Maduro wielded 'machinery of repression' against rivals, UN says

Venezuela’s security forces were “massively involved” in human-rights violations that constitute crimes against humanity after July’s disputed election, according to a United Nations panel.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government reactivated its “machinery of repression” against the country’s political opposition ahead of the vote, and security forces committed violations ranging from arbitrary detention to torture and sexual violence after the election, the U.N.’s Independent Fact-Finding Mission in Venezuela said in a final report published Tuesday.

The mission has “reasonable grounds to believe that some of the human rights violations and crimes investigated during the reporting period are a continuation of the same line of conduct that the Mission characterized in previous reports as crimes against humanity, committed in implementation of a policy of silencing, discouraging and quashing opposition to the government.”

A wave of protests erupted after the vote as Maduro and the regime-controlled electoral authorities refused to show proof of his self-declared victory. The government cracked down aggressively, leading to more than 2,000 arrests.

Repression was directed by numerous high-ranking officials and “continues today,” the U.N. panel said, adding that targets expanded beyond opposition political figures to include the general public.

The 161-page report details a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population” meant to “silence, discourage, and stifle” those opposing Maduro. The arrests include some 158 minors, who were charged with terrorism. “This is a new phenomenon of particular concern to the mission,” the panel said, adding that there were two children among the at least 25 deaths attributed to the crackdown.

Maduro claims he won the July 28 vote against his opposition rival, Edmundo Gonzalez. Gonazalez has since fled to Spain, while opposition leader Maria Corina Machado remains in hiding.

The U.N. report covered a year of investigation from September 2023 until August. The panel described the crackdown after the vote as “an unprecedented campaign of mass and indiscriminate detentions” that numbered in the thousands, reaching levels comparable only to the mass anti-government protests Venezuela saw in 2014, 2017 and 2019.