Venezuela Uses Foreign Hostages as Bargaining Chip With Other Countries: Amnesty

Venezuelan authorities are detaining foreign citizens to use as a bargaining chip, according to Amnesty International’s most recent report.

“Out of the 15 cases of people forcibly disappeared that Amnesty International has documented since July 2024, 11 remain subjected to enforced disappearance, including Venezuelans and citizens of the United States, France, Spain, Ukraine, Colombia and Uruguay.” the July 15 report states.

For years, Amnesty International has documented the violation of judicial guarantees and the human rights abuses of people detained as part of Venezuela’s repressive machinery, especially following the July 28, 2024, elections.

In its report, Amnesty International documented the Maduro regime’s deprivation of liberty through arbitrary detentions—that is, without an arrest warrant and for political reasons to neutralize alleged “terrorists”—of Venezuelan citizens, as well as citizens of other countries.

Detainees are held incommunicado, their detention concealed, and their procedural guarantees for legal defense and trial denied.

In some cases, detainees are selected due to their nationality, the report states, “a practice reportedly used by the government of Nicolás Maduro to justify narratives of alleged foreign conspiracies and attacks, and primarily also as a bargaining chip in negotiations with third countries.”

The Penal Forum organization reported that there were at least 66 foreign prisoners from 19 countries in Venezuela after the July 2024 elections, including citizens of Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. The Amnesty International report mentions Spaniards Andrés Martínez and Jose María Basoa, as well as French-American Lucas Hunter, among the cases of enforced disappearances.

However, in January of this year, Maduro declared in a television broadcast that more than 150 “foreign mercenaries,” including two Americans, were detained for their alleged involvement in “terrorist” plots, according to Spanish news agency EFE.

“Security forces have detained U.S. citizens for up to five years without due process,” the U.S. government stated in May in a warning to leave Venezuela and avoid travel to that country due to the high risk of being unjustly detained, tortured, kidnapped, and other dangers.

What is happening in Venezuela also occurs and has prevailed in other countries dominated by socialist or communist regimes. Stalin and Mao Zedong used persecution and terrorism, among other means, to maintain their power, according to The Epoch Times’s special series “How the Specter of Communism Rules Our World.” The application of extralegal measures is part of the state terrorism of communist regimes, the publication adds.

And using foreign detainees as bargaining chips is also a practice of these governments. In 2022, Russia released WNBA star Brittney Griner in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party detained two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, on espionage charges in 2018. They were released in 2021 when Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was released after being arrested in Canada.

In China, citizens from at least 12 countries or regions—including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—have disappeared in what appear to be arbitrary detentions, with many accused of national security offenses and taken to Xinjiang concentration camps, according to the human rights organization Safeguard Defenders.

North Korea has detained several foreigners, including tourists, businesspeople, and others, on charges ranging from minor offenses to espionage, and they have been used as hostages to pressure countries such as the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia.