Venezuela: Information from the Justice and Peace Support Network (Red de Apoyo por la Justicia y la Paz), part 1 of 3: selected political movements and opposition parties, 1994-96

This Response is the first in a series of three on selected political, social and student groups active in Venezuela. The Justice and Peace Support Network (Red de Apoyo por la Justicia y la Paz), a nongovernmental, not-for-profit human rights organization based in Caracas, provided the information for all three Responses. Its mandate is to help victims and their families report abuses and defend their rights; it also participates in educational and broader advocacy efforts. In gathering details on the aforementioned groups, the Network consulted NGO reports as well as newspaper and periodical articles, and it conducted interviews with people who are members of or otherwise closely associated with the groups. The information provided focuses primarily on the period January 1994 to July 1996.

This Response reviews a number of political organizations that oppose the government of President Rafael Caldera and have consequently faced problems with the authorities. Any opinions expressed in this Response are those of Red de Apoyo. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, either exhaustive with respect to conditions in the country surveyed or conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement 200 (Movimiento Revolucionario 200, or MBR-200)

        MBR-200 was originally the name given to a mainly military conspiracy to overthrow the government of Carlos Andres Perez in the early 1990s. At the time, numerous scandals and trials involving generals and former defense ministers became public, and a group of low- and mid-ranking army officers who objected to corruption in the upper ranks rebelled.

The officers justified the coup attempt, which took place on 4 February 1992, by declaring that the country was in crisis. They claimed that Perez's return to power in 1988 had ushered in widespread corruption and that the population had lost trust in public institutions. Many of the officers also objected to the army's reported brutality during the 1989 "Caracazo" riots, in which popular protests against a series of government economic measures were violently suppressed.

Although the coup was unsuccessful and very few civilians took part, support for the MBR-200 subsequently grew. Red de Apoyo's sources note the ideological influence on the movement of a number of leftist political groups involved in the armed insurgencies of the 1960s. A new putsch, this time with significant civilian participation, was launched on 27 November 1992 under another name, the July 5th Movement (Movimiento 5 de Julio). Uprisings took place in various neighborhoods of Caracas, Valencia and Maracay.

The second coup attempt, like the first, failed, but it nevertheless lent the MBR-200 and its leader, Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez, prestige. There were widespread shows of support for the detained civilian and military putschists, and a massive protest movement arose that culminated in the government's demise; in 1993, congress charged President Perez with misuse of public funds and removed him from his post.

In the period leading up to Perez's dismissal, constitutional guarantees of individual freedom were suspended. For popular leaders who were known by the security forces to be involved in radical leftist organizations such as the Red Flag (Bandera Roja), the Third Way (Tercer Camino), Popular Disobedience (Desobediencia Popular) and the MBR-200, this meant an increase in house searches, arrests and instances of harassment.

Upon taking office in 1993, President Caldera granted, as he had promised, an amnesty and freed all the civilians and military members who were convicted because of their involvement in the 1992 coup attempts. Leaders and members of the MBR-200 were now free to operate legally and set up offices throughout the country. They have since been conducting political rallies and other propaganda activities.

The MBR-200 presents itself as a civilian nationalist movement, with a political discourse based on the thinking of 19th century Latin American independence leader Simon Bolivar. It opposes any negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it believes could compromise Venezuela's sovereignty. Thus it disagrees, for example, with the proposed opening of the petroleum industry to foreign interests, as well as with the privatization of other strategic industries currently belonging to the state.

The MBR-200 also champions a series of social reforms, including wage-protection for the working class and new social security policies to replace existing ones. It advocates peaceful means for achieving these reforms. However, despite its legal status and the principles of peaceful and democratic coexistence it abides by, the MBR-200 is barely tolerated by the political police (Division de Inteligencia y Prevencion, DISIP), which often harasses and detains its members and leaders.

Hugo Chavez has frequently denounced death threats allegedly made against him by officers of the DISIP. Another leader, Freddy Bernal, who commanded an elite "military police" group taking part in one of the coup attempts, has been detained at least eight times in two years. Apparently arbitary and not part of any particular investigation, these detentions are considered by the MBR-200 to be part of an ongoing harassment campaign by the DISIP. Armando Garcia, a leader of the union of employees of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, was fired because his bosses believed he was a member of the MBR-200.

Other members of the military, retired as well as active, have been arrested long after the coup attempts. In the parishes of 23 de Enero, La Vega, La Pastora and Catia, persons believed to be members of the MBR-200 have been subject to house searches and harassment, as well as arrest. Most spend no more than 48 hours in detention before being freed. Candidates running for national or regional legislative assemblies and for state governor seats who have been linked to the MBR-200 have also been detained or intimidated. Relatives, friends and lawyers of the military putschists have allegedly been arrested, tortured or harassed. In most cases, responsibility for these abuses has been attributed to the DISIP and the Military Intelligence Directorate (DIM). A number of street demonstrations promoted by the MBR-200 have been suppressed and certain participants, detained. The offices of the movement, however, have not been broken into or searched.

