The International Committee of the Red Cross has regained access to prisons in Venezuela, including highly guarded military facilities where dozens of inmates considered political prisoners are being held, as President Nicolas Maduro seeks to counter mounting criticism of his government's human rights record.
The fact that the visits include military prisons, which hadn't been previously reported, was confirmed to The Associated Press by a human rights lawyer and family members of those detained.
International Red Cross President Peter Maurer on Wednesday wraps up a five-day visit to Venezuela, where the Geneva-based group is among international organizations trying to carve out a space to deliver badly needed humanitarian aid and technical assistance free of the winner-take-all politics contributing to the country's turmoil.
Red Cross representatives visit prisons every year in more than 100 countries, following an established protocol allowing it to verify conditions of confinement and hold private conversations with inmates in which they can voice complaints and send messages to loved ones.
But the group had been denied access in Venezuela at least since 2012.
The renewed visits in Venezuela began March 11 when a Red Cross delegation visited a model prison in Caracas, the Simon Bolivar Center for the Formation of New Men. Eighty-seven foreigners are being held.
But more significant was the visit two weeks later to the military-run Ramo Verde prison outside Caracas, which holds 69 people the opposition considers political prisoners.
Sandra Hernandez, whose husband, Sgt. Luis Figueroa, has been jailed at Ramo Verde since January for leading a military uprising against Maduro, was present last week when a white-colored vehicle emblazoned with the international Red Cross' logo pulled up to the prison entrance.
She was there for her once-a-week visit, delivering basic staples — pasta, rice and cheese — that have become harder to afford since she was fired from her $7-a-month job as a teacher in what she said was retaliation for her husband's opposition to the government.
She said that if not for remittances sent by a relative in Spain, her husband could starve on the scant rations provided by prison authorities.
While her husband told her he wasn't among the small group of prisoners allowed to speak with the Red Cross representatives, she was hopeful the visit would help improve dire conditions for all inmates, many of whom she said are suffering from lack of medical attention and claim to have been tortured. The AP was unable to independently verify those claims.
"It's very important they talk to prisoners and see firsthand what's happening inside," she said.
Red Cross officials declined to comment and the group has made little mention of the prison visits, saying only in a Tweet it had begun visiting jails under the auspices of civilian penitentiary authorities.
It made no mention of the visits to the military-run facilities. The organization commonly avoids describing such visits except in a "confidential dialogue" with officials.
Prisons Minister Iris Varela has said the visit to the civilian facility, and others to come, were part of an effort to share with the world Venezuela's positive experience rehabilitating inmates.
Left unsaid by both sides was that the Red Cross had also secured access to military detention facilities.
The majority of people held at the Ramo Verde are military personnel accused of plotting to overthrow Maduro. Many more, including five oil executives with U.S. passports, are being held in the basement jail of the military counterintelligence headquarters in the capital.
"This is an important first step, but make no mistake, it's also an attempt by Maduro to gain legitimacy with the international community," said Alfredo Romero, a human rights lawyer who was told of the Red Cross visit by prison workers when trying to visit clients at Ramo Verde. "It's not in itself going to change the government's willingness to improve conditions."
A senior government official played down the significance of the Red Cross visits, describing them as part of a broader push to work more closely with several international agencies, including the World Food Program and the Pan American Health Organization. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to lack of authorization to discuss those talks publicly.
The international Red Cross' sister organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, recently said it had received a waiver from Maduro to deliver aid to some 650,000 people in Venezuela beginning this month.Maduro has long denied a humanitarian crisis, considering aid offers a "Trojan horse" to pave the way for a foreign military intervention.
Similarly, opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by 50 nations as Venezuela's rightful leader, has tried to control the distribution of U.S.-supplied aid in a bid to weaken Maduro's grip on power.
In another attempt to counter growing criticism, Maduro last month welcomed a delegation sent by the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights. He previously had called such visits a politically biased threat to Venezuela's sovereignty.
