Victims of right-wing Venezuela protests speak in Brussels

A committee representing the victims of Venezuela’s right-wing protests over 2013 and 2014 met Tuesday with the European Parliament in Brussels to explain their side of the violent events in which more than 40 people were killed.

Known as the “Victims of the Guarimba,” the group, made up of family members and friends of the victims, was named after the blockades that anti-government protesters used, which killed many government supporters by garroting them with wires purposefully positioned at neck-height. The group told the European Parliament deputies about the human rights abuses provoked by the political opposition.

Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez is currently serving time for inciting the violence that led to the Venezuelan blood bath.

Desiree Cabrera, a mother affected by the demonstrations last year, said that what she told Brussels was the truth, and that opposition groups were trying to hide the reality from the European nations.

Cabrera told teleSUR that she had to evacuate a day care center of more than 80 children less than three years of age, when tear gas sprayed by the opposition began to affect them.

“I was a victim of those violent acts, and working for a public body doesn’t take away my right to demand respect for human rights,” she said. “We came to Europe to ask that they do not politicize the cases, because when those over here (in Europe) ask for the liberation of Leopoldo Lopez, they violate our right to justice, they promote impunity, because they don’t know the truth of what happened in those violent acts,” she added.

European deputy Javier Couso criticized the lack of balance and politicization of the hearing that the European Parliament held about human rights in Venezuela.

Portuguese European Parliamentarian Ines Zuber said that the European Parliament. politically manipulates human rights in Venezuela with electoral ambitions.

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