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that of a judge, but rather of a listener, a student, a doctor. How do you evaluate the work of the
I even went out incognito on the streets of Caracas and Commission on Human Rights and the
in the supermarkets to get a “feel” of the average Human Rights Council?
Venezuelans. Spanish is my mother tongue and I had no The Commission did a phenomenal job of
difficulty in chatting with people, the majority of whom standard-setting, drafting not only the
attributed their problems not to President Maduro, but Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but
to the siege by the United States. also the nine core human rights treaties, the
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
During my visit I endured pressures in social media. Peoples, the Declaration on the illegality of
Some parties evidently expected me only to confirm Population Transfers and others. The
reports of a “humanitarian crisis” and the “logical” Commission also helped install the “treaty-
necessity of envisaging a military “humanitarian bodies” and initiated the Special Procedures
intervention”. Some in the Venezuelan right-wing did of rapporteurs and working groups.
not trust me to condemn the Venezuelan government in Unfortunately, with time it became very
Trumpian style. I got the spectrum of invective and a politicized. For instance, the two resolutions
few death threats as well. Back in Geneva I gave a press to investigate torture in Guantanamo were
conference expressing my preliminary assessment that defeated in 2003 and 2004. No fact-finding
although there was a serious economic crisis caused commission was ever appointed to investigate
initially by the precipitous fall of the price of petroleum, the barbarities of “extraordinary renditions”
the crisis had been aggravated exponentially by the or the “collateral murder” of civilians by
coercive measures imposed by Obama and Trump. NATO bombardments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bottom line: lift the illegal “sanctions” and allow normal The Human Rights Council, established 2006
economic relations and financial transactions. This will to replace the Commission, is perhaps even
immediately alleviate the economic crisis, give hope to more politicized that the earlier body, and it
the suffering Venezuelan people, and stop the has become an arena of gladiators where States
unregulated flow of migrants from Venezuela into Brazil, insult each other instead of conscientiously
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. discussing how to solve existing problems and
prevent future conflagrations.
When my report was issued in September 2018, it was
largely ignored, because I did not sing the song that was In your interventions before the Human Rights
expected of me. Yet, the mission was successful in Council as an NGO representative do you
confidence-building, enabling a positive working frequently criticize confrontational politics as
relationship between the OHCHR and Venezuela, paving counter-productive?
the way to the invitation of other rapporteurs, the mission Yes, and to no avail. I think that no country
by High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet and the has a good human rights record, and that no
creation in Caracas of a permanent representation of the State or group of States should stand in
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights with judgment of the others. The world cannot be
six staff members. Since I had personally dealt with divided in a Manichaean way into two blocs,
Foreign Minister Arreaza, I took the liberty of appealing the “democracies” that inevitably have to
to him in December 2018 and February 2019 for the confront the “autocracies”. This is a caricature.
release of a German journalist whom I knew and whose The Council must be as inclusive as possible,
release I felt would be a positive gesture. I cannot claim to and it is absurd to try to exclude countries
have been the only person behind his release in March because of their human right violations. Then
2019, but I was pleased to learn that Billy Six was back in everybody would have to be excluded. The
Berlin. My findings were subsequently confirmed during core idea of the United Nations is international
the visit by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on solidarity, how countries can mutually help
unilateral coercive measures, Alena Douhan, in 2021, and each other in solving the root causes of conflict
have been endorsed by Professors Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia and human rights violations. Every country
University) and Dan Kovalik (Pittsburgh). What does this has its own problems which can be solved
tell us? Perhaps that confrontational “naming and with good will, but the aggressive practice of
shaming” and a prioris are unhelpful and that patience “naming and shaming” frustrates every
and perseverance yield better results than demonization. attempt at cooperation and inevitably

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