the victims of extrajudicial executions associated with the control of the citizen safety and security (crime) are between 15 and 20 years of age”xx
Scope of the performances of the vigilante groups 16. Due to the magnitude of the activities of the parapolice groups or death squads in the country, diverse State organisms have progressively recognized the problem, although regrettably this has not translated into a significant reduction of the impunity gap that is prevalent in these cases. An example of this is that in its report for the year 2006, The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman of Venezuela repeated their grave concern as regards the summary executions that have ocurred in the last few years. The Obudsman highlighted that this phenomenon is caused by “the gravest consequence of a logic of repression existing inside the security forces of the State” and that is present “in the majority of the police forces in the country”xxi. The numbers published by this organism point out that a total of 179 denunciations referred to the arbitrary deprivation of life were received in the year 2006. 17. In 2007, the facts were so incontrovertible that the Attorney General’s Office had to recognize the existence of extrajudicial executions practically in the whole country, presented under the police term of "confrontations". In its 2007Annual Report, the Attorney General’s Office informed that, between January, 2000 and November, 2007,
it received 6.405 denunciations of cases from “executions or confrontations” that involved 7,243 victimsxxii. These numbers reveal that approximately 900 persons are murdered annually by the police forces. 18. The areas in the country where the situation is more serious, according to this report of the Attorney General’s Office, are the Metropolitan Area of Caracas, with 1,596 cases; Bolivar, with 809; Anzoátegui, with 674; Zulia, with 626 and Aragua, with 405xxiii. The Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations Force (CICPC) is the institution with more officers involved in alleged executions (1,295). Nevertheless, the immense majority of the murders are attributed to regional and municipal police officers, in which 3.675 officials of these bodies have been singled out as performing executions and trying to cover them up as confrontationsxxiv. From this report of the Attorney General’s Office one concludes that, in eight years, the Attorney General’s Office has presented 436 accusations in which 1,237 police officials were involved. 19. During the year 2008, the Attorney General’s Office indicated that 600 cases of executions were registered, for which 74 officers were detained and 22 have been condemned by the corresponding courts. In 2010, the Attorney General’s Office in its annual report for 2009, pointed out that 9,224 cases were filed on supposed violations of human rights and 9,610 decisions took place (named “egresses” in the above-mentioned report) among which they highlight 4,899 dossiers (50.98 %); 3,711 requests for dismissal (38.62 %); 685 (7,13 %) rejections and only 315 (3.28 %) resulted in formal criminal charges. Although in this report the types of violations of human rights are not specified, these numbers offered by the Attorney General’s Office reveal, nevertheless, the highest level of impunity; of the universe of decisions taken, only 3.28% correspond to cases actually presented before the courtsxxv. These statistics from the Attorney General’s Office by themselves confirm the serious situation of impunity that prevails in relation to violations of human rights committed in the country and are a clear explanation of the growth of the violence in which we live.
C. Breach of the rights of victims to truth, to justice and reparations and the feminization of impunity 20. Impunity and the limitations in the access to justice are structural in Venezuela and they affect all the victims of violations of human rights. In the cases of extrajudicial executions there is the undeniable existence of a widespread situation of impunity which, according to The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, is favored by three
principal elements: i) the acceptance of the idea of a police confrontation even by the citizenry; ii) the exemplification by the media of these practices as “an effective tool to fight the high rates of insecurity” and iii) the ignorance in society of their rights and guarantees as well as of the means to defend themxxvi. 21. the Attorney General’s Office has also referred to the topic of impunityxxvii indicating that “when a government employee commits a crime against human rights, the technical-scientific procedures of criminal investigation are performed by a colleague or partner; this situation might imply that, in the investigation, the elements of proof found in the crime scene could be manipulated, made meaningless, contaminated or adulterated”, thus obstructing that the investigation be carried out impartially and making difficult the establishment of responsibilities. 