What Happened Last Week in Venezuela? 🤬 A UN Office Was Expelled
A UN human rights office was expelled, the economy is in a crossroads and Venezuelan migration to the U.S. seems to be slowing down.
UN: Now go, walk out the door
Venezuela suspended the activities of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Venezuela and is giving its staff of 13 people 72 hours to leave the country from Friday onwards. In an statement, Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said that the Office has become “the private law firm of the putchist and terrorist groups” and they must “publicly rectify their colonialist and abusive attitude” or leave the country.
The expulsion of the Office, which has worked with the Venezuela Fact-Finding Mission, comes after the UN described the arrest of military affairs expert and activist Rocío San Migue as a “forced disappearance.” According to Marta Valiñas of the Mission, “these are not isolated incidents, but rather a series of events that appear to be part of a coordinated plan to silence critics and perceived opponents.”
Furthermore, days before the expulsion, the UN rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri came to Venezuela and said that the CLAP bags provided by the government have become a “clientelism system.” However, he also said that sanctions “have increased the cost of humanitarian aid” but that they are the only factor affecting hunger in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Tarek W. Saab said that human rights defenders who used the term “forced disappearance” were “mythomaniacs.” In addition, San Miguel's lawyers reported, DGCIM officials raided her house and took her daughter's iPad and 20 maps from the time when the expert was a teacher.
San Miguel's arrest has unleashed a wave of fear in Venezuela's organized civil society. Even Mary Pili Hernández, a Chávez government's former minister and journalist, said that for the first time in the 40 years she has worked in the media she is afraid to express herself.
“Venezuela has an authoritarian government, you can call it a dictator,” said former Uruguayan president Pepe Mujica, a leader on the left and formerly close to Hugo Chávez. Regarding Delcy Rodríguez, who called the current Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle Pou a “lackey,” Mujica said that “that doña got out of hand. "That's not how you talk about the presidents of America."
It's the economy, stupid!
The commercial sales index of Greater Caracas prepared by the firm Ecoanalítica registered a drop of 17.8% between December and January, after the Christmas season. However, the index registered an increase of 12.7% in January 2024 compared to January 2023.
But let's go beyond sales: according to Francisco Pimentel, president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Construction, the sector is 98% paralyzed. “We are in the grayest stage of our sector in Venezuela,” he said .
And the lack of economic dynamism may continue to worsen. According to a review by Hispanopost, the revocation of the license that relaxed sanctions on oil and gas in April will affect the plans of Ecopetrol, Pemex and Chinese and Indian companies in the Venezuelan oil sector. According to a source consulted, the Treasury Department does not plan to respond to requests from companies in China or India as it did in the past with North American and European companies.
Other postcards from a country stabilized in the ditch: According to the Observatory of Universities, 61% of university professors have symptoms of depression, such as loss of interest and anxiety. 69% of students have symptoms of depression such as persistent anxiety.
A respite for the American border
In January, arrests of Venezuelan migrants by the United States Border Patrol fell 91%: from 46,920 in December to 4,422 in January. The reduction may have to do with seasonality, greater border control and the repatriation flights agreed upon between the United States and Venezuela. However, the flow could increase: not only because of Venezuela's threat to suspend flights if sanctions on oil and gas return, but because Panama reported a 46% increase in migrants crossing the Darien Gap in January – the vast majority being Venezuelans.
Recommendations
After the respite of the pax bodegonica, Chavismo is arresting high profile activists and increasing its harassment of organized civil society, hoping to crack down on its organizational and mobilization capabilities before the presidential elections. My new piece for Caracas Chronicles.
“The activists, aid workers, critics, analysts and journalists who’ve been able to hang on inside the country are watching the space in which they operate narrow even further”, writes The New York Times, “f this happened to Rocío San Miguel, then what’s left for everybody else?”
In the same week of Rocío San Miguel’s detention and a crushing report by the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, the government shows the door to thirteen UN officers and increases the country’s isolation and vulnerability, explains Kaoru Yonekura in Caracas Chronicles.