Here is another report on the protests and government repression Venezuela, originally published by the Center for Human Rights at UCAB, and re-posted online by the Venezuelan anarchist paper EL LIBERT@RIO. Inline links and editorial notes in footnotes are added by me. The same caveats apply as elsewhere; if you notice any mistakes or mangling please feel free to point them out in the comments, and I’ll attach a note or a correction to the text here.

Message from CDH-UCAB: On Torture and Cruel and Inhuman Treatment of the Detainees from 12-F.

Human Rights Center at UCAB

In a press notice published by the newspaper ?@c3;161;ltimas Noticias and reproduced with additional and equally false reports by the Sistema Bolivariano de Informaci?@c3;b3;n y Comunicaci?@c3;b3;n (SIBCI),^[1] reference is made to a supposed declaration by the Center for Human Rights at UCAB^[2] (CDHUCAB) in order to downplay the importance of the serious accusations by spokespeople of Foro Penal about the torture of people detained in Valencia, in the state of Carabobo.^[3]

It’s necessary to clarify concerning:

1. The CDH-UCAB had no direct contact with those detained in Valencia, Carabobo, so it can neither confirm nor deny these allegations which, because of their severity, require an investigation by the authorities, independently, without intimidation or retaliation against the victims or the accusers, without anyone being disqualified ahead of time,^[4] and following international standards that bind Venezuela as a country party to the International Convention against Torture.

2. Beginning February 12, teams of lawyers from CDH-UCAB have given support to detainees in the capital region, having responded, from the early hours of the 13th, to invitations from many communications media, in which, because they were still in the process of locating detainees, were unable to supply detailed information about the conditions of detention they faced, without having meant, as we stated in many media outlets, that there was or was not torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.

3. The CDH-UCAB did warn, within a few hours of the first detentions, that it was worried about the detainee’s lack of access to their families and lawyers, since under that condition the conditions of detention could not be verified, to which was added the seizure of their cellular phones, preventing any communication.

4. After visiting various detention centers and having had contact with a considerable number of detainees and their families, the CDH-UCAB has identified a series of unacceptable situations that affect many different rights, including the penalization of protest, the minimum guarantees to the detained, the guarantees of due process and the conditions of detention, among which there have been acts which could qualify as torture or cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment, in accord with the UN Convention against Torture:

   a. In practically every case with a verdict, the judges have included an injunction prohibiting those convicted from demonstrations, a sanction that the law does not expressly provide for, and which violates the constitutionally-protected right to peacefully demonstrate.

   b. In nearly the totality of the cases, the families have been arbitrarily denied from seeing the detainees. This has basically happened in the detention centers of CICPC^[5] and those of the National Guard. In all cases in which they banned families from seeing their detained relatives, the authorities have alleged “orders from higher up.”

   c. The conditions of the places that they have used as centers of detention are in some cases absolutely inadequate, this is the case of the National Guard Command located in La Dolorita, in which 18 youths — the majority students — were held for 2 days in the same extremely small room, without a functioning bathroom, without adequate ventilation, without beds or mats, and without These conditions were noted directly by lawyers from CDHUCAB, who also verified the presence of a functionary from the Public Defender’s,^[6] who, in spite of these inhuman conditions, had not issued reports on it.

   d. In some cases the families were not even permitted to make telephone contact with the detained for 48 hours or more during the time they were detained, which is not only a violation of the most basic rights of detainees and families, but has even generated some accusations of disappearing prisoners^[7] that ceased after some hours, and which could have been avoided with relevant information about the whereabouts of the detainees, as established by international standards.

   e. Many detainees were not brought before a judge, or in the process of being brought before a judge, within the 48 hour limit that the law refers to. Some had spent 56 to 60 hours without being presented to a court, as was the case of Hugo^[8] Gerrero, a professor at UCV,^[9] who the judge finally freed with apologies, because he was not even participating in the protest.

