A US State Department report that analyzes the human rights situation worldwide has insisted on the severe violations of the fundamental guarantees of citizens during the last year in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba.
The document, which addresses the situation in 198 countries, hints at the existence of a pattern of State behavior in these three nations, where well-structured mechanisms have been fleshed out to round up dissent with little chance that those who commit abuses against the citizenry will be investigated and prosecuted for their actions.
THE ABUSES OF 2018 REMAIN UNPUNISHED IN NICARAGUA
In the case of Nicaragua, governed by Daniel Ortega, the report insists on the high degree of impunity with which those who perpetrated more than 355 murders during the citizen protests against the Sandinista regime in 2018.
Moreover, those loyal to the regime have been rewarded by Ortega’s Executive.
“The government failed to take steps to identify, investigate, prosecute or punish officials who committed human rights abuses, including those responsible for at least 355 killings and hundreds of disappearances during the 2018 pro-democracy uprising.”
“The government failed to address cases of widespread corruption. President Ortega reinforced impunity for human rights violators loyal to him,” the report notes.
The Nicaraguan regime has used torture and appalling prison conditions to subdue the opposition in the dictatorship’s prisons, most notably El Chipote prison.
“Government officials intentionally carried out acts that resulted in severe physical or mental suffering to obtain information, inflict punishment and psychologically dissuade other citizens from reporting on government actions or participating in civic actions against the government,” the document states.
VENEZUELA: ASSASSINATIONS, IMPRISONMENT, DISAPPEARANCES, AND TORTURE
In the case of Venezuela, governed by Nicolás Maduro, the information revealed by the United States states that, during 2022, a pattern continued in which the Chavista regime used State security forces to murder, disappear, imprison, and torture.
Thus, according to information provided by different local NGOs, last year, at least 246 forced disappearances, and 485 extrajudicial executions were registered in the country.
The organization Foro Penal has indicated in its most recent report on political prisoners that 270 people remain imprisoned in Venezuela (150 members of the military) for dissenting from the Chavista system.
The United States has emphasized an aspect that had already been made clear in a report on Venezuela by the UN Human Rights Commission at the end of last year.
In Nicaragua, the regime has done little or nothing to investigate those responsible for the repression, even rewarding its executors.
“The Maduro regime took no effective steps to identify, investigate, prosecute, or meaningfully punish officials who may have committed human rights abuses or engaged in acts of corruption,” the document notes.
CUBA: WIDESPREAD IMPRISONMENT IN RESPONSE TO PROTESTS
According to the same US State Department report, the regime headed by Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba used the courts controlled by the Castro regime as one of the primary resources to placate dissidents.
Following the explosion of protests in mid-2021, last year, many imprisoned for demonstrating in the streets were brought to completely rigged court proceedings, being sentenced to lengthy sentences.
“The Judiciary is directly subordinated to the National Assembly (unicameral Parliament) and the Communist Party of Cuba,” says a passage of the report referring to the non-existence of separation of powers in the Caribbean island.
At the end of last year, it is estimated that 180 demonstrators were accused of sedition, while 171 were sentenced to more than ten years in prison.
With information from LGI