Caracas Chronicles

131 nations at the United Nations General Assembly in New York have just re-elected Venezuela to the Human Rights Council for a second three-year term. That’s down from 154 votes in 2012. Still, it’s enough.

And what will Venezuela do in its new term on the Council? Why, scrutinise the human rights record of other countries, of course.

Let’s let this sink in.

Venezuela and its political prisoners, its 20,000 murders per year, its 90% impunity rate, its jailed protesters, its torture chambers, its evidence-faking prosecutors and its almost non-existent independent media will now be called on to look over the human rights records of the Swedens and the Uruguays of this world. Nothing like having an expert on board.

Mind you, our voting record in the council is just as bad as our human rights record at home: Venezuela consistently voted against all resolutions on Syria, Iran and North Korea (los panas), and supported the Egyptian government when 1,000+ protesters were killed by security forces in 2013.

In fact, Human Rights Watch says that Venezuela has the worst voting record in the entire UN. Though at least at the Human Rights Council, we actually vote. At the Security Council? Not so much.

Our Bolivarian human-rights-paradise was the only candidate that did not allow any United Nations experts to visit the country and examine first-hand its human rights situation. These UN fellas just wanted to pay us a visit to see how we were doing with our food, our freedom of opinion and expression, our right to protest, to investigate cases of torture, and examine the independence of our judicial system and we just said “no, we’re fine”.

Other countries elected include the United Arab Emirates (hey, we all know how women’s rights are on point there), Kyrgyzstan and Ethiopia. China, Russia, Cuba and Saudi Arabia are still members.