Message-ID: <01I5L2HZKK548ZGRA3@umiami.ir.miami.edu> Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 10:20:40 -0400 From: posted for the Environmental Guardians Defense Committee Subject: Venezuelasued for human rights abuses against conservation To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
BIOLOGISTS FILE SUIT AGAINST THE VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT
Dr. Aldemaro Romero and Prof. Ignacio Agudo filed a petition
against the Venezuelan government with the Inter-American
Commission of Human Rights in Washington, D.C.
Rights International, a non-profit and non-partisan organization
that represents victims of human rights violations before
international courts, announced at a 24 May 1996 press conference
held at the Knight Center of the University of Miami, that it is
seeking an injunction against the Venezuelan government and its
agents to prohibit the threats of death and kidnapping and other
acts that continue to be committed against Profs. Agudo and
Romero and their families. It is also seeking compensation for
damages suffered by them as a consequence of the Venezuelan
government's retaliation attempts against Dr. Romero and Prof.
Agudo for having released the results of their scientific studies
on dolphin mortality.
Part of that study included videotaped evidence of Venezuelan
fishermen killing dolphins for bait for commercial shark-fishing
in February 1993, an activity that the government dismisses as
non-existent. Still smarting from an unrelated international
tuna embargo for allowing the killing of dolphins by Venezuelan
fishermen in the eastern tropical Pacific ocean, the Venezuelan
government is alleged to have been embarrassed by the videotape's
airing on international television. Consequently, the Venezuelan
government retaliated against Dr. Romero and Prof. Agudo by
threatening their lives and by filing charges against them that
Rights International and other human rights and dolphin
conservation groups say are entirely false. Dr. Romero and Prof.
Agudo have denied all charges made against them.
The videotape was aired on Venezuelan, UK, and US television
stations, including CNN, the BBC, and the nationally syndicated
television program American Journal. Their story also received
front-page coverage in The Wall Street Journal. The Venezuelan
Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Venezuelan General
Consulate's office in Miami, claimed to have received 20,000
angry letters of protest from the American public. Picketers at
the embassy urged a boycott of Venezuelan products.
Subsequently, the Venezuelan government, embarrassed by the
negative publicity, accused Dr. Romero and Prof. Agudo of having
bribed and directed the fishermen to kill a dolphin. They and
their wives and young children began to receive death threats.
Dr. Romero brought his family to a safety in the United States
and Prof. Agudo is now in Brazil seeking political asylum. In
April 1994, a judge in the State of Sucre issued an arrest
warrant for Dr. Romero and Prof. Agudo and vowed on television
that once arrested, they "would never be released from jail."
Other Venezuelan officials including the Governor of the
Venezuelan State of Sucre and the Venezuelan Consul General in
Miami have charged Dr. Romero and Prof. Agudo with treason. The
governor of Sucre told The Wall Street Journal, "If it were up to
me, I would have [Dr. Romero] shot."
Fearing for their lives, Dr. Romero and his family arrived in
Miami in February 1994. In April 1994, Prof. Agudo and his family
went into hiding. During this time, Prof. Agudo's wife was
unable to obtain adequate medical care for chronic heart disease,
and her health deteriorated. She died on April 12, 1995 while in
hiding. Prof. Agudo and his two daughters escaped from Venezuela
to Brazil in February 1996 where they have applied for political
asylum.
Dr. Romero is now an adjunct associate professor of biology at
the University of Miami. He is the former executive director of
the Venezuelan Foundation for the Conservation of Biological
Diversity ("Bioma") and former president of the Hemispheric
Conference on Economics and the Environment. Prof. Agudo is a
biology professor, former curator of the La Salle Natural History
Museum of Venezuela, and founder and general director of
Fundacetacea, a Venezuelan environmental organization.
The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights will examine Dr.
Romero and Prof. Agudo's claims and may refer the case to the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. Having
ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, the Venezuelan
Government is legally bound by the Court's decision.
Professors and students from the University of Miami School of
Law and the New York University Law School assisted Rights
International in its preparation of the case as did the
Environmental Guardians Defense Committee, a non-profit group
committed to assisting those persecuted for conservation-related
activities.
For further information, please contact Mr. Francisco Forrest
Martin, President, Rights International, at (305) 446-7334.
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