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Introduction





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Defending Human Rights

Venezuela's Defender of the People, or Ombudsman, which position was created under the new constitution as an official human rights watchdog body, was established in December under the leadership of Dilia Parra Guillén, an attorney and former member of the human rights department of the Attorney General's Office. Some of its senior officials, including its director general, Juan Navarrete Monasterio, had been members of the nongovernmental human rights community. Other officials were appointed to ombudsman posts in each of Venezuela's states. The ombudsman expressed forthright critical opinions on several government-backed crime-fighting initiatives that would have violated due process principles, and was influential in pressing for a full investigation of atrocities in Vargas state.

In April, Hoover Quintero and Suilvida Rausseo, members of the human rights office of the dioceses of Ciudad Guyana, received repeated threatening phone calls. They had denounced abuses by members of the Technical Judicial Police in Ciudad Guyana.

Human Rights Watch World Report 2000

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