22. To this there are joined other practices and mechanisms of impunity that can be related to the growth and deployment of the so called parapolice groups or death squads: i) in many cases the crime scene where the execution happens is altered, the victim is moved to a different and even distant place from where the events happened and weapons and psychotropic substances are placed at the scene. This also is instrumental in the construction of a fictitious penal dossier, which obstructs, if it not renders impossible, the work of criminal investigation; ii) the use of head masks to conceal the identity of the officer as well as the employment in some cases of taxis or vehicles without license plates; iii) after denouncing the facts, relatives and witnesses are threatened and pursued by policexxviii. 23. Furthermore, the denouncers of cases of extrajudicial executions committed by parapolice groups or death squads are generally women. Among them there are the mothers, sisters, wives or daughters of the victims. They mostly suffer a serious process of re-victimization once they denounce the events in which they lost their relatives, since 70% of them are subjected to threats and acts of harassments to inhibit their actions of searching for justice. Because of this, we at COFAVIC have pointed to an increasing feminization of impunity that have very deep effects in the life projects of these women and affect their physical and mental health and their intra-family relationships. Committee of Relatives of the Victims of the Events of February-March, 1989 (COFAVIC) Contact Person: Aura Liscano Mail: cofavic@cofavic.org.Web: www.cofavic.org
i
Adopted by means of Decision 6/102 of the Council of Human Rights, pursuant to paragraph I of Resolution 5/1 approved by the Council of Human Rights on September 27, 2007. ii
Universal Declaration of Human rights, the International Agreement on Civil and Political Rights, the Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatments or Sentences and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Woman with its Optional Protocol. Within the OAS, it has ratified the Convention on Rights, the Protocol Relative to the Abolition of Capital Punishment, the Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, the Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons and the Convention to Prevent, Punish and Eradicate Violence against Women (Convention of Belem do Pará). iii
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has yet to ratify the Optional Protocol of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatments or Sentences. iv
This law created the Statute for the Police Function to govern the work and administrative conditions of police personnel in the national territory regulated by means of the Law for the Statute of the Police Function promulgated in the Official Gazette of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela number. 5,940, on December 7, 2009. v
Cfr. Special CIDH Report on Venezuela, “Democracy and Human rights in Venezuela” OEA/Ser. L/V/II. Doc 54. December 30, 2009; Cfr. CIDH. Executive summary. Report on the situation of human rights in Venezuela. Point 13; Cfr. CIDH. Executive summary. Report on the situation of human rights in Venezuela. Point 21. vi
Cfr. Inter-American Court of Human rights (Court IDH) sentences on El Caracazo dated November 11, 1999, series C N.58 and judgment of August 29, 2002, Series C No.95; Court IDH Blanco Romero and others vs Venezuela, decided on November 28, 2005. Series C. Not 138 and IDH Court Montero Aranguren case decided on July 5, 2006, Series C, N.150. vii
Article 23 of the Constitution grants constitutional hierarchy to the agreements signed and ratified by the Republic, provides that they will prevail internally as long as they include more favorable dispositions on the use and exercise of human rights to those established in the Constitution or laws of the Republic and their immediate and direct application shall also be recognized by the courts and other organs of the Public Power. viii
" National Survey of Victimización and Perception of Civil Security 2009, National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela. ix
Op. Cit National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela.
x
Op. Cit National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela. Magazine of the Attorney General’s Office. Number http://www.ministeriopublico.gob.ve/revista/revista_II/Default.html. xi
II,
Year
III.
Pg.
32.
xii
EL ACHKAR, Soraya and RIVEROS, Amaylin. Compilation. National Consultation on Police Reform in Venezuela: A proposal for dialogue and consensus. National Commission for Police Reform. Caracas, 2007. Pg. 49. xiii
The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman presented a preliminary report on extralegal executions. 05-10-2001. http://200.44.98.254/imprimir.asp?sec=200509&id=372&plantilla=8. xiv
xv
Cfr. The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. Venezuela. Annual report 2008. Pg. 206.