   f. In the great majority of the cases the lawyers have not been able to have private conversations with the detainees. When they have permitted a lawyer access to see their defendants in the detention centers, at least one official has always been present during the entire conversation, limiting the possibility for the detainees to clearly report the actions and the treatment that they are receiving in detention.

   g. Practically all the detained have made accusations that they have been assaulted psychologically and many physically. The psychological attacks range from threats of being physically assaulted or even threats that they would be raped. The physical attacks range from minor injuries on different parts of the body, up to highly sensitive situations we are in the process of verifying.

   h. In some cases an undue delay is produced in order for the detainees to be brought to the show-cause hearing. That is to say, to the time of detention (which many times exceeds the legal maximum time of 48 hours) in some cases up to 10 or 12 more hours are added to be heard by the judge in the show-cause hearing.

   i. Without a judge’s order, in the majority of the cases security forces reviewed the private information contained in detainees’ cellular phones or electronic devices (their e-mails, text messages, photos, etc.), and, on occasions, have proceeded to offload images that could document excesses by the security forces of the State.

5. In addition to some deeds which the CDH-UCAB is still investigating, the situations we just described are also contrary to the Convention against Torture, to which Venezuela is a party, and contravene the standards to apply to all detainees under this and under the Special Law to prevent and punish torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,^[10] whenever the obstacles presented by those responsible for the custody of the detainees are contrary to the procedures required for the prevention of torture, involving those officials in responsibility for acts that can be investigated and punished and which constitute human rights offenses with no statute of limitations.^[11]

6. Finally, the CDH-UCAB rejects this new attempt by SIBCI to discredit the work of Provea,^[12] alleging a supposed source of funding noted for financing groups against government in the country while remaining silent, just like the Public Defender’s office,^[13] about the kidnapping and assault of the same organization’s Media Coordinator,^[14] acts which, it is worth noting, also form part of the conduct which the State is obligated to investigated and punished due to the commitments assumed by the UN Convention against Torture. This accusation has been lodged at the office of the Attorney General and the Public Defender’s.^[15]

Caracas, 18 February 2014

–Translation of Comunicado del CDH-UCAB: Sobre torturas y trato cruel e inhumano de detenidos del 12F. Translated by Charles W. Johnson

1. ^[1]A propaganda system established and operated by the Venezuelan government.↩
2. ^[2]Centro de Derechos Humanos, at the Universidad Cat?@c3;b3;lica Andrés Bello, a private university, which is one of the largest universities in Venezuela.↩
3. ^[3]See for example Foro Penal: Hay torturas (Foro Penal: There is torture), 22 Feb. 2014.↩
4. ^[4]Lit. “apriori disqualifications.”↩
5. ^[5]Cuerpo de Invasticaiones Cientificas, Científicas, Penales y Criminalísticas, Venezuela’s largest national police force and forensic investigation agency.↩
6. ^[6]Lit. Defensoría del Pueblo, an ombudsman’s office which is tasked with monitoring, promoting and defending human rights under the Venezuelan constitution. The office-holder is appointed for a 7-year term by a committee on the national legislature.↩
7. ^[7]Lit. denuncias de desapariciones fisicas, a reference to the long-standing dirty-war tactic of disappearing enemies of the regime, i.e. imprisoning and murdering them in secret, while officially denying knowledge of their condition or their whereabouts.↩
8. ^[8]Hug in text; this seems to be a typo.↩
9. ^[9]Universidad Central de Venezuela, a public university in Caracas.↩
10. ^[10]Ley Especial para prevenir y sancionar la tortura y otros tratos crueles, inhumanos o degradantes, a Venezuelan national law.↩
11. ^[11]Lit. delitos imprescriptibles, imprescriptible or inextinguishable offenses, a category in international law applying to, for example, torture, disappearance, war crimes and crimes against humanity.↩
12. ^[12]Programa Venezolano de Educaci?@c3;b3;n-Acci?@c3;b3;n en Derechos Humanos, a prominent Venezuelan human-rights NGO which has repeatedly criticized the Bolivarian government↩
13. ^[13]Again, Defensoría del Pueblo, the government’s human-rights ombudsman.↩
14. ^[14]Inti Rodríguez, the media coordinator of Provea, was allegedly kidnapped on February 12 by about 20 disguised men who interrogated, beat, and threatened to kill him, which he claims to have included pro-government paramilitaries and (from the language they used in the interrogation) possibly also members of police or intelligence agencies.↩
15. ^[15]Again, Defensoría del Pueblo, the government’s human-rights ombudsman.↩

Here is another report from the streets in Venezuela, posted online by the Venezuelan anarchist paper EL LIBERT@RIO. Inline links and editorial notes in footnotes are added by me. The same caveats apply as elsewhere; if you notice any mistakes or mangling please feel free to point them out in the comments, and I’ll attach a note or a correction to the text here.

Report from San Crist?@c3;b3;bal, Táchira, 19-February-2014

Anonymous

Feb. 2014: protest in San Cristobal

This morning the sun rose on San Crist?@c3;b3;bal desolated by the bloody attack perpetrated by the Bolivarian National Guard against students who were posted at the intersection of Avenida Carabobo with Ferrero Tamayo. The deployment was striking and devastating: birdshot,^[1] expired gas cannisters,^[2] tear-gas bombs, stun grenades, and a contingent of the motorized brigade of the military corps that was escorting a tank and two armored vehicles that trashed the tactical reserves of the students.

In spite of such a bloody attack the boys battled them for a space of hours, until fatigue put a dent in them, due to the orchestrated plan of attack; after razing the place, the troops kept on with their devastating frenzy, completely destroying the barricades set up by the active citizenry, who kept a vigil until late into the night. Neighbors from various streets of Barrio Obrero, La Romera, La Avenida Carabobo, Avenida Ferrero Tamayo and the whole high part of the city, are witnesses to what I'm saying.

It is important to highlight that in addition to the Bolivarian National Guard, groups of gunmen on motorcycle were encountered, who intermittently attacked different parts of the city, returning to the outside of the state capitol to refill their ammunition and fuel for their motorcycles after carrying out the raids on the sites previously analyzed.

As if all that weren't enough, the same commando group that attacked the students, posted in the site previously mentioned, set off for the vicinity of Táriba, where, revealing all their training in military tactics, they mounted a frontal attack, without any pity, on the collectivity; due to the brutality of the attack, over there the actions were much quicker. Next they headed over to retake control of the bridge of Las Vegas de Táriba, an important access point that allows a connection by ground with the plains. Once again the Bolivarian National Guard showed their worst face, and used everything to attack those who protested in the zone. It's noteworthy that the neighbors in the Conjunto Residencial Don Luis (a group of buildings) were affected by the effects of the different gasses that were thrown without any coherent reason into the middle of that town.

The city revealed its worst face; they were breathing air loaded with a fetid stench and the smell of burning rubber and plastic. Public transit was paralyzed in 99% of the city, rising to 100% before eight in the morning; the barricades showed up in every part of San Crist?@c3;b3;bal, some upright and steady, others partly standing, and some completely collapsed, the community has reflected its powerlessness in the asphalt that has served as a blackboard for messages of "SOS" and "HELP."

The thing that San Crist?@c3;b3;bal has lived through is without precedent, a hostile situation, which the armed "collectives" have exploited to rob, destroy and attack those who were obliged to stay at the few workplaces that can still be found open. Speaking of business, shops have closed for the day, the street vendors have disappeared completely from the streets, the only places that have opened their doors are some supermarkets and public markets, which were motivated by pressure from different government authorities, which threaten them with fines and additional legal actions.

At this time (6:30pm) the fuse of protest has been lit once again. I'm informed that encounters with National Guard troops in the high part of the city, and neighbors and organized civil society have appeared strongly resisting the attacks of the Bolivarian National Guard, which is making use of aerial tactics through the use of Mi-17V-5 helicopters, one of the latest assault and transport models of the legendary Russian helicopter, purchased by the Venezuelan government, which in addition to flying over and reporting is also conducting airlifts between the Buenaventura Vivas base in Santo Domingo and the airport in Paramillo.