Third Way (Camino Tercer)

        The founding leaders of Third Way originally participated in the guerilla warfare that took place in Venezuela in the 1960s. Douglas Bravo and groups such as the National Liberation Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, FALN) and the Falcon guerillas are associated with this period, as are urban organizations such as Rupture (Ruptura) and the Party of the Venezuelan Revolution (Partido de la Revolucion Venesolana, PRV). All of these groups eventually disappeared (although Falcon lingered nearly ten years after the guerilla movement had quietened).

A number of their leaders, however, Bravo among them, continued to have significant influence over grass-roots sectors in various parts of Venezuela. These leaders finally developed a new political discourse; after the failure of the Marxist-Leninist armed struggle, they sought a "third way" to achieve the Venezuelan revolution. This third way involved a radical change, not only in the means by which they sought to overthrow the state, but also in their approach to society. They would now strive for a new culture of political participation.

Although Third Way's leaders maintain a public and vulnerably high profile, the group itself is clandestine. It is, however, structured quite differently from the aforementioned underground groups of the 1960s.

The problems Third Way faces with the authorities stem from its alleged links with "destabilizing plots" that government spokespersons occasionally denounce. The group's leaders are connected with such plots apparently on the basis of their past activities, and they are consequently harassed and routinely detained for short periods of time.

Bravo has been detained a number of times since 1992. In 1993, he was held for more than 20 days in the underground facilities of the DISIP in Los Chaguaramos, Caracas. Juan Barreto, a professor at the University of the Andes in Merida, was also arrested and interrogated around that time. His lawyer, Tarek William Saab, who was making arrangements for his client's release, was detained and threatened with legal action. Francisco Prada, another leader, was arbitrarily detained and was so frequently harassed that he was practically forced to leave the country for some months. Other militants of the group in the Caracas parishes of 23 de Enero and San Jose were detained and harassed for their alleged participation in riots over bus fare hikes. Officials from the DISIP and DIM have been involved in all these cases.

Red Flag Party / Movement for Popular Democracy (Partido Bandera Roja, PBR / Movimiento por la Democracia Popular, MDP)

        The PBR came into existence as the result of a split within the Revolutionary Left Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR) in 1970. At the outset, it was a classic Marxist-Leninist political-military organization with a prolonged popular war strategy that entailed the creation of guerilla fronts. The latter operated mostly in the eastern part of the country, but the party also established itself in the cities through its Popular Struggles Committee (Comite de Luchas Populares).

Over time the urban presence declined in importance and almost disappeared in the late 1980s. Most of the party's guerilla cadres were killed by the army in 1984 near Cantaura, a decisive military defeat that eventually led to the abandonment of guerilla tactics. The last of the fighters, who belonged to the Americo Silva Front (Frente Americo Silva), left the jungles in 1988.

After reviewing its original strategy, the party decided to run in the 1993 national elections under the name Movement for Popular Democracy (Movimiento por la Democracia Popular, MDP). Its candidate, Gabriel Puerta Aponte, who was serving a sentence handed down by a military tribunal, was released so that he could participate. Since then, the MDP has taken part in other national and local elections, and in the 1995 municipal elections it won a mayoralty in the state of Sucre.

Although the government appears to tolerate the above kind of political activity, during periods of social unrest it refers to the PBR as a criminal organization. Oddly, at such times, even political activists who are in fact fierce critics of the PBR and ideologically opposed to it are detained and accused of being militants or leaders of this group. When the PBR is denounced as being engaged in subversive activities, MDP militants are also detained; some have been arrested, held incommunicado and even tortured. In some cases, the victims of these abuses were MDP candidates running for local or regional posts. On other occasions, the victims were activists linked to neighborhood or student movements; Eustoquio Pedra, a neighborhood leader in Los Teques (capital of the state of Miranda), and Oswaldo Pacheco, a member of the Student Centre of the Agronomy Faculty at the Central University of Venezuela, were arrested and tortured, and Guilarte Paiva, a teacher and union leader, was detained and harassed by the DISIP.

A number of the organization's members who have served prison terms for past political activities have also been frequently detained and harassed. Such is the case of Nelson Bracca, who was detained by DISIP during a raid on one of the party's offices and accused of deeds committed more than 20 years before, and of Abdon Ruiz, a former political prisoner and member of a human rights committee in the 1970s who was detained, held incommunicado, tortured and threatened by officers of the DISIP. During raids recently conducted in the southwestern part of Caracas, others have been detained in connection with social unrest, attributed to the country's economic recession.

Popular Disobedience (Desobediencia Popular)

        Popular Disobedience came into being between 1987 and 1989. It formed around student movements and boosted their political struggles at various universities throughout Venezuela. An anarchist group critical of Marxist-Leninist strategies, it advocates direct action and autonomous popular organization to achieve the emancipation of the general populace.

Members Roland Denis, Yanko Verategui and Wilfredo Oloyola, as well as others, were detained and tortured in 1989, and, in 1992, they faced problems again when they were accused of participating in the 27 November coup attempt. Carlos Lanz Rodriguez, a teacher and member of the group, was arrested by the DISIP in 1996. He was accused of being a member of the PBR and of participating in a new coup conspiracy. Lanz was detained and interrogated for 20 days. When the government alleges to have uncovered a destabilizing plot, those members of Popular Disobedience who are linked to student movements are usually one of the principal targets for arrest.

For other information on Venezuela, please consult DIRB's databases and documentary sources available at the IRB's Regional Documentation Centres.