Maduro’s Venezuelan Fury

By Ana Leca

Monday, March 18, 2024

 

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) recently brought together civil-society leaders from across Latin American for a series of hearings. The hearings on the plight of political prisoners and human-rights defenders in Venezuela hit especially close to home — a home that I fled after it was taken over by socialism, poverty, and oppression.

 

In the 20th century, Venezuela quickly became one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America after discovering vast oil reserves. That all changed when Hugo Chávez seized power. Elected democratically following a failed military coup, Chávez moved to entrap Venezuela in his socialist system of corruption, greed, and clientelism — or, as he called it, the “Bolivarian Revolution.”

 

Year by year, the nation that my parents grew up in withered away. When democracy threatened to vote the regime out of power, Chávez changed the electoral system. When Chávez died, his successor, Nicolás Maduro, established rule by decree and quickly launched an “economic war.” The causalities of this conflict were seen in bank accounts and on the dinner table as inflation skyrocketed, the regime cut services, and the people starved.

 

The Venezuela that I fled is not the country of my childhood. The Venezuela of today, as civil-society leaders testified before the IACHR, is ruled by a despotic regime so afraid of losing its grip on power that it oppresses, imprisons, and tortures those who dare speak out. Currently there are around 300 political prisoners, all subjects of psychological and/or of physical torture. The regime monitors and tracks their family, friends, and associates.

 

The Maduro regime calls its campaign against human-rights defenders “Bolivarian Fury.” And those brave enough to resist the regime suffer that fury inside El Helicoide, the largest torture center in the Americas.

 

While invited to the IACHR’s hearings, the Maduro regime did not attend. If it had, it would have been forced to bear witness to the victims of their torture. Villca Fernández, a former political prisoner, spent three years at El Helicoide for telling the current president of the Venezuelan Congress, Diosdado Cabello, on social media, that he was not afraid of him. “Welcome to hell, that is what they told me when I got there,” Fernández said.

 

At the hearing, Carlos Ramírez recalled being arrested and moved around the country so that his lawyers could not speak with him or on his behalf in court. “They would hit us for sport, to make us ‘tougher,’” he said. He spent 17 days with his head covered as he was tortured and forced to listen to his fellow inmates being brutalized. Aside from beatings, he recounted, in graphic detail, electric shock and asphyxiation at the hands of captors. Even the crucifix around his neck was ripped off and smashed by the guards. After more than six months, Ramírez was released under misdemeanor charges. The official who ordered his torture, Ramírez claims, is now living in Miami under political asylum.

 

Rocío San Miguel, a human-rights lawyer, testified that she was arrested for simply doing her job — standing up for the rights of Venezuelans. Tragically, the Maduro regime arrested her family following her imprisonment. Génesis Dávila, head of Defiende Venezuela, testified on behalf of Venezuelan human-rights lawyers, explaining that the treatment of San Miguel and her family is not a tragic glitch in the Venezuelan system, it’s a brutal feature.

 

Kelvi Zambrano, a defender of political prisoners in Venezuela who was forced to flee the country to avoid being imprisoned himself, added context to the state of human rights under Maduro: “In Venezuela, there are no citizens, only enemies of the state. The individual is nullified.”

 

These tragic testimonies are not stories from a faraway and war-torn regime in the past. They are modern-day accounts from brave souls fighting for their rights in America’s backyard. It’s time that the free world lends a voice to the victims of Maduro’s regime. Authoritarianism, the deprivation of human dignity, and grotesque torture should not be the norm in a once prosperous country — but sadly, that is the reality of Venezuela today.