The opinion was published hours after the vice president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Miguel Ángel Villarroel, asked Maduro not to intervene in the local Red Cross as a result of an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office for alleged harassment. to volunteers and workers of that organization.
“The news has reached me with deep concern that the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela intends to intervene in the Venezuelan Red Cross in the next few hours and appoint an ad-hoc commission,” Villarroel said in a video posted on his account. on Instagram late Thursday night. Press versions warned of a possible intervention requested before the Supreme Court by the Prosecutor’s Office.
The Constitutional Chamber finally declared itself competent and admitted the claim filed by the General Prosecutor’s Office.
The ruling of the highest court, controlled by the government of President Nicolás Maduro, also ordered the constitution of “an ad hoc restructuring board” that will be chaired by Ricardo Filippo Cussano, former president of the Federation of Chambers and Associations of Commerce and Production of Venezuela — the largest chamber of companies in the country—and that it should coordinate the appointment of the members that will integrate that board.
It must be made up of people of high recognition from various sectors of the national life of Venezuela, according to the judicial resolution. And it must guarantee continuity in the service provided by the humanitarian organization, respect for the workers and volunteers of the institution.
The sentence, which had Judge Tania D’Amelio as rapporteur, ordered Cussano to collaborate with the Public Ministry in the investigation and prosecution of the criminal proceedings that are being carried out against the outgoing National Steering Committee of the Venezuelan Red Cross, as well as in any other related process that requires it.
The representative of the Red Cross had urged Maduro “in light of the Geneva Conventions” signed by the Venezuelan State to “refrain” from making that decision and allow the organization, in the words of Villarroel, “to take the reins for solutions that benefit the disinterested humanitarian work” of the Red Cross, which arrived in Venezuela in 1895.
The senior Red Cross official, re-elected in 2022 for another four years in office and son of Mario Villarroel, president of the Venezuelan Red Cross, asked the Maduro administration to go to the international bodies of the Red Cross and Red Crescent to “use internal mechanisms to resolve differences” and “preserve the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence.”
Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a close collaborator of Maduro, indicated last week that he had appointed a national prosecutor to investigate and punish those responsible for the alleged “harassment and mistreatment” of volunteers and workers of that institution.
Saab’s statement came a few days after congressman Diosdado Cabello, considered the second most powerful man in Venezuela after Maduro and vice president of the ruling party, accused the head of the Venezuelan Red Cross and his team of “conspiring” against the government and “mafia activity” in the management of funds.
The board of directors of the Venezuelan Society of the Red Cross “categorically” rejected in a statement Cabello’s accusations against Mario Villarroel, who has presided over the Venezuelan branch of that international organization since 1978.
Despite the fact that the Maduro government denies that there is a humanitarian crisis in the country, contrary to what its local and international critics maintain, in recent years it has signed several agreements with UN agencies and the International Red Cross for the care of the population.
The Venezuelan Red Cross has played an important role, in coordination with the government, in helping to alleviate the endemic shortage of medicines and their high prices. They have also worked closely in the relief of people in recent natural disasters.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
