KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 (NNN-BERNAMA) — The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) report on Venezuela early this month is “deeply harmful” to “the truth of the human rights situation” in the country as well as the dignity of the Venezuelan people, said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro rejected the report and called for the OHCHR to rectify it.
“Firstly, the report in question is a replica of the previous reports drafted by your predecessor, who – as a matter of public record – guided his actions to building an illegal and immoral case against Venezuela, with the sole objective of criminalising the Venezuelan State,” Maduro said in his letter, dated July 11, to UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet.
A copy of the letter was made available to Bernama International News Service by the Venezuelan Embassy in Malaysia, here, Monday.
Maduro said the report, which was presented to the Human Rights Council on July 5, was fraught with false statements, distortions and manipulation of data and sources.
“It is particularly alarming that to try to depict the situation within Venezuela your report privileged the versions obtained abroad. Thus, of the 558 interviews conducted by the OHCHR, 460 were held outside the national territory, which constitutes 82 per cent of the opinion in the report.
“Your report, unfortunately, aligns itself with the media and political narrative imposed from Washington, that symbolically attack Venezuela by repeating the script of the existence of an alleged dictatorial government and an alleged humanitarian crisis in order to justify an intervention,” he said.
The Human Rights Council, through its resolution 39/1, requested that the High Commissioner for Human Rights prepare a comprehensive written report on the human rights situation in Venezuela.
The report is based on information collected and analysed by the OHCHR, including through missions.
“Can a government be called a dictatorship that in a Constitution voted by the people, gave for the first time rights to the indigenous people, children, women, elderly, and that had made visible and empowered the impoverished majority and disenfranchised minorities?
“Can it be called a “humanitarian crisis” when the United States has deprived Venezuela of more than US$30 billion of its oil assets abroad, has blocked and confiscated more than US$7 billion allocated to the purchase of food and medicine, has forbidden servicing the Venezuelan debt and persecutes any company that trades with Venezuela?” Maduro asked.
–NNN-BERNAMA
