CARACAS.- A report that denounces the responsibility of the Cuban State in the repression in Venezuela, carried out by the Nicolás Maduro regime, was presented to the International Criminal Court (CPI) by the Venezuelan lawyer Tamara Sujú.
“The Cubans have not only formed, they have been part of the planning, but they have also induced these crimes, with their direct or indirect participation,” Sujú said in a video presented live from The Hague, headquarters of the ICC.
The activist added that her complaint has the objective of “fulfilling the mandate of the victims” who asked the ICC to investigate “the torture where they were present, where they were carrying it out.”
The lawyer rejected that in Venezuela there are “foreign agents in charge of repression and inducing crimes against humanity… against our compatriots.”
“We need to recover Venezuela, our sovereignty, our territory, from all those agents and paramilitary organizations that are invading it. But we also need to recover, in addition to our democracy and our institutions, our dignity,” he said.
Furthermore, Sujú sent a message to all Cubans: “Today a window could open for a people that has been terribly oppressed for many years, for those political prisoners, for those persecuted, who have had no way of turning to international justice. “Here a door could be opened today to seek justice against these crimes.”
The ICC investigates the Venezuelan State for crimes against humanity in the context of the repression against anti-regime protests in the country, which occurred in 2017.
Reports from the UN
Similarly, in September 2022, the Independent Fact Verification Mission presented a report to the plenary session of the UN Human Rights Council on the existence of crimes against humanity in Venezuela, in which the repression exercised was argued. by the security forces of the Maduro regime against the protesters had the advice of the Cuban regime.
According to said investigation, several former officials of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim) confirmed that “agents of the Cuban State have instructed, advised and participated in intelligence and counterintelligence activities with the Dgcim.”
The Dgcim, together with the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN), are the two security bodies of the Venezuelan State accused of committing human rights violations, such as torture, cruel treatment and detentions in clandestine places, among other patterns that are repeated in Venezuela.
The international experts managed to review “the written confidential agreements between the Governments of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Cuba, in which “The Cuban Government was formally granted a role in the restructuring of the Venezuelan military counterintelligence services and in the training of officers.”.
The security agreements date back to 2006, once Hugo Chávez broke a long relationship of military cooperation between Venezuela and the United States in 2005. The UN mission collected information to indicate that said “cooperation (between Cuba and Venezuela) would continue in force”, meaning that Cuba’s security apparatus is involved in crimes against humanity within Venezuela.
In its three reports, this team of experts accused the Dgcim and SEBIN of being responsible “for human rights violations since 2014, in the context of an attack against real or perceived opponents of the Government.” For experts, “some of these violations constitute crimes against humanity,” reported Diario de Cuba.
The UN mission documented 122 cases of victims who were detained by the Dgcim, of which 77 were subjected to torture, sexual violence and/or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The torture was carried out at one of its headquarters, in Caracas, and in a network of clandestine detention centers in various parts of the country.
In the case of SEBIN, according to the mission, 51 cases were documented that show patterns of serious and systematic violations. When comparing the volume of cases from both organizations, the Dgcim, which received advice from the Castro regime, has a notably greater record of cases framed as crimes against humanity.
In relation to Cuba, “these are cooperation agreements paid for with Venezuelan oil, framed in the field of intelligence and security and of a confidential nature,” said Venezuelan human rights activist and director of the NGO Promedehum, Rigoberto Lobo.
“Since 2014, Venezuelan human rights organizations have heard about this presence through the testimonies of the victims. It is a pattern and not the appreciation of one or two people. This has happened when repression and systematic torture against people who peacefully protest and against political dissidents,” Lobo explained.
For Lobo, the current agreements seek to “strengthen the intelligence and social control apparatus that works quite well in Cuba.”
Source: WRITING
