Abuses in Ramo Verde prison escalate after visit to Venezuela by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Abuse, arbitrariness, violation of fair trial, prisoners without trial, this is what happens at the National Center for Military Prosecutors (Cenapromil) in green bouquet, the military prison which is located a few kilometers from Caracas and which houses political prisoners and common criminals. Relatives of the prisoners point out as unusual that “the irregularities have become accentuated and increasedafter the visit to Venezuela of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Austria Volker Turkish.

Not only the detainees of Ramo Verde, who are harassed and their rights violated, the same goes for their loved ones, mostly womenwho come on weekends to visit their children, husbands, brothers, among others.

Women are brutally harassed; “they force us to take off our underwear and to make movements to see if we bring something in our private parts: it is frankly reprehensible and undermines human dignity. The last straw is that now they started to photographing women. I was very scared, because I saw how a lady was stopped against a fence to take her picture as if she were a criminal. It’s already a tragedy to have a family member in jail and on top of that having to feel terrified every time we are going to bring something to the family member in jail,” one lady said. GlobeLiveMedia.

Every three months, the administrative control of Ramo Verde changes its component, so that with each change new restrictions, violations and mistreatment of family members are imposed, new access regulations are put in place. work and therefore the rules are constantly changing.

Some soldiers detained there have assumed that they are the ones who determine who are or are not “political prisoners” and verbally assault detained officials who are not there for common crimes but for agency records. intelligence to make it clear to the world that the Nicolás Maduro government is under attack, with the participation of the Venezuelan army.

People visiting their relatives in Ramo Verde are obliged to dress in uniform: jeans type denim pants commonly called “blue jeans” and white or flannel shirt. “If we are not dressed like this we are not allowed to enter“Is indignant a woman, who points out that this only happens there, because wearing a uniform is an obligation imposed on prisoners and should not apply to visitors.

Added to this is the fact that the soldiers in charge of checking food and other supplies brought by relatives to prisoners are not prepared or trained for these checks. “Disrupt food without any considerationThey do not use gloves to handle what they are examining, they stick their noses into containers of food, juice or water, thus contaminating the contents of the containers”.

We don’t know why, but food and goods pass through two checkpoints, separated by about 15 meters from each other, as if responding to different powers of control within the prison management. The two groups of officials stir food, spill liquids and turn anything contaminated.

For two weeks they have ordered the vehicles, where the visit is transferred, to stay outside the prison, which makes it very difficult to access it, due to the steep climb they have to travel to the entrance door to the building. “The elderly, those with health problems and certain pathologies, are prevented from moving their lower limbs well; it is painful to see them go through great difficulties to climb this steep pass.

“There is no type of infirmary, not even for first aid. There are also no qualified personnel to guarantee emergency medical care, if necessary, which endangers the lives of prisoners in Ramo Verde, many of them have health problems because they have suffered torture, others because of the consequences of not receiving consultations or medication appropriate to their medical situation.

Several women coincide in pointing out that their imprisoned relatives have confirmed that “food is very scarce and of poor quality; very low in protein and high in carbohydrates. The consequence is that prisoners are likely to suffer from contagious infectious diseases with high morbidity, due to the weak defenses they develop, with a weakened immune system”.

Family members are required to provide necessary food and medicine, so that inmates maintain an acceptable state of health. This situation affects family members who are barely surviving due to the excessive inflation that exists in the country and the poverty wages that do not allow them to meet the needs of people deprived of their liberty, which, according to the law , corresponds to the Venezuelan state.

4 years and 9 months ago, the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim), in a very critical year for the institutional framework in Venezuela, due to the functioning of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) without legitimacy or legality of origin, was arresting a group of soldiers in what he called the Operation Armageddon. This arrest was arbitraryas determined by the United Nations (UN) Task Force.

After a trial filled with vices, the case has returned to its origins, so that the military of Operation Armageddon are without a trial and one of the alleged crimes is “lack of military decorum”, which has already been prescribed , because his maximum sentence is three years old

The most obvious is the denial of justice and the unprecedented procedural delay, because the detainees in this case are in a legal vacuum. It was impossible for the court martial, presided over by Major General Jesús Emilio Vásquez Quintero, to provide information to relatives about this case. “there is no one to talk to“, he said to him GlobeLiveMedia an officer’s mother.

Vásquez was military attorney general when in September 2021 there was a strong shock due to a sordid corruption and extortion scandal, which not only led to the dismissal of the former president of the Court Martial, General de division (ex) Edgar José Rojas Borges, but also to the removal and detention of military judge Alfredo Enrique Solórzano Arias, who was sent to the military police prison of Fuerte Tiuna.

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