ABOUT THE BLOG

ABOUT THE BLOG:

Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, a blog hosted by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), is a unique resource for journalists, policymakers, scholars, activists and others interested in understanding Venezuelan politics and human rights.

The contributors call it as they see it, providing insights on Venezuela’s politics that go beyond the polarized pro-Chávez/anti-Chávez debate. The views expressed in the posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect WOLA’s institutional positions.

THE BLOGGERS:

David Smilde, curator of the blog, is a WOLA Senior Fellow and the Charles A. and Leo M. Favrot Professor of Human Relations at Tulane University. He has lived in or worked on Venezuela since 1992. He is co-editor of Venezuela's Bolivarian Democracy: Participation, Politics and Culture under Chávez (Duke 2011).

Hugo Pérez Hernáiz is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Rebecca Hanson is a graduate student in sociology at the University of Georgia doing doctoral research on police reform and citizen participation in Venezuela.

Timothy Gill is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research at Tulane University. His research focuses on US foreign policy towards Venezuela and foreign funding for non-governmental organizations.

ABOUT WOLA:

WOLA is a leading research and advocacy organization advancing human rights in the Americas.

CONTACT:

For comments related to this blog, email us at venezuelablog@wola.org.

For press inquiries only, please email us at press@wola.org.

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Local Perceptions of Venezuela’s Operación Liberación del Pueblo

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Yesman Utrera

Venezuela is one of the most violent countries in the world, with a homicide rate of at leaset 59 for every 100,000 people. In an attempt to stop the dramatic increase in crime and violence, in July 2015 the Maduro government launched Operación Liberación del Pueblo (OLP). 

[See more of our coverage here, here, here, and here –ed].

However, the abuses committed by these massive, armed operations, and their ineffectiveness in controlling crime and violence, have raised questions about their appropriateness.

In this article, I gather together the perspectives of a variety of people from low income communities who experience first-hand both criminal violence and violence from the OLP.

In the State of Miranda, close to Barlovento, in a community called Mamporal, Carlos Parra (38) tells me how crime and violence is part of their daily lives. “In this area, lots of bad guys come to hide, and we have always been, as people say, at the mercy of God.” In November, another tragedy was added to the long list of misfortunes this community has experienced–the discovery of twelve cadavers, presumably killed by the Operación Liberación del Pueblo.

The event shook the population, generating a profound sense of dis-ease towards the government’s misguided security policies. Residents now worry not only about criminals and delinquents, but about the police’s unpredictable shows of force.

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Ignomious Anniversary: One Year of Venezuela’s OLP

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Image from atodomomento.com

David Smilde

A year ago today the Maduro government announced the Operación Liberación del Pueblo to fight organized crime. Follow this link for Cesar Miguel Rondón’s excellent interview today, of crime journalist Ronna Risquez and one of Venezuela’s leading criminologists Keymer Ávila. Their main points are that the OLP does not reduce crime, and leads to massive violations of human rights including extrajudicial executions and illegitimate detentions and evictions.

An interesting effort to pushback has begun. Yesterday, opposition legislator, Delsa Solorzano, chair of the Interior Policy Committee invited in three members of two “Committees of Victims of the OLP” to speak to a plenary session of the National Assembly. In the past, such victims’ committees have evolved into full-fleged human rights groups with considerable voice.

Bad News for Venezuela’s Police Reformers: The OLP is Undeniably Popular

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Questions added to Datanálisis Omnibus poll, fieldwork May 18-25, 2016, N = 1000, error +/- 3% 


David Smilde 

One of the most disturbing policies the Maduro government has adopted during its three years has been the Operación Liberación del Pueblo. It amounts to militarized incursions into neighborhoods supposedly infiltrated by gangs and “paramilitaries” to detain criminals and “disassemble” (desmantelar) their networks. After the operation, the number of “delinquents” killed is announced as well as the number of people detained for investigation. (See our coverage over the past year here, here, here, and here).

In April Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Venezuelan human rights group Provea made public a report arguing that the OLP had caused 245 deaths in 2015, supposedly in confrontations. However, the best information suggests only 3 security agents were killed in the same operations. 14,000 individuals were detained in the process of OLP raids for further questioning. However, only 100 of them were ever charged for crimes. OLP actions were also involved in forced evictions and forced deportations that violated Venezuelan and international law.

There is no evidence that these types of military operations reduce crime in any way and there is good reason to think they do not. The best information suggests that the murder rate actually increased or stagnated from 2014 to 2015 after two years of decline (watch video of Andres Antillano’s recent analysis, especially starting at 7:00).

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Human Rights Watch and PROVEA Release Devastating Report on Venezuelan Citizen Security Initiative

Rebecca Hanson

On April 4th Human Rights Watch and PROVEA released a report on Venezuela’s most recent security initiative, Operation Liberation and Protection of the People (hereafter referred to as OLP). The report is entitled “Power without Limits: Police and Military Raids in Popular and Immigrant Communities in Venezuela.”

Its findings are based on interviews with victims of abuse, their family members, and witnesses. Interviews were conducted by both PROVEA and Human Rights Watch. The full report can be accessed here.

The report documents the deployment of the OLP, which was launched in July 2015 in popular sectors throughout the country. Like the DIBISE and the Secure Homeland Plan before it, the OLP sends military and police officers into poor areas to conduct raids and arrests.

Though the operation is meant to reduce crime and violence, it is precisely these militarized approaches that have been shown to contribute to increasing violence throughout the region. Indeed, PROVEA presents evidence of thousands of instances of abuse, executions, arbitrary detentions, and illegal deportation. These actions delegitimize the state and justify armed responses to crime.

And, while the OLP is supposed to liberate the country from criminal gangs it is likely that these raids have contributed to the articulation and increased organization of gangs in urban areas. According to José Miguel Cruz, an El Salvadorian sociologist, these policies motivate local criminal gangs to reorganize in order to better respond to repressive policing.

Though PROVEA has reported accusations to the Attorney General multiple times, it is unclear if denunciations of officers carrying out OLP raids will be investigated. In the Attorney General’s annual report, she stated that 251 security officers have been charged with human rights abuses this year. However, these were not directly linked to the OLP.

Following are some of the key findings of the report.

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Controversy Continues over Venezuela’s New Security Operation

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Hugo Pérez Hernáiz and David Smilde

In July the Venezuelan government launched its newest anti-crime initiative: “Operation Liberation and Protection of the People” (hereafter referred to as OLP). The operations sends heavily-armed police and military forces to reclaim the State’s monopoly of violence over poor areas supposedly under the control of armed non-state actors.

President Maduro said that the OLP will continue until “criminal gangs and paramilitary practices infiltrated into the country by the right are eliminated.”

“What we have seen in the past weeks is nothing compared to what we will see in weeks to come. More than 20,000 National Guard officials will graduate next week and they will immediately see action in the OLP. I ask for national unity around the OLP. Enough of these criminals, paramilitaries, assassins, and sicarios!” said Maduro.

The launching of the OLP was not accompanied by the publication of any official resolution stating its definition, purpose or aims. It was only announced by the Minister of Interior in a press conference the day after the operation in Cota 905 started.

It has so far produced hundreds of arrests. There are no official figures on the total of deaths in all the OLP operation around the country, however press reports show at least eighteen civilians have died (see here, and here). These deaths supposedly took place in the course of armed confrontations, however we found no reports of security force casualties. Several eyewitness accounts speak of families being forcefully evicted from their homes and abused by security forces.

While President Maduro has called the OLP “the perfect instrument for peace” human rights groups suggest it looks more like the highly repressive Plan Unión from the 1980’s.

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