Who believes in paramilitaries?

According to a recent survey by the NGO Paz Activa about organized crime, 19.7% of Venezuelans believe the official version by the government that paramilitaries are to blame for the country’s organized crime. Almost the same percentage of those surveyed (18.9%) blamed guerillas.  

Imagining Paramilitaries in Venezuela

The claims that paramilitaries are being brought into the country to destabilize fit well with the government’s narrative that it is fighting a powerful but hidden enemy. In this narrative the broadly defined paramilitaries serve as agents of a vast opposition conspiracy plan which helps the government explain its policy failures as an effect of that conspiracy. The government can blame the opposition, and its alleged international backers for those failures, and at the same time charge local opposition leaders and activists with criminal intent.

David Smilde and I wrote this post for the WOLA blog. We summarize most of the claims made so far by the government and some of the reactions by the opposition and human rights NGOs. Human right organizations are especially concerned about the upsurge in deportations of Colombian citizens and about the consequences of thy refer to as the xenophobic rhetoric recently used by Maduro in his discourses.

President Maduro gave a press conference yesterday in which he also made a summary of his claims of “paramilitary infiltration”. Maduro again accused Colombian ex-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez of being behind of most of the criminal violence and of the “economic war” in Venezuela by sending paramilitaries into the country. He also accused prominent local opposition leaders of having ties with the paramilitaries.

Here is the press note of the conference by the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias:

El paramilitarismo es la principal causa de los problemas en frontera colombo–venezolana

Caracas , 24 Ago. AVN.- Fenómenos como el crimen organizado, el contrabando de extracción y la fuga de productos de primera necesidad son problemas trasladados al país a través de la práctica paramilitar instaurada en Colombia desde hace varias décadas y que ha causado graves daños en la frontera colombo – venezolana, señaló este lunes el presidente de la República, Nicolás Maduro.

Al ofrecer una rueda de prensa a medios nacionales e internacionales, desde el Palacio de Miraflores, Caracas, el jefe de Estado manifestó que Venezuela es víctima del modelo paramilitar capitalista, que se desarrolló en Colombia.

Explicó que esa práctica surgió de un poder económico, que tuvo su origen en la producción de cocaína, y que luego se transformó en una burguesía paramilitar que se encargó de organizar grupos criminales en varias partes de Colombia. Fue entonces cuando se instauraron en ese país dos poderes: el político, basado en la práctica paramilitar, y el económico, sustentado en el narcotráfico.

En este contexto, el mandatario nacional denunció al ex presidente colombiano Álvaro Uribe Vélez como al principal impulsor de estos fenómenos y como al más grande anticolombiano que haya existido, esto, tras denunciar su responsabilidad en los llamados "falsos positivos", asesinatos de ciudadanos colombianos que se justificaban diciendo que se trataba de guerrilleros.

"Álvaro Uribe Vélez es el más grande anticolombiano que haya existido. Cuántas familias tienen que llorar porque su hijo fue desaparecido y descuartizado por bandas paramilitares, en silencio tienen que llorar porque se lo desapareció un falso positivo de Uribe", dijo.

Durante el encuentro con los medios, con el objetivo de informar sobre las acciones de paz que promueve Venezuela para restablecer la seguridad en la frontera con Colombia, el Presidente insistió en que todos los señalamientos que hace el Gobierno nacional para alertar a los venezolanos sobre los planes paramilitares que se tejen desde el país vecino no están dirigidos al pueblo colombiano, al que en la tierra de Bolívar se le recibe y se le respeta.

Por ello, ratificó su solidaridad y compromiso con el pueblo hermano, que tiