The Violation of Human Rights in Venezuela and Cuba

The Violation of Human Rights in Venezuela and Cuba
Posted by Ian Vasquez

A report (PDF) released today by the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights condemns in well documented form the growing violation of human
rights under the regime of Hugo Chavez. The 302-page study is yet
another confirmation of the multitude of ways in which individuals,
NGOs, union leaders, politicians, activists, businessmen, students,
judges, the media and others who disagree with Venezuelan government
policies are targeted by the government and its supporters through
intimidation, arbitrary use of administrative and criminal law, and
sometimes violence and homicide.

Among the many cases it documents, the report describes how the
government last year shut down a publicity campaign in defense of
private property run by our colleagues at the free-market think tank
CEDICE. The government claimed that it did so to safeguard public order
and the mental health of the population.

Particularly interesting is that the commission issuing this report
(produced in December but for some reason only made public today) is
part of the Organization of American States, which has proven itself
useless at best and counterproductive at worst, in the face of blatant
rights violations by the Venezuelan and other populist Latin American
governments in the last decade. Will the same OAS that invited Cuba to
rejoin the organization last year now debate the new report or will it
and its head, Mr. Insulza, remain silent as they have for so many years?

Meanwhile in Cuba, the country Chavez holds as a model, political
prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died yesterday after going on a hunger
strike, suffering beatings and having been denied water by prison
authorities for 18 days. The mistreatment led to kidney failure.
According to Cuba Archive, an NGO that documents deaths attributable to
the Cuban regime, Zapata "was then held naked over a powerful air
conditioner and developed pneumonia." What will the Permanent Council of
the OAS have to say about that?

The Violation of Human Rights in Venezuela and Cuba | Cato @ Liberty (24
February 2010)
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/02/24/the-violation-of-human-rights-in-venezuela-and-cuba/