Maduro's post-election abuses - HRW
April 30, 2025
The Venezuelan government has killed, tortured, detained, and forcefully disappeared people seeking democratic change and many others have fled the country since last year’s presidential elections, according to a new, damning Human Rights Watch report.
The report, “Punished for Seeking Change: Killings, Enforced Disappearances and Arbitrary Detention Following Venezuela’s 2024 Election,” documents human rights violations against protesters, bystanders, opposition leaders, and critics during post-electoral protests and the months that followed. It implicates Venezuelan authorities and pro-government groups, known as colectivos, in widespread abuses, including killings of protesters and bystanders; enforced disappearances of opposition party members, their relatives, and foreign nationals; arbitrary detention and prosecution, including of children; and torture and ill-treatment of detainees.
Human Rights Watch criticized the U.S. Trump administration for prioritizing migration cooperation and the release of detained U.S. citizens in Venezuela over broader efforts to defend human rights and the rule of law, notes the Miami Herald. (See also Associated Press.)
More Venezuela
Laboratorio de Paz has a report exploring possible responses by Venezuelan organizations of civil society, who face a “perfect storm” of repression, persecution and exile of activists, restrictive regulations, and the abrupt decline in international funding sources.
Bukele-Trump negotiations
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has been a key ally for U.S. President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts — but a New York Times report found that he sought confirmation that the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador in March were truly members of a criminal gang.
“Bukele’s demands for more information about some of the deportees, which has not been previously reported, deepen questions about whether the Trump administration sufficiently assessed who it dispatched to a foreign prison,” reports the New York Times.
After the deportations, U.S. officials scrambled to provide Bukele with evidence that the people sent to El Salvador were indeed Tren de Aragua members: they sent the information they had compiled, which included a scorecard in which each man was designated a gang member based on points for certain affiliations and activities, such as having a range of tattoos, reports the New York Times.
In negotiations between the two governments, El Salvador — represented by Bukele’s brother, Ibrajim — offered a discount to the U.S., in exchange for the Trump administration deporting MS-13 gang members, reports CNN. The U.S. pays a per-inmate fee ($20,000 according to some reports, unclear according to others) for each foreigner sent to El Salvador. (See also El País.) It has been widely reported that Bukele sought to avoid having these MS-13 gang leaders testify in U.S. courts and reveal alleged negotiations between the Bukele administration and criminal groups. (See March 18’s post.)
The 238 Venezuelans sent by the U.S. to El Salvador, plus others sent subsequently, are housed in Bukele’s infamous anti-terrorism prison: “It’s like Guantánamo on steroids,” Juan Pappier, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for the Americas told the Guardian. “These people are outside the US, in a country with no separation of powers. They’re in a space essentially ungoverned by law.”
Brazil
A Brazilian Supreme Court judge ordered federal government to seize private properties when owners are found responsible for illegal deforestation or wildfires. The landmark ruling — which can be appealed — stems from a petition filed by the party Rede Sustentabilidade with the support of several environmental organizations, reports the Associated Press.
Colombia
The Colombian government says 15 police officers and 12 soldiers have been killed over the past two weeks in targeted attacks it blames on armed groups. President Gustavo Petro accused the Gulf Clan criminal gang and other armed groups of targeting members of the security forces in revenge for the recent killing of several of their leaders, reports the BBC.
More Deportations
Yesterday the NYT compared disappearances of migrants in the U.S. to those carried out by Latin American dictatorships in the 1980s. But Venezuelans say the atmosphere of terror in Trump’s America is eerily similar to that of Maduro’s Venezuela, reports Pirate Wire Services.
The New York Times profiles the case of a 2-year-old separated from her parents, who were deported by the Trump administration, which accuses them of being Tren de Aragua members.
Mexico
Mexico has received nearly 39,000 immigrants deported from the United States since the beginning of Trump's administration, of which 33,000 are Mexicans, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said yesterday. (Reuters)
Mexico’s attorney general said an abandoned ranch in Jalisco state was a training hub for criminal cartels, but that there was no evidence that it was a site for cremating the remains of victims. The news comes after families of cartel victims said the ranch was an “extermination camp,” but activists say they stand by their findings, and that officials were using technical language in an effort to change the narrative, reports the New York Times.
Raúl Servín, a member of the Jalisco Search Warriors, said that things had only gotten worse since they raised the alarm about the ranch in March. Last week, he said, a member of their group, María del Carmen Morales, was killed.
He said his group had sufficient evidence that bodies were burned at the site, reports the Associated Press.
An elite police squad in Chiapas, created last December by the governor, has been accused of abuses, including arbitrary detentions, torture and excessive use of force, reports Animal Político.
Chiapas rights groups denounce collusion between the government, criminals and businesses — and say that disappearances and human trafficking have surged in the past five years. (Animal Político)
Trump’s pick for the DEA, Terry Cole, is a vocal supporter of the president’s goal of going after Mexican officials who are complicit with drug cartels — it’s a stance that could challenge the already tense relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, according to ProPublica.
Regional Relations
The U.S.’s negative approach to Latin America — particularly with tariffs and immigration — could backfire, pushing the region closer to China, the opposite of the containment the Trump administration is angling for, writes Fernanda Magnotta in Americas Quarterly.
China’s ambassador to Chile criticized the U.S. for interfering in Chile’s sovereign right to choose its partners, a defiant response U.S. concerns over a Chinese astronomical venture in Chile’s arid north, reports the Associated Press.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he is interested in advancing talks for a trade deal between South America's Mercosur bloc and Canada in order to "diversify and expand our exchange,” reports Reuters.
Opposition from some African nations to United Nations Security Council reform blocked a joint declaration at a Brics foreign ministers’ meeting in Rio de Janeiro yesterday. The case esposes divisions within the bloc and undermines efforts by Brazil to project unity, reports the South China Morning Post.
The Trump administration has informed the U.S. Congress about its plans to label Haitian gangs as foreign terror organizations, reports Reuters. The designation follows a Trump administration move in February to nix protections that shielded half a million Haitians from deportation, notes the Associated Press.
Cuba
Cuba’s highest court has ordered two prominent dissidents — Jose Daniel Ferrer and Felix Navarro — to be taken back into custody on the basis that both had allegedly violated the terms of their parole. Both men had been released earlier this year as part of a deal mediated by the late Pope Francis and the Catholic Church. As part of the agreement, the U.S. Biden administration removed Cuba from it’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, a decision immediately reversed by Trump. (Al Jazeera)
Guatemala
The U.S. embassy in Guatemala said yesterday it found that China-based espionage groups had hacked the Central American nation's foreign ministry's computer system, but the ministry said this was an old case — Reuters
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago’s United National Congress won Monday’s election, a major political comeback for party leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, according to the Miami Herald. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
Argentina
Argentine savers are going back to the bank to buy dollars (instead of illegal money changers) after President Javier Milei granted them complete freedom to do so after five years of strict currency controls, reports Bloomberg.