Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez has appointed deposed dictator Nicolás Maduro’s former torture czar as her security chief as questions about the tenure of her leadership in the embattled South American nation linger.
Rodriguez named General Gustavo Enrique González López, 66, as commander of the Presidential Honor Guard on Tuesday, according to a report by Univision Noticias.
Under Maduro’s despotic regime, González López headed up the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), notorious thugs who have been condemned by human rights groups and the UN as a repressive, gestapo-like secret police.
SEBIN has been accused by human rights groups of committing acts of unspeakable torture and sexual violence against pro-democracy campaigners.
González López has been sanctioned by governments around the world for human rights violations, including the US, Canada, Panama, Switzerland and the European Union, according to Venezuela-based human rights group Asociacion Civil Control Ciudadano.
The US slapped González López with sanctions following deadly protests in 2014 in which hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in fury over living conditions under Maduro, who rose to power in 2013 after prevailing in a controversial special election following the death of Hugo Chavez.
Then-president Barack Obama issued a presidential order in 2015 declaring Venezuela “a threat to national security” after 43 demonstrators were killed and more than 4,000 were arrested, formally sanctioning seven officials including González López.
Obama said he was responsible for “erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, restrictions on press freedom, violence and human rights abuses in response to anti-government protests, arbitrary arrests and arrests of anti-government protesters, and significant public corruption,” BBC Mundo reported at the time.
González López was one of 40 Venezuelan officials sanctioned by Canada after another anti-Maduro uprising in September 2017 during which at least 125 people were killed, calling the move a “response to the government of Venezuela’s deepening descent into dictatorship.”
González López held numerous prominent roles within the Venezuelan government under Maduro, including general-in-chief of the Venezuelan army.
He was briefly replaced as head of SEBIN in 2018 after a botched drone assassination attempt against Maduro during a military parade, and the death of an opposition political figure inside SEBIN headquarters, according to El Comercio.
But six months later, during another round of anti-Maduro unrest the following year, he was put back in charge of the shadowy police force.
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“During the times he has served as SEBIN director, officials under his ultimate authority committed acts of arbitrary detention, torture and cruel and inhuman treatment, including sexual violence, in El Helicoide detention centre,” a 2018 UN report on sanctions enacted against González López reads in part.
“As General Director of SEBIN, he is responsible for serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, inhuman and degrading treatment, and torture, and the repression of civil society and the democratic opposition in Venezuela.”
Rodriguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president Monday, just 48 hours after a daring late-night raid by US special forces that successfully captured Maduro and brought him and his wife, Cilia Flores, to the US to face a range of narco-terrorism and weapons charges.
Although she’s expressed a desire to “collaborate” with the US on “shared development” following the arrest of her predecessor, President Trump has yet to endorse her ascent to power, saying he hasn’t yet spoken to Rodriguez, but “at the right time, I will.”
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Sunday night, Trump said his main priority was to “fix” what he dubbed a “broken country” rather than engineer regime change, warning, “if they don’t behave, we will do a second strike.”
