“No sanctions can justify the climate of fear, repression, and persecution that the Venezuelan people endure today,” declared Chile's ambassador to the United Nations in a forceful response to the Cuban representative who attempted to defend the human rights violations occurring in Venezuela. “No sanctions serve as a valid excuse for the unjust detention of opposition members. Sanctions have nothing to do with the deaths during protests,” asserted Claudia Fuentes Julio, representing the Chilean government at the 57th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which concluded on Friday, October 11, in Geneva, Switzerland.
During the meeting, participants agreed to extend the fact-finding mission in Venezuela for another two years and passed a resolution urging Nicolás Maduro and his Chavista forces to end the repression. In response, Cuban ambassador Juan Antonio Quintanilla attempted to rationalize Venezuela’s human rights crisis by blaming it on “sanctions.”
The Cuban representative claimed that the investigation mission was a “deceptive, biased, and ineffective mechanism that contradicts the values we pledged to uphold when the Human Rights Council was established.” Yet, Chile’s response was unwavering, consistent with President Gabriel Boric’s stance on Venezuela’s electoral fraud and political turmoil.
“Sectoral sanctions have been exploited by the Maduro government and its allies to distract from and evade responsibility for the severe humanitarian crisis in Venezuela,” explained Fuentes Julio. This is not the first time Cuba’s government has supported regimes with poor human rights records, not only in Latin America but globally.
Last year, Ambassador Quintanilla defended Nicaragua following the UN condemnation of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s regime for crimes against humanity. During that time, a report by the Human Rights Experts Group on Nicaragua urged the international community to impose sanctions on institutions or individuals involved in various acts constituting human rights violations, such as stripping 222 individuals of their nationality and expelling them after branding them “traitors to the homeland” in February 2023.
The Cuban regime was re-elected last year as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, occupying one of the three seats reserved for South American and Caribbean countries alongside Brazil and the Dominican Republic. Despite ongoing allegations of human rights abuses on the island, Cuba’s diplomacy has managed to retain membership in this body, established on March 15, 2006, through UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251, for 19 years.