On September 16th, 2020, UN investigators found Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and top ministers responsible for crimes against humanity which includes extrajudicial executions, illegal detentions, enforced disappearance and systemic use of torture.

Marta Valiñas of Portugal, Francisco Cox Vial of Chille, and Paul Seils of Britain investigated allegations against Venezuela’s government last September that included human rights violations in Venezuela over the past five years. Valiñas states, “far from being isolated acts, these crimes were coordinated and committed pursuant to state policies, with the knowledge or direct support of commanding officers and senior government officials.” Valiñas further validates that “the mission has reasonable grounds to believe that they amount to crimes against humanity.”

A 411-page report created by the Human Rights Commission summarizes human rights violations in Venezuela committed by its president and the top ministers. The findings were based on reviews of 3000 cases from multiple sources such as interviews with the victims, relatives, witnesses, police, government officials, judges, videos, social media and satellite images executed by Venezuela’s security forces—known as Faes and Venezuela’s intelligence agencies.

The report found that Faes, a shadowy secret task force and another unit were responsible for over half of the thousands of wrongful deaths. The report’s authors also cited a training video that showed officers being encouraged to kill criminals without compassion. Expert furthered examined that the superiors had the authority to arbitrarily granted officers a green light to kill, solidifying the crimes committed by Nicolás Maduro, top ministers and senior officers.

Faes is a feared secret task force that a part of the national police task force. It was created by Maduro in 2017 to fight organized crime and terrorism. However, with the boasting of 1300 agents in 2018, it explicitly plays a political role to execute those who oppose or challenge the president’s authority.

The report spotlighted terrible details of torture and killing carried out by the security forces who used the following techniques: electric shocks, genital mutilation, asphyxiation, waterboarding, assault and rape.

Experts agree in the report that extrajudicial executions took place outside of democratic institutions amidst the breakdown of rule of law and judicial independence. A great majority of unlawful killings were not the result of lawful prosecution and none of the officials with command reasonability were brought to justice.

Previously, the Venezuela government came under scrutiny for violation of human rights in 2019 when the widow of a tortured navy captain demanded the UN to investigate Nicolás Maduro and other top ministers for crimes against human rights such as illegal detention. In 2019 July 4th, a 16-page report by Micelle Bachelet, UN’s human rights chief, showed that the Venezuela government had registered nearly 5300 extrajudicial killings in security operations linked to cases of “resistance to authority” in chilling escalation of crime against human rights as Maduro battled to retain power in an unstable state.

Maduro’s chilling escalation of crime against humanity has a reason: a fear of loss of power. Recently in 2020 early May, there was a coup attempt to remove authoritarian Maduro by a former U.S. army staff sergeant, Jordan Goudreau. However, it ended in a fiasco where the invading force including two Americans was quickly captured while eight men died.

UN holds Nicolás Maduro and other officials who took power in 2013, responsible for Venezuela’s current state that’s suffering from economic inflation, the large outflow of immigrating citizens to neighbouring countries. With uproars of protests against the government, Venezuela’s president and other top ministers have also earned notoriety and scrutiny in the massive violent crackdown and arbitrary execution of 43 killings linked to protests and illegal detainment of political opposition.

With the current political instability and authoritarian power of Nicolás Maduro continuously challenged by his opposition, Juan Guaidó, the future of Venezuela’s government is steep with violence and blood that must find the guilty party accountable for crimes against humanity.