CIDH and the Venezuelan Protests

The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights issued a call for the Venezuelan government to investigate reports of abuses and to adopt measures that avoid the use of violence. It provides some examples that will be familiar to people who have been following the protests.

If history is a guide, to the extent there is a Venezuelan government response it will include words like mafia and fascist, perhaps even "pinochetista." Venezuela pulled out of the CIDH in September 2013, using words like "terrorist." The CIDH, it said, did not rule in favor of the Venezuelan people.

The bottom line is that by their very nature, governments don't like human rights organizations. In particular, they don't follow preferred ideological narratives. Even using the words "pinochetista" shows a weird linguistic mirror of the past, when the Chilean dictatorship hated human rights organizations for being leftist.