A/HRC/45/33 84. Government representatives presented Operations for People’s Liberation as a series of joint military and police operations, which began in July 2015 and continued until July 2017, and which were aimed at liberating territories from criminal activity. Initially implemented five months before the National Assembly elections in December 2015, there are indications that the Operations for People’s Liberation were an effort to gain electoral popularity by showing results in combating crime. 85. A first phase of operations took place from July 2015 to May 2016, at which point a new phase was officially launched. On 13 July 2016, one year after the first operation, the Minister of the Interior announced that 143 operations had been carried out during the first half of 2016. 86. In January 2017, the Government relaunched the Operations for People’s Liberation as Operations for People’s Humane Liberation. In a televised statement, President Maduro said that Operations for People’s Liberation had been a good experience, but had also faced criticism. The Government published a protocol of action for the Operations for People’s Humane Liberation, containing information about organization and operational design. 16 87. By mid-2017, Government representatives had largely stopped referring to the Operations for People’s Liberation and the Operations for People’s Humane Liberation in statements, indicating a change of strategy. This shift coincided with a 14 July 2017 public announcement that a specialized tactical force – the Special Action Forces, established within the National Bolivarian Police – would take the lead in the fight against crime and terrorism. 88. The operations involved the deployment of considerable human and logistical resources. In July 2016, the Minister of the Interior said that 95,021 police and military officials had participated in operations to date. The Operations for People’s Liberation were implemented in 19 out of 24 states. Of the 140 cases reviewed by the mission, most took place in the Caracas metropolitan area and in Miranda and Carabobo states. 89. A common pattern is that the Operations for People’s Liberation began during the early hours of the morning, often before dawn, and that security forces blocked off neighbourhood streets so that people were unable to enter or leave. Operations for People’s Liberation took place primarily in urban, low-income neighbourhoods. Both female and male security officials participated in the operations. 90. Several of the operations were announced as having specific criminal targets. In some cases, security forces carried out prior intelligence work to identify the targets, including infiltrating community activities; recruiting sex workers; using drones; reviewing pictures and profiles on social media; and reviewing contacts and photos in cell phones seized from known criminals. Most people killed in the cases investigated did not have criminal records or outstanding arrest warrants against them. (b) Killings in the Operations for People’s Liberation and the Operations for People’s Humane Liberation 91. There are reasonable grounds to believe that security forces committed extrajudicial executions, and arbitrary arrests and detentions during the Operations for People’s Liberation and the Operations for People’s Humane Liberation. 92. In its investigations, the Public Prosecutor’s Office identified 505 people killed during the Operations for People’s Liberation (502 men and 3 women, including 27 adolescents). In the 140 cases17 reviewed by the mission, 413 people were killed. Among them were 306 men (16 of which were minors) and 3 women; no information was available on the sex of the other 104 victims. The range of number of deaths in a single operation were 1 to 3 deaths, in 52 cases; 4 to 9 deaths, in 36 cases; and 10 or more deaths, in 8 cases. 93. There is a clear pattern of the Government claiming that deaths occurred as a result of confrontations or that victims were resisting authority at the time of their death. In most of 16 17 Ministy of Interior, Justice and Peace, Protocolo de Actuación de los Cuerpos de Seguridad del Estado en la Operación de Liberación Humanista del Pueblo, (Caracas, January 2017). A case refers to one operation, often involving numerous victims, rather than the human rights violations faced by one person. 11