In its first stage, the actions of a group of supposed officials assigned to the regional Portuguese police of the state were reported who, according to the stories of the relatives of the victims, were making use of their regulation weapons and uniforms to commit crimes against human rights such as murders and forced disappearances of young people. One of the most emblematic cases in the State of Portuguesa is that of the murders of several members of the Mendoza Family. On November 28, 2000, a group of police
officers of the State of Portuguesa stormed the house of the Mendoza family in Araure, and took with them three of the brothers: Ender (16 years), Gonzalo (28 years) and Alexander Mendoza (25 years). Hours later, their relatives found them without life in the Morgue of the J.M Casal Ramos Hospital, as was demonstrated in the judgment dated August 31, 2005, pronounced by the Seventeenth Trial Court of the Metropolitan Area. On October 15, 2002 the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights of the OAS granted precautionary measures in favor of Mariela Mendoza Carvajal and Carlos Gilberto Mendoza Carvajal, along with a group of relatives of the victims of the extermination groups who operate in Portuguesa, due to the threats allegedly made by active officers assigned to the Portuguesa Police. On July 16, 2004, Mariela Mendoza, who had assumed the public denunciation of the murders of her brothers, was shot at the door of her house by firearm in the town of Araure, Portuguesa. On May 18, 2010 the fourth member of the family, Elvis Mendoza, was murdered in his place of work by police officers. xvi
In 1998, the first member of the Barrios family was murdered, Benito Antonio. On December 11, 2003 Narcissus Barrios was murdered by alleged police agents of the State of Aragua. Later, on June 19, 2004, Jorge Barrios and Oscar Barrios were detained by a commission police and threatened with death in addition to being kicked in the face and body. On September 20, 2004, Luis Barrios was murdered in his house in the state Aragua. On January 9, 2005, Rigoberto Barrios, of 16 years and another member died from multiple bullet impacts, allegedly caused by three hooded persons. The Barrios family has also been a victim of threats, harassments and intimidations; house searches, theft and fire of belongings; arbitrary deprivations of their freedom; violation of domicile and offences to their integrity. The Inter-American Court of Human rights granted them, on September 24, 2004, provisional measures of protection of life and personal integrity. On November 28, 2009, Mr. Oscar Barrios was attacked by two men dressed in black clothes and hoods who without saying a word shot him repeatedly. According to the denunciations the clothing was of the same type that is used by the Aragua police to cover their heads. This case remains unpunished at the national instances and because of this the Organization Justice and Peace Aragua and the Center for Justice and International law (CEJIL) presented it before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on March 14, 2007. On July 26, 2010 the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights submitted this case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. xvii
On January 1, 2001, approximately at 12 noon, Néstor José Uzcategui was inside his residence located in Coro, Falcon together with his family when a commission integrated by officers of the Direction of Police Investigation (DIPE) and of the Lynx Group, an elite unit of the Armed Police Forces of the State of Falcon, stormed violently into the Uzcategui family home; Néstor was murdered and his brothers Luis and Carlos arrested arbitrarily. During the storming of the house, the police officials destroyed furniture and other family belongings and struck several members of the Uzcategui family. Due to the constant acts of threats, harassments and aggressions received by Mr. Luis Enrique Uzcategui from the moment he denounced the murder of his brother Néstor José, on November 27, 2002, the Inter-American Court of Human rights granted him provisional measures. This case remains unpunished at the national instances and because of this COFAVIC and the Center for the Justice and International Law presented it before the Inter-American Commission of Human rights on March 14, 2007. xviii
They are civilian groups of functionaries assigned to the regional police, who, abusing their official functions, murder, disappear, threaten or injure persons previously selected by informal mechanisms of intelligence linked to state institutions. xix
Cfr. The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. Venezuela. Annual report 2006. pg. 601.
xx
Cfr. Report of the State of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela by the Independent Expert of the Secretariat of the United Nations. Questionnaire: Study on Violence against Boys, Girls and Adolescents. May, 2005. Pg.56 xxi
Cfr. The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. Annual report 2006. Venezuela
xxii
Cfr. the Attorney General’s Office. Annual report 2007. Directorate for Fundamental Rights. Caracas, 2008. Published in www.fiscalia.gov.ve xxiii
Ibídem
xxiv
Cfr. the Attorney General’s Office. Annual report 2007. Direction of Fundamental Rights. Caracas, 2008. Pgs. 493-496. Published in www.fiscalia.gov.ve xxv
Cfr. the Attorney General’s Office. Annual report 2009, published in www.fiscalia.gov.ve
xxvi
The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman indicated: The first one of them is the acceptance of the rhetoric of a police confrontation on the part of the organisms entrusted to enforce the law and also by the citizenry, by virtue of which the respective criminal investigations are not done. The second element that protects impunity is the treatment – to be sure permissive – by many in the communication media in the states affected by this phenomenon, which present the event as an effective tool to fight the high indices of insecurity. Finally, another of the motives that favors impunity is the general ignorance on the part of the citizenry of their rights and guarantees, as well as of the means to defend them. The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman indicated Yearbook 2001. Chapter 7. Section 7.1.3. xxvii
Cfr. Magazine of the Attorney General’s Office. Number II, Year III. Pg. 32. http://www.ministeriopublico.gob.ve/revista/revista_II/Default.html. CIDH. Democracy and Human Rights in Venezuela. Paragraph 794. Pág.215. xxviii
Cfr. The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. Yearbook 2003. pg. 65 and 66. To see also: Amnesty International. Venezuela. Silent weeping: serious violations of human rights of children. 1997.