Torture houses, orders from the top: UN says human rights violations spread in Venezuela

Clandestine torture houses scattered throughout Caracas, orders issued from the very top of the Nicolás Maduro regime; mock executions, rapes and other horrifying practices. And to top it all off: Cubans teaching how to best torment prisoners. Those are the points highlighted in a report presented this week by the United Nations commission on crimes against humanity about such crimes committed in Venezuela.

The report outlining the repression of the socialist regime in Caracas will be discussed next week at the U.N. in a session where member countries are expected to issue recommendations. The report is the third of its kind and provides new details on how crimes against humanity are still prevalent in the South American nation.

The report claims the orders for some of these crimes often come from the very top.

“In some cases, President Nicolás Maduro and other people from his close circle, as well as other high-level authorities, participated in the selection of the targets,” the document says.

The document emphasizes that the Venezuelan intelligence agencies — the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) and the General Directorate of Military Counter Intelligence (DGCIM) — continue to systematically use torture against the population, even though ”political dissidence has been largely repressed.”

“The crimes and violations committed by members of SEBIN and the DGCIM... were particularly cruel and were committed against defenseless people. People opposed to the government, real or perceived, and their relatives were subjected to illegal detentions, followed by acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and sexual and gender-based violence,” the document says.

The report also claims that both intelligence agencies are part of a “machinery designed and deployed” to suppress dissent and consolidate the regime’s power. “This plan was orchestrated at the highest political level, led by President Nicolás Maduro and supported by other high authorities,” said Marta Valiñas, head of the U.N.’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, at the presentation of the study.

The report identifies more than a dozen places it says have been converted into clandestine torture centers, including homes, sheds and even government offices.

The U.N. team concluded that the use of torture in Venezuela is systematic. Of 122 individuals arrested by the DGCIM, the U.N. team found that 77 were subjected to torture, sexual violence or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Torture was carried out in the agency’s Boleíta headquarters in Caracas and in a network of covert detention centers across the country.

The document highlights that the intelligence agencies used torture to extract alleged confessions, obtain information, punish, intimidate, humiliate or coerce, and in some cases to steal money or other property.

“The torture sessions could last days or weeks. Generally, detainees were tortured during interrogations that took place immediately after arrest, but in some cases some detainees were tortured for longer periods,” the report noted.

The DGCIM resorted to a series of torture methods such as beatings, electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags and stress positions, as well as forms of psychological torture, the report said.

The sessions could lead to serious or permanent physical injury, as well as severe psychological trauma and depression. “The Mission has documented cases of loss of sensory or motor functions, reproductive injuries and at least one miscarriage, as a result of acts of torture inflicted by DGCIM agents,” the report highlights.

DGCIM officials also perpetrated acts of sexual or gender-based violence against military and civilian detainees during interrogations to obtain information, degrade, humiliate or punish them.

Such acts included rape, threats of rape against detainees or their family members, forced nudity, touching of sexual organs, electric shocks or beatings on reproductive organs, and threats of genital mutilation.

The report includes the testimonies of several former officials of the DGCIM, stating that “agents of the Cuban State have instructed, advised and participated in intelligence and counterintelligence activities with the DGCIM.”

The mission also reviewed the confidential written agreements between the governments 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. These agreements date back to 2006 and the cooperation continues in force, the document states.