The governments of Venezuela and Colombia should thoroughly and promptly investigate the recent abductions and killings of ten men by an unidentified armed group on the Venezuelan side of the border between the two countries. A separate attack on a longtime Colombian human rights defender in the state of Meta should be fully investigated.

The Venezuelan government has adopted and proposed measures that reduce the ability of government critics to voice their opinions and will seriously limit freedom of expression in Venezuela.

The Chávez government should immediately stop harassing a private television station that has been critical of the government and call off an unwarranted investigation into its conduct.

President Obama came under fire last month for sharing a smile with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez at the Summit of the Americas. But I think time may show that Obama did the right thing.

Human Rights Watch responds to allegations regarding our work in Venezuela made in a sign-on letter circulated by Greg Grandin, Miguel Tinker Salas, and Greg Wilpert. The sign-on letter systematically misrepresents our findings, our sources, and our motives.

On September 18, we released a report in Caracas that shows how President Hugo Chávez has undermined human rights guarantees in Venezuela. That night, we returned to our hotel and found around twenty Venezuelan security agents, some armed and in military uniform, awaiting us outside our rooms. They were accompanied by a man who announced—with no apparent sense of irony—that he was a government "human rights" official and that we were being expelled from the country.

The Venezuelan government's expulsion of two Human Rights Watch staff underscores the Chávez administration's increasing intolerance of dissenting views.

The government of President Hugo Chávez has weakened democratic institutions and human rights guarantees in Venezuela.