Weaponizing human rights: UN chief Bachelet's Venezuela report follows US regime change script

http://thegrayzone.com/2019/07/06/weaponizing-human-rights-un-high-commissioner-bachelets-venezuela-report-follows-us-regime-change-script/
Date Written:  2019-07-06
Publisher:  The Grayzone
Year Published:  2019
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23762

A report from the UN High Commissioner on the situation in Venezuela has been condemned by many sources as a political tool to justify the US's attempted regime change in that country.

Abstract: 
--

Excerpt:

When United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet traveled to Venezuela earlier this year, she met with an array of citizens who lost family members to right-wing violence in the country.
Among them was Inés Esparragoza, whose 20-year-old son, Orlando Figuera, was doused with gasoline and lit on fire by an opposition mob during violent anti-government riots, known as guarimbas, in May 2017....

Yet shockingly, when Bachelet released her long-anticipated report on the situation in Venezuela on July 5, it was as though that meeting never took place....

Just three short paragraphs in Bachelet’s 16-page document are dedicated to the crushing sanctions the US and its allies have imposed against Venezuela since 2015. She went on to write off the claim "that due to over-compliance, banking transactions have been delayed or rejected, and assets frozen, [hindering] the State's ability to import food and medicines" as the government merely "assign[ing] blame" for its difficulties....

In April, Weisbrot co-authored a report which documented 40,000 preventable deaths that occurred between 2017 and 2018 as a direct result of US sanctions. This groundbreaking report was also ignored by Bachelet, who had far more resources at her disposal to investigate its disturbing conclusions and perhaps prevent thousands more deaths.