SHARMINI PERIES: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, and I’m coming to you from Baltimore.
Last week, Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile and now the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, gave an initial record primarily based on a fact-finding mission she despatched to Venezuela.
MICHELLE BACHELET: The enjoyment of financial and social rights has deteriorated dramatically because of Junsinceat, which became the last time there was a report on Venezuela. Vulnerable populations, including children, pregnant women, the elderly, and Indigenous peoples, were particularly affected.
Although this pervasive and devastating financial and social disaster commenced earlier than the imposition of the first economic sanctions in 2017, I am worried that the latest consent on financial switch related to the sale of Venezuelan oil within the United States may also contribute to anxiety about the economic disaster with possible repercussions on humans’ primary rights and properly-being. I’m also profoundly involved in shrinking the democratic space, specifically the ongoing criminalization of non-violent protest and dissent. Excellencies and divisions are exacerbating an already critical situation. There is a want for informal settlement on a political answer via all stakeholders with moves to enhance an extensive range of urgent human rights troubles. I call on the government to demonstrate dedication to addressing the many hard problems mentioned across the USA.
SHARMINI PERIES: The former UN Special Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas jointly criticized Michelle Bachelet’s report because the chair of the Human Rights Commission had added. He calls it unprofessional and politicized.
ALFRED DE ZAYAS: We are swimming in an ocean of lies. I have to say, after I went to Venezuela, I expected to discover a humanitarian crisis. I became determined to find a humanitarian disaster. I walked the streets. I spoke to people of all kinds. And that became no longer the case — that approach I had been manipulated. I had been lied to. And I resent that. But if all you need to do is say Maduro is corrupt and Maduro is a criminal, then you’re no longer in all likelihood to get any cooperation from the government. Most important, permits aid the Montevideo mechanism. This is the way ahead.
SHARMINI PERIES: That changed into Alfred de Zayas, a professor of extensive regulation at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and an unbiased professional appointed by the Human Rights Council. He joins us nowadays from Geneva. Welcome, Professor Zayas.
ALFRED DE ZAYAS: Good to be here.
SHARMINI PERIES: Professor Zayas, let’s get to the meat of the troubles right here. When you went to Venezuela, you discovered a political crisis and a polarized situation. However, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet from Chile, knows the area well. She seems to be in distinction in your document. Tell us the primary purpose for that.
ALFRED DE ZAYAS: Do you observe that Michelle Bachelet writes her record? Reviews are written with the aid of the secretary. The team that drafted the revisions of Zeid, who additionally didn’t write his investigations, the team is the same. So, except you exchange the crew that did an unprofessional job doing reports for Zeid, we are, of the path, at risk of getting any other unprofessional, one-sided political pamphlet now. However, the difference is that Zeid never went to Venezuela, whereas Michelle Bachelet has shown goodwill and the hobby of going and seeing for herself. That is like me. What do you believe you studied–I was under great pressure after I went. A few NGOs dictated what should be in my document, and I told them, “Go jump into the lake.”
SHARMINI PERIES: There are NGOs, Professor Zayas. Nand ow, regarding the give-up of your clip when you were making a presentation on the Human Rights Council, you didn’t have sufficient time to explain your findings and tackle what goes on in Venezuela. But you said something fundamental there. You stated that even before going to Venezuela, you had been fed an ocean of lies. Explain that to us.
ALFRED DE ZAYAS: Well, I’m a professional. I’m an attorney. And I read the entirety earlier than taking place an undertaking as sensitive and critical as this one. I examine all of the reviews of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Venezuela, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, et cetera, et cetera, also reviews–using the way a good deal more advantageous–the discussions over the Human Rights Committee on Venezuela, the reports of the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights on Venezuela. Now, while the reviews of the expert committees have been stable and balanced, on one aspect of the opposite facet of the reports, particularly of Human Rights Watch, I was, as an alternative, dissatisfied with how politicized, how one side they have been, and how they completely overlooked all different evidence.
They systematically fed me with the idea that the demonstrators are non-violent, that the government is legitimate, that the government is a dictatorship, et cetera, et cetera. All I can say is that my experience having spoken to members of the competition, to the National Assembly, to the Chamber of Commerce, to professors and church buildings and civil society, also talked to the ministries, et cetera, is that we of a is polarised. You would be on one side that wants to pass back to the best old days while the wealthy were rich and the bad were terrible, and need to throw out of the window all the social legislation of Chavez and Maduro. The opposite 50 percent is going to combat teeth and nails to keep human rights beneath Chavez and Maduro.
