The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, announced today that he is analyzing whether to bring the Venezuelan authorities before the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity, for the bloody repression of the opposition in the country.
In an act of the Latin American Center of the Atlantic Council on international actions before the humanitarian and political crisis of Venezuela, Almagro defended this possibility before the number of at least 97 dead and 15,000 injured since the beginning of the protests against the president of the country, Nicholas Mature.
“Today we are going to take an important institutional step to further analyze whether the crimes committed by the (Maduro) regime, especially torture, are typifiable according to the Rome statute and therefore susceptible to prosecution by the International Criminal Court” , Assured the head of the OAS.
Almagro explained that he is analyzing whether “violations of human rights in Venezuela can be appropriately, coherently and legally sustainable” and whether those violations constitute a crime against humanity and can therefore be tried By the International Criminal Court.
“Cases such as torture are clearly crimes against humanity and therefore would be susceptible (to be tried). We will make institutional progress to achieve those positions,” he added later to a group of journalists.
The Secretary General of the OAS, however, said that the international reaction and the institution he leads have been late because he said that it may not have reached the humanitarian, political and social crisis in which Venezuela has been involved for months .
In addition, he regretted that the vote for the application of the Democratic Charter to Venezuela did not go ahead because “some countries vote according to their interests and not to their principles”.
Almagro reiterated his call for the release of political prisoners and the restoration of democratic rights and freedoms by a government that “has persecuted an unarmed population.”
Regarding the consultation held last weekend, which resulted in more than 7 million people voting against the Constituent Assembly convened by Maduro, the representative of the OAS stressed that no politician can forget the people, “nor on the part of Of the Government or of the opponents “.
As for the “robust sanctions” that the President’s government, Donald Trump, is valuing, if Maduro calls the Constituent Assembly to amend the constitution scheduled for July 30, Almagro was hesitant to punish oil, which is almost A large part of the country’s exports.
On the one hand, he considered that the sanctions in the oil would not be noticed in the population because in any case they can not benefit from it, although on the other it defended that the Venezuelan people can not suffer more.
