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"For not wearing a mask I have to do community work." His crime: not wearing a mask. The punishment: collecting the accumulated brush on the side of the road with a poster attached to the back, which contains the legend that opens this chronicle. This is not a lost tale by George Orwell. We are in Táchira, a state on the border with Colombia, the territory of the Bolivarian revolution, where young people who violate government regulations receive this exemplary punishment in Venezuela.

And they are lucky, at least they do not hit them like on January 23, the stronghold of the Chavista collectives west of Caracas. "The batter is getting ready, the swing is getting ready ! Papita, peanut and tostón!", Boasts the paramilitary, covered in a bulletproof vest, using a Creole ball slang. A vendor at the Caracas University Stadium popularized this menu (chips, peanuts and fried plantain), adapted by a commentator to give a popular twist to "one, two, three," the three outs in one entry.

In this case, instead of hitting the balls thrown by the pitcher, the bats hit the legs, backs and butts of the offenders , alienated facing a wall. Armed with baseball bats and dispensing justice in the midst of the pandemic as if they were the revolutionary imitation of the Negan in the series The Walking Dead .

The famous Chavista collectives participate fully in the network set up by the Bolivarian Government with the excuse of fighting the coronavirus , in collusion with the military and the police. Such is the impunity that they themselves spread their exploits on social networks, as with the "popular justice" delivered by sticks on January 23.

Others are punished under the tropical sun, others have to do push-ups, squats and even squat for not wearing a mask, breaking curfews or trying to skip one of the thousands of queues distributed throughout the country.

"In the pandemic, collectives are used as instruments for social control, their action is so open that on January 23 they make rounds where they pass armed, with megaphones, warning people that they cannot go out, remembering the rules of protection of the coronavirus, but detaining people for not complying with them or for small crimes, which they force to exercise, "sums up for EL MUNDO Marino Alvarado, activist with the human rights NGO Provea, in charge of investigating complaints from citizens.

Rocío San Miguel, president of Social Watch, also collects the complaints of citizens before abuses such as the one that happened in Anzoátegui , where the members of a roadblock viciously beat some young people. "They exercise an Orwellian ritual, exemplary violence against those who commit lack of discipline, according to their criteria", highlights San Miguel.

Human Rights Watch is finalizing an investigation into this type of abuse during the pandemic , which will be presented in the coming days. "We are facing an almost police state, which uses the coronavirus as an excuse, with armed groups that support the Government and with current impunity. It is not something new, we already saw it during the protests in 2014 and 2017, " underlines Tamara Taraciuk, deputy director for America.

During the pandemic, collectives harass protesters in their areas of influence to complete the work of the repressive forces. They usually do it against those who demonstrate to complain about the degradation of public services and the shortage of gasoline . "They repress the citizens at the tip of the sticks," says Deputy Delsa Solórzano.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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