Five Latin countries asked the International Criminal Court to open an investigation IGNORE INTO the crimes that occurred in the government of Nicolás Maduro

Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru were the countries that, through their foreign ministers, requested the International Criminal Court (ICC) to begin investigating the crimes against humanity committed in Venezuela by the Chavista regime of Nicolás Maduro.

Leer en español: La CPI podría investigar a Venezuela por crímenes de lesa humanidad

“We have coordinated the foreign ministers of five countries, namely, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru.” We are going to sign on Tuesday afternoon a letter addressed to the ICC asking that a preliminary investigation is initiated IGNORE INTO the crimes against humanity committed. in Venezuela,” Peruvian Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela told the EFE news agency.

A report made by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN (OHCHR), which included, for example, cases of extrajudicial executions. And a second report, prepared by the Organization of American States (OAS), which had the investigation of experts, delegated by the Secretary-General, Luis Almagro, are the arguments that the five countries will use to make the formal petition to the ICC.

The experts, according to EFE, said that “there is a reasonable basis to consider that eleven individuals, among them the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and members of the Armed Forces allegedly committed crimes against humanity and, therefore, could be reported to the ICC. “

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In May 2018, Luis Almagro sent the report that the investigative group made to Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the ICC, with the aim of starting the investigation of crimes against humanity executed by the Maduro government.

“The foreign ministers will not ask the Prosecutor of the ICC to investigate a specific person, but to verify in the preliminary investigation who are the culprits,” said Hugo de Zela. “Impunity has reached an extreme that is already unsustainable. Already in this moment of rational way nobody can deny that in Venezuela there is an abuse of daily power and that people are suffering, and it is the humanitarian obligation of the countries to implement all the legal mechanisms at our disposal to try to prevent this continue “ added the diplomat to the aforementioned media.

Can the International Criminal Court initiate an investigation in Venezuela?

For the lawyer and former president of the Executive Committee of UNHCR, Víctor Rodríguez Cedeño, the International Criminal Court can investigate Venezuelan territory “if a State based on reliable information requests it to the Court; or, if the Prosecutor of the Court considers that there are well-founded reasons to initiate an investigation, based on information received from reliable sources,” he explains in an opinion column published by El Nacional de Venezuela.

In addition, he argues that it is possible because “the characteristics of the acts carried out in Venezuela in recent times against the civilian population, the opponents, specifically: torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment, murder, forced disappearances and violations, among others, denounced by the victims, witnesses and their relatives, assimilate them to crimes against humanity as they are described in the Rome Statute of 1998, in which article 7 the acts are stated as part of a generalized or systematic attack against of a part of the population . “

Did Uruguay depart from the request made to the ICC?

Although the Uruguayan government stated, according to a trill on Twitter of its Foreign Ministry, that it was not consulted in the decision taken by five of the 34 OAS members to request the ICC to open an investigation against crimes against humanity in Venezuela, He avoided issuing any position on the subject.

La Prensa dice que Uruguay se abstuvo de denunciar a Venezuela ante la Corte Penal Internacional. Falso. Esa decisión fue adoptada por 5 de los 34 miembros de la OEA y Uruguay no fue consultado ni participó de la instancia.

— CANCILLERÍA URUGUAY (@MRREE_Uruguay) 23 de septiembre de 2018

However, the Uruguayan Government’s attitude towards the action taken by the five countries was questioned by sectors of the opposition.

“The complicit position of our government with the Venezuelan dictatorship is embarrassing. Much they owe politically and economically. Someday we will really know how far the link goes. The Frente Amplio refused to investigate in Parliament, “ the senator and pre-candidate for the Presidency for the National Party, Luis Lacalle Pou, posted on his Twitter account.

“How many more murders and executions, arbitrary detentions, rapes and tortures, disappearances, political prisoners, hunger and disease, are necessary for the Frente Amplio government to react and not rife our identity as a country embraced by the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro ?” , trilled, Ernesto Talvi, pre-candidate for the Colorado Party.

LatinAmerican Post I Edwin Guerrero Nova

Trasnlated from: ‘La CPI podría investigar a Venezuela por crímenes de lesa humanidad’