We have oftentimes pointed out the similarities between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela on this blog, arguing that these symbiotic developments go far beyond joint naval exercises, illegal expropriations of oil companies, and constitutional destruction. In fact, it’s often hard to tell who is copying who. Now we see that Venezuela also has their own political prisoners – as below an exclusive translation from El Nacional tells the story of Eligio Cedeño, an innocent businessman who has spent 22 months behind bars without any sentence from any court. Download the original Spanish here.
The Government uses the courts to punish “prisoners of the state”
The lawyer Gonzalo Himiob assured that the victims are not only political, but also personal.
By Vanessa Gomez Quiroz
El Nacional, Dec. 23, 2008, pp. 5
“There’s no difference between political prisoners and the prisoners of the state,” said Gonzalo Himiob, a lawyer specialized in human rights, who now has become one of the legal representatives of the businessman Eligio Cedeño, who has been imprisoned for 22 months.
Himiob explains that after studying the case against Cedeño, he determined that there aren’t any legal variations between what happened to this banker and other individuals, for example such as the police chiefs Henry Vivas, Lázaro Forero, and Iván Simonovis, who are already icons of judicial rights and due process violations.
Eligio Cedeño was the owner of a bank, through which the consortium Microstar solicited Cadivi (Cadivi is Venezuela’s monetary exchange authority. Under President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has instituted very strict yet vague rules on foreign exchange and the purchase of dollars to prevent capital flight. – trans.) for $27 million for a purchase of computers.The equipment never arrived to the country, and Cedeño as well as the representative of Microstar, Gustavo Arraiz, were charged and accused by the Public Prosecutor’s office of embezzlement and contraband.”From this exact moment, Eligio Cedeño was turned into a prisoner of the state, because it is evident that he did not commit any crime, and that his responsibility was to manage the delivery of the dollars to Cadivi, and not what they later did with this money,” insists Himiob.Arguments. Cedeño is known in the banking community as a person who despite his humble origins was able to accumulate an immense fortune in just a few years, which permitted him to become the owner of a bank. As such, the government disqualifies his situation and assures that it is not possible that a person of this profile could be considered as a political prisoner.When consulted on the reasons why Cedeño has become a political prisoner, Himiob is emphatic in affirming: “Perhaps the motivations that allowed for his arrest were not strictly political, but the manner in which they have served justice identifies with the way the state acts with regard to political prisoners.”He acknowledges the pattern of the justice system against these designated political prisoners: “They are denying him the possibility that his case advance as it is supposed to advance, they are suspending hearings constantly, they deny all the resources presented by the defense, and they are delaying in general the detention of Eligio Cedeño.”The human rights specialist insists that the whole state apparatus is being manipulated inappropriately, against the Constitution, with regard to judicial rights, and including international treaties signed by Venezuela.Making it worse. Himiob points to another element, which from his point of view, demonstrates the attempt to deepen and exaggerate charges against Cedeño. He refers to declarations made by the Prosecutor Hernando Contreras to Globovision in which he affirmed that the Microstar case was “a point of honor” for Isaías Rodríguez, that for him the order was to delay the process.One should recall that when Rodríguez was attorney general everything from full page press releases were used to inform the Public Ministry about the process.”This was the enlightened version of everything that happened, not only because it was evidenced by the persecution, but also because it is one of the reasons that we can affirm that Cedeño is in judicial limbo because he has no conviction and up until now there is no type of judgment.”He mentioned that the case still is paralyzed because the last day in court, the Criminal Section of the TSJ (Supreme Judicial Tribunal – trans.) decided to admit a change of venue which had been solicited by the defense six months earlier and still there has not been a decision from the high judicial authorities.Low Profile. The case of Eligio Cedeño has not been as well known as that of the police chiefs.Regarding this, Himiob explains that when the state attacks people that have certain amount of economic, political, or media influence, they prefer, in principle, to keep the situation low profile.The lawyer says that even people in the Government with links to Cedeño made the recommendation to him “not to make a scandal out of his imprisonment” in exchange for receiving benefits: “But this is never true, in the end, when you are dealing with political prisoners this measure is counterproductive because it makes people feel that don’t feel like human rights violations are materializing in these cases, and it takes them a bit more to accept it.”Arguments. He insists that the regardless of the arguments propping the more than 35 cases branded as political in all of the country, the pattern of conduct remains the same: the use of the justice system to intimidate.”Hearings are turned into political sanctions, and the process in and of itself is a punishment with or without a sentence,” warns Himiob.He points to other cases which had a similar development to that of Eligio Cedeño’s, charges which they have opened against people who haven’t necessarily politically confronted the Government, but rather that they have had personal disagreements with some of its spokespersons.”That’s like the case of Leocenis García, he has no money, but he does have influence in the media like José Rafael Ramírez. Also the case of Captain Otto Guebauer, who refused to give another version of the events of 11-A (this refers to the failed 2002 coup attempt – trans.), and there one can see the state manipulating the judicial structure which shows that we’ dealing with a point of honor for the Government.”
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