LATIN AMERICA
Torturers Lurking Behind
Uniforms
By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS (IPS) - "My daughter was
brutally tortured, intimate parts of her
body were beaten, her head was put in
gas-filled bags and electric shocks were
applied all over her body," Vidalina
Vera, the mother of Wilmary Brizuela,
told the Venezuelan Attorney General's
Office.
Brizuela, a professor at the Bolivarian
University in the southeastern
Venezuelan city of Ciudad Bolívar, was
arrested on Jun. 18 and is being held at
La Pica prison, some 600 kilometres east
of Caracas.
According to Vera's statements to the
press, the judicial police raided her
home and arrested and threatened her and
other members of her family, while
another group of them seized her
daughter at the university.
The police are investigating relatives
of Wilmary's brother, Wilmer Brizuela,
who is serving time in a prison in
southeast Venezuela for kidnapping. He
is known as a leader among the inmates
and has links with criminal gangs, and
the authorities suspect him of
masterminding the murder of Professor
María Gabriela Casado, the sister of
Judge Mariela Casado.
Judge Casado took part in the appeal
court trial that upheld Wilmer
Brizuela's 10-year sentence.
Cases like Vera's complaint "follow a
pattern of torture and human rights
violations that has persisted for
decades in Venezuela, and those
responsible can be found in many police
forces and several military corps,"
Alfredo Ruiz, of the non-governmental
Justice and Peace Support Network, told
IPS.
"It could have happened in other Latin
American countries, too, because
unfortunately the practice is widespread
in this region," said Ruiz, who is also
a representative of the Latin American
and Caribbean Network of Health
Institutions against Torture, Impunity
and other Human Rights Violations (RedSalud
DDHH).
In another incident, police in the
western state of Lara, enraged by the
injuries received by a colleague on Apr.
27, burst into the Paedagogical
University in Barquisimeto, the regional
capital, fired shots in the air and
attacked a group of students.
Nine women and men were punched, kicked,
pistol-whipped and beaten with police
motorbike helmets. The students were
arrested and taken to the police
station, where they were again assaulted
and made to perform physical jerks for
40 minutes, according to their
allegations.
"This is one of the complaints we have
documented, and we have asked the
Attorney General's Office for protection
for the victims," psychologist Fiorella
Perrone, another member of RedSalud DDHH,
told IPS. "In addition to the physical
harm they suffered, they face social and
psychological harm, and are living in
fear and under the pressure of threats
to their lives and to those of their
families."
RedSalud DDHH has documented and helped
with 473 cases of torture and cruel and
inhuman treatment all over the country,
but especially in Caracas, since it
started its work in 1995.
Of that total, 212 cases were reported
between January 2003 and June this year,
with three military corps, three
national police forces, nine regional
police forces and 12 municipal police
forces being accused of abuses, as well
as some instances of joint military and
police operations.
"In 97 percent of the cases, the victims
were from low-income sectors, and 79
percent were male and aged between 18
and 38. Most victims are young, poor,
dark-skinned men," Perrone said.
Beatings were suffered in 85 percent of
the cases; verbal aggression in 43
percent; death threats in 40 percent;
the victim's head was covered with a bag
in 15 percent of cases; 10 percent were
given electric shocks; and four percent
were illegally transferred to an unknown
location.
There appears to be a widespread pattern
of this sort of mistreatment in Latin
America, according to reports from the
Washington-based Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, an
Organisation of American States body,
and from international rights watchdogs
like Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch.
The non-governmental Mexican Commission
for the Defence and Promotion of Human
Rights has denounced abuses committed
against detainees, even against local
police agents captured by the army in
anti-drugs operations.
The abuses reported include suffocation
with plastic bags placed over the head,
electric shocks to the genitals,
punches, kicks, bites, threats and
simulated executions.
Yet Mexico, said Ruiz, is also an
example of good practice, in that
emergency room doctors and prosecutors
are required to be familiar with the
Manual on the Effective Investigation
and Documentation of Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, otherwise known as the
Istanbul Protocol, which was adopted in
1999 by the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights.
In Colombia, meanwhile, Amnesty
International has documented over 80
cases of torture a year, in the context
of the civil war between state security
forces, far-right paramilitaries and
leftist guerrillas.
The Colombian Coalition Against Torture
documented 899 cases between 2003 and
2008. Among these, 502 of the victims
were murdered after being tortured.
According to human rights organisations,
torture and abuse of detainees are
common practice on the part of the
police and other government bodies in
Colombia. Amnesty has expressed concern
over the actions of death squads made up
of police or military personnel, who
abduct, torture and execute people,
including children.
"But the main centre in the hemisphere
where methods of interrogation with
torture are used is the United States
base of Guantánamo, on the island of
Cuba," Ruiz said.
RedSalud DDHH has asked the
Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights to call for the closure of the
Guantánamo detention centre, and to set
up a rapporteurship to prevent and
punish torture in the hemisphere.
Rights groups believe these measures are
necessary because torture is still being
practised 26 years after the United
Nations approved the Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
In 1997, the U.N. General Assembly
declared Jun. 26 International Day in
Support of Victims of Torture.
In Venezuela, RedSalud DDHH and other
groups traditionally mark the
international day by asking Congress to
approve a law to prevent and punish
torture.
"We have been working on this since
1995. We have documented nearly 500
cases, dozens of which have reached the
Attorney General's Office, and some of
which have made it to court.
Unfortunately after 15 years, impunity
still prevails, because not a single
sentence has been upheld against any
offender," Ruiz complained. |
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