venezuela death squads

[Bacchus39]

I have read a couple of posts now that claim that Venezuela has no death squads

well:

http://www.amnesty.org/fr/library/asset/AMR53/006/2002/en/dom-AMR530062002en.html

"Death squads have operated in Venezuela for many years, but their activities appear to have increased with the rise of violent crime in much of the country. They are often made up of serving police officers and other state employees, which means they can often act with impunity. They target suspected criminals, but are frequently involved in extortion and other criminal activities themselves."


http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/05/Worldandnation/Venezuela_police_deal.shtml

"What happened to Diaz, say human rights activists, is typical of the kind of "death squad" tactics used by police in Aragua state, one of Venezuela's most lawless provinces, about 50 miles southwest of the capital, Caracas.

His death was among 800 extrajudicial killings by police in the state over the past few years, they say. Several officers in Aragua have been arrested, but none have been tried. Families of victims and their lawyers say local prosecutors and judges are afraid to pursue the cases."

http://hrw.org/englishwr2k8/docs/2008/01/31/venezu17776.htm

Police Killings
Extrajudicial killings by security agents remain a frequent occurrence in Venezuela. Thousands of extrajudicial executions have been recorded in the last decade. Impunity remains the norm. Between January 2000 and February 2007, the attorney general’s office registered 6,068 alleged killings by the police and National Guard. Of 1,142 officials charged, only 204 were convicted.
Following several egregious murders implicating police agents, a long overdue police reform process began in June 2006 when then-Minister of the Interior and Justice Jesse Chacón convened the National Commission for Police Reform. After months of broad public consultations and debate, in January 2007 the commission published recommendations for remodeling public security institutions and strengthening police oversight. The reforms, however, had yet to be implemented at this writing.

[Zorro]

1. You're sadly misinformed

Because anyone who reads Judi blab on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on knows that Colombia is the only country in Latin America that has government-sponsored death squads.

I know because like she says so, and I implicitly trust her like because she's never been there, so her perspective like hasn't been corrupted by like actual experience, which is sooo like overrated.

God bless Saint Hugo. Amen.

[struggle4progress]

2. Unfortunately, impunity for police after extrajudicial execution is quite common around the world

In recent decades, extrajudicial execution has sometimes been common in Brazil (where police have sometimes targeted homeless street children for extermination), in Peru, in El Salvador, in Guatemala, and elsewhere

Following Bush's kidnapping of Aristide and overthrow of the elected government in Haiti, extrajudicial execution became quite common there

A recent case in the United States is the apparent police execution of Sean Bell, killed unarmed on his wedding day by a group of police who shot him repeatedly and then were acquitted by the judge

Like Venezuela, the United States refuses to invite UN officials into the country to investigate extrajudicial executions. Colombia apparently allows such investigations, but members of the human rights community there (including UN personnel) regularly receive death threats

But in the case of the United States, there is another concern: it is that the stated US policy actually encourages extrajudicial execution in other countries:

UN EXPERT ON EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS TELLS UNITED STATES WAR ON TERROR COULD UNDERMINE HUMAN RIGHTS ACCOUNTABILITY

28 March 2007

The Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions issued the following statement today:

"In recent years the United States has consistently argued that the UN Human Rights Council, and all other international human rights accountability mechanisms, have no legitimate role to play when individuals are intentionally killed, so long as it is claimed that the actions were part of the 'war on terror'," says Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. "While this argument is convenient because it enables the US to effectively exempt itself from scrutiny, if accepted it would constitute a huge step backwards in the struggle to promote human rights. The argument would mean, for example, that the UN Human Rights Council would have no role to play in many of the most chronic situations of human rights violations around the world. All that would be needed is for the governments concerned to invoke the existence of an armed conflict in order to rid themselves of any human rights accountability."

Alston's concerns arose out of the US Government's response to a letter he wrote on 26 August 2005, seeking an official response to information he had received that Haitham al-Yemeni had been killed on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in May 2005 by a missile fired by an un-manned aerial drone operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Rather than accusing the United States of violating any law, Alston had instead sought "clarification" of the facts and of the Government's views on the legal issues involved.

The response of the US Government was unprecedented "because it took the opportunity to challenge the entire international human rights system." The Government argued that international human rights law did not apply to the incident; that the laws that did apply could not be addressed by the Special Rapporteur or, implicitly, by the Human Rights Council; and that each State could determine for itself whether any particular incident could be addressed by the Council.

Alston responded with a thirteen page letter critiquing the Government's position. "The incident involved was by no means the most alarming that I've dealt with this year, but the US government is a key player and its use of an argument with very far-reaching negative implications for the system as a whole is especially troubling." says Alston ...

http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/2E076B5840AE2D0FC12572AC006FA39F?opendocument

The current US position encourages abuses of the sort that were common in Guatemala and Peru, where past governments routinely claimed that whoever they had killed was essentially a terrorist. This excuse is common in Colombia today and is the fundamental premise underlying much US action in Iraq and Afghanistan