• Declaration of Maduro.Nicolás Maduro, to Venezuelan migrants: "Venezuela is much more beautiful than where you are washing toilets"

Alejandra's life changed forever at the end of August, when the Special Police Forces (FAES) killed her husband twice. The first, executing him in front of his family and the second, through the Chavez media, who accused him of leading a "hamponil mega-organization." It was far from a new Lucky Luciano Creole , but a modest worker who supported his wife and two children, 2 and 4 years old.

Alejandra has learned today the figures of the report of the prestigious Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), which confirm what she already sensed: police forces star in almost a third of the killings, which officially dispatch as resistance to the authority. Of the 16,515 of 2019, 5,282 were carried out by police forces in alleged clashes . The United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and local NGOs Provea and Proiruis have shown that many of those crimes committed by "resistance to authority" hide a chilling number of extra-marital executions.

"There has been a perverse sum of authoritarianism in the country. It seems that the only security policy is the elimination of criminals," summarized Professor Roberto León Briceño, director of the OVV, who on this occasion offered his data via Skype, a whole paradigm in Venezuela today. In the investigation carried out during five months by Proiuris, 269 alleged executions were recorded, of which 167 were attributed to the FAES, at an average of almost two per day .

Figures and facts help to understand the depth of impunity prevailing in the oil country, which far exceeds its neighbors in the bloody ranking of homicides: while Venezuela suffers 60.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Colombia and Brazil they only reach 25. In Mexico they go down to 22 and only Honduras (with 42) and El Salvador (48) get closer to the world champions.

Since the arrival of Hugo Chávez to power almost 21 years ago, urban violence began to devour statistics until the supreme commander censored them. Today there is a clear decrease in the number of homicides, from more than 30,000 to 16,516 this year, caused by the huge diaspora of more than five million people, including hundreds of malandros (criminals), who had lost their paradise because of the destruction of the economy and the absence of people in public places.

A reality that Bolivarian fiction tries to hide, like every year. "Venezuela is much more beautiful than the countries where you are washing pocetas (toilets)," said Nicolás Maduro on Thursday, a message addressed to emigrants while "victories" against insecurity stood out from the official channels.

A statistical decline that does not hide the cruelty and fury of police forces, which have a license to kill, as Alejandra knows. Four agents broke into her home, two of them masked, and killed her husband, as many times this year. "They took the money we had and everything in the fridge, the chicken and the fruits," recalls the 21-year-old girl for EL MUNDO. After the pain came the desire to report the crime, until another police officer warned him: "Think better, there may be reprisals . "

The modus operandi of that day has been repeated again and again in Venezuelan 2019. This is what Proiuris has collected, the same patterns deployed by the FAES in their actions: from the violent eruption in homes without judicial authorization to the planting of weapons to simulate clashes. Always in poor neighborhoods and almost always against young people. The agents do not hesitate to alter the scenes of the crimes and justify the execution based on police records of the victims, in addition to always shooting in vital areas of the body and denying relief to the injured.

Impunity has become so sophisticated in Venezuela that there is no better oil for the police mechanism than the blood of its victims. "When we arrived at the hospital my nephew was dead and with three shots, one in the head. He was arrested inside the house and taken away alive in a van. There were no prosecutors or a search warrant, they only took him away. Hours later we learned that he had been killed by FAES officials, "Douglas Barboza denounced to Proiuris. His nephew, Keyvis Castello, had turned 21 before he was executed.

An "epidemic of police violence" , as Briceño has assured. Their figures confirm it: of the more than 300 municipalities in the country, at least 175 have unleashed the actions of government agents. In six states, including Lara, one of the most populous, cops kill more than criminals.

"My son was sleeping with his baby, while my son-in-law was doing it with his little daughter. They were awakened by the cops. There was no confrontation that they say so much. Before shooting my son, one of the FAES told him: you didn't you are my family, "said Nereida Parra, mother of Jonathan Eduardo Gil Parra, 27, in his complaint. One of many that have been lost in the country of impunity.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Venezuela
  • Nicolás Maduro
  • Brazil
  • Colombia
  • Un
  • Mexico
  • Hugo Chavez

OAS Policy, the new ideological battle of America

Crisis in Venezuela Nicolas Maduro climbs the evangelical wave that travels through Latin America

VenezuelaNicolás Maduro, to Venezuelan migrants: "Venezuela is much more beautiful than where you are washing toilets"