Relatives of two protesters killed during protests in Venezuela in 2014 testified this week before an Argentine court. In hearings lasting up to three hours, the victims testified in the case opened a year ago in Buenos Aires for alleged crimes against humanity perpetrated by Venezuelan security forces. The Clooney Foundation for Justice, the plaintiff, appealed to universal jurisdiction to request that Argentina investigate the possible systematic plan of repression orchestrated by the forces that answer to the Government of Nicolás Maduro. The statement given by three victims represents the biggest advance so far in the case.
“I have taken a big burden off my shoulders,” one of the victims told the trial lawyer, Ignacio Jovtis, when the hearing ended after days of many nerves. “I think that in Argentina a window of justice has opened for them, that justice that was denied to them for so many years. Having the possibility of speaking in front of the judges implies a first step towards reparation,” the lawyer declared to EL PAÍS. “It was intense, but [las víctimas] “They felt well treated and respected,” she said this Friday.
According to the complaint, the organized attack against the civilian population between February and May 2014 “responded to a State policy” and the murder of more than twenty protesters at the hands of the security forces was part of a systematic plan of repression.
“We are not talking about isolated crimes, but we believe that they are crimes that fit the same pattern,” says Jovtis, who has been working on this case for two years. He says that he interviewed dozens of people throughout Venezuela and their testimonies reveal that in different regions of the country there were people “detained, tortured and released in a remarkably similar way.”
The Venezuelan justice system has refused to investigate the high-ranking officers of the Bolivarian National Guard and has limited itself to judging the responsibility of lower-ranking officers, which is why the Clooney Foundation has turned to the Argentine justice system. It has handed over 15,000 pages of evidence to accuse by name and surname those it considers guilty of the two crimes for which it is demanding justice. “What we are seeking is for the justice system to identify and condemn those criminally responsible,” says Jovtis.
The complaint regrets that it cannot provide more details about the cases represented due to the security risk that their families face today, despite the time that has passed since the reported crimes. “Reporting any violation of human rights in Venezuela requires a very great degree of courage because the risks are not theoretical but real, as we saw with Rocío San Miguel,” details the lawyer, in reference to the activist detained since February accused of being part of of an alleged conspiracy to assassinate Maduro. The Venezuelan prosecutor’s office also detained San Miguel’s daughter, her husband, her ex-husband and two more of her relatives, although after she released them all with charges except her.
For years, the United Nations has been denouncing the multiple human rights violations committed in Venezuela. According to this international organizationthe Venezuelan intelligence services “function as well-coordinated and effective structures for the execution of a plan, orchestrated from the highest levels of the Government, to repress dissent by committing crimes against humanity.”
![A police officer fires a rubber bullet at protesters on May 8, 2014 in Caracas.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/CXINJQVRH5GBZITACCCPFK7XBA.jpg?auth=c6fd6efcd2b375689fe378d6445edee9ed3f1d98244b39a20814ed0e42b45f86&width=414)
Faced with the paralysis of the Venezuelan courts, these crimes are investigated in parallel in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and in the Argentine justice system through the application of international jurisdiction, which allows countries to prosecute the most serious crimes regardless of the place where they are located. have been committed and the nationality of the perpetrator or the victim. At the beginning of the year, an Argentine lower court judge closed the case and asked to refer it to the ICC, but a higher court ordered it reopened in April. Since then, the Argentine justice system has requested several measures of evidence and has taken statements this week from three victims.
Amnesty International (AI) presented an amicus curiae to support the case promoted by the Clooney Foundation considering that “the Venezuelan justice system has demonstrated that it does not have the will or capacity to genuinely and adequately investigate, prosecute and criminally punish the perpetrators of serious human rights crimes in their domestic jurisdiction, even less so against those who hold high positions in the lines of command.”
In the document submitted, AI warned that human rights violations have worsened and that arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances and the absence of minimum guarantees for a fair trial are seen on a daily basis, as well as constant attacks on organizations and activists. This organization encouraged the Argentine justice system “to put a stop to the perpetrators of these violations and crimes” by applying the full force of criminal law to offer justice to the victims.
The Argentine federal justice system has two other cases open under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction. The first, started in 2010, investigates the alleged crimes against humanity committed in Spain by the Franco regime (1936-1977). The second dates back to 2021 and investigates the alleged genocide committed against the Rohingya community in Myanmar.
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