–Translation of Reporte desde San Crist?@c3;b3;bal, Edo. Táchira, 19/02/2014 by An?@c3;b3;nim@. Translated by Charles W. Johnson.

1. ^[1]Perdigones, pellets. The Bolivarian National Guard frequently uses small-gauge shotgun fire as a crowd-control weapon.↩
2. ^[2]Expired tear-gas cannisters were frequently used against Egyptian protesters in Tahrir Square, leading to some claims that the expired cannisters might cause more dangerous reactions in people exposed to the gas. The idea is not widely supported by scientists, but the accusation that expired cannisters are being used in Venezuela has led to an investigation.↩

A lot of folks have been trying to follow what is going on in Venezuela; unfortunately, much of the discussion in U.S. radical Left and anti-war media has been heavily dependent on reports from government-controlled media, or limited to information from the English-language press; and commentary has been far too much dominated by simplistic binary narratives that present U.S.-supported politicos and the Bolivarian revolutionary government as the only alternatives. Over the next few days, I hope to translate and post some of the news and commentary being put out by Venezuelan anarchists. This article is a short commentary by Humberto Decarli, published in the Venezuelan anarchist newspaper EL LIBERT@RIO. Inline links and editorial notes in footnotes are added by me. Because of the rapid development of events in Venezuela, you should be aware that I’m trying to produce these translations relatively quickly, and while I read Spanish fluently, what I’ve studied has usually been either Castilian or North American Spanish; so I’ve tried to consult friends who are native speakers from South America where I was unsure about what seemed to be idioms or local references peculiar to Venezuela. I apologize in advance for any mistakes or mangling of local idioms, which are of course solely my own responsibility. (If you notice any ambiguities or mistakes in the translation, please don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments, and I’ll attach a note or a correction to the text here.)

Caracas, 15-F: Impressions from the street

15-F, 9 p.m.: repression of the protesters in Plaza Altamira

Humberto Decarli

I was in the Plaza Altamira today, February 15, until about seven^[1] thirty p.m. I observed that, it being a Saturday at that hour there were many students, youths and motorizados, from about the Hotel Caracas Pálace up to a quarter south of the Torre Británica in Altamira Sur. There was an atmosphere of combatividad but without organization. No flyers, few banners, few papers and hardly any agitation. The few chants were: “Este gobierno va a caer,” sung (“This government is going to fall”); “No me da la gana, es una dictadura igualita a la cubana” (“I don’t want it, it’s a dictatorship exactly like the one in Cuba”); “El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido” (“The people, united, will never be defeated”); “El pueblo, arrecho, reclama a sus derechos” (“The people, arising, are taking back their rights”) (these last have been around since my student days against the Acci?@c3;b3;n Democrática / COPEI governments.)

They are students without experience in politics or the struggle in the streets but all the same they have come out to challenge the bullets of the government’s “tontons macoutes-C.D.R.”^[2] The National Guard is ready to intervene and every second they are making feints to frighten the people that runs but also comes back. What also sticks out, interestingly, is the non-existence of manipulation by the political parties or national leaders, which is highly satisfying. Neither, fortunately, are there electoral slogans, because there’s no election-carnival this year. There is initiatve because folks feel indignation at the scarcity, shortages, inflation, insecurity and frightening repression exercised by the “patriotas de los colectivos,”^[3] a type of gang of thugs financed and armed by the government’s politico-military committee.

It pleases me to see the capacity for mobilization, but the question is, can it last? Are we in the presence of another Arab Spring? Is this the awakening of the Venezuelan people? It would be aprioritical to answer at this moment. What’s certain is the continuation of inflation, repression, scarcity, shortages, insecurity, etc. And the State’s got no answer because, being an import economy, it has no hard currency, because they arranged for dollars to come in bypassing the Central Bank; when the foreign currency that entered the country and was liquidated through CADIVI,^[4] the government’s cronies carried off a third in their briefcases^[5] — Giordani^[6] dixit — without anyone, no matter how low on the totem pole, facing justice for it. To make matters worse, Iran has made an arrangement for its conflict with the West, to accept supervision of its nuclear program, and they are now dismantling the economic sanctions, and will go ahead with exporting 1.6 million barrels daily for the month of may, which will knock the market off its bench. Difficult moments for the militarist regime in Venezuela. All they have left is the exercise of force, appealing to what Foucault called the disciplinary power, or direct enforceability.

–Translation of Caracas, 15-F: Impresiones desde la calle by Humberto Decarli. Translated by Charles W. Johnson, with some extremely helpful assistance from Sergio Méndez.

1. ^[1][six: originally mis-written as six, due to my careless error. Thanks to Joe in the comments below for the catch. –CJ 22.Feb.2014]↩
2. ^[2]Tonton Macoute, an infamous force of paramilitary death squads formed by the Haitian dictator François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, which murdered more than 60,000 Haitians from 1959-1986. CDR, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, a Cuban network of Communist paramilitary/neighborhood snitch organizations initiated by Fidel Castro in 1960 to monitor and suppress “counter-revolutionary” activity.↩
3. ^[3]Patriots of the collectives.↩
4. ^[4]The Comisi?@c3;b3;n de Administraci?@c3;b3;n de Divisas, "Commission for the Administration of Currency Exchange"), the agency in charge of legal foreign currency exchanges in Venezuela.↩
5. ^[5]Literally, “una tercera parte se las llevaron las empresas de maletín.” “Empresas de maletín,” lit. “briefcase enterprises,” are politically connected firms, which typically get government contracts by means of political preference or corruption. They are often “ghost” enterprises, which snag the government contract and then subcontract all the work to other companies.↩
6. ^[6]Jorge Antonio Giordani Cordero (b. 1940), the current Minister of the People’s Power for Central Planning in Venezuela, responsible for most of Venezuela’s monetary policy during the current crisis.↩

[This is a translation of Hugo Chávez en 4 preguntas, published by Rafel Uzcátegui at the blog for El Libertario, a Venezuelan anarchist newspaper; it’s the first of a several articles from El Libertario that I hope to translate over the next few days. Inline links are added, and editorial notes are in footnotes or in square braces like these. –CJ]

The journalist Eduardo Sklarz, as part of the preparations for an article on Venezuela, sent me these questions by e-mail. The published article can be found at http://infosurhoy.com/cocoon/saii/xhtml/en_GB/features/saii/features/main/2013/03/06/feature-04.

Q1. What actions do you consider fundamental in Chávez’s political trajectory?

A. When he brought the military into the [failed] coup attempt [against Pérez] in February 1992, and took responsibility for it all in front of television cameras; when he took an accurate reading of the political moment in 1998, abandoning insurrectionary strategies in order to join the electoral battle, during a viable moment for an outsider in politics; the proposal of a constituent process to reform the Constitution in 1999; his performance during the [failed] coup attempt [against him] in 2002; the announcement of the social programs and the missions, in 2004; the development of international politics from 2005-2008; his second presidential re-election.

Q2. Which factors explain his striking consolidation of power?

A. Besides his charisma, he very ably brought back the main sociopolitical matrices of 19th century Venezuelan culture.

Q3. How would you characterize chavismo?

A. A nationalist-populist movement of the left, attuned with economic globalization.

Q4. What legacy has Chávez left to Venezuela?

A. Four things: the myth of saving the poor through redistributing corporate oil profits; a popular cult around his personality with political characteristics; the devastation of the independence of Venezuelan social movements; the senselessness^[1] of left-wing discourse.

— Rafael Uzcátegui (March 7, 2013)

1. ^[1]Lit. emptiness/emptying-out of meaning or meaning vacuum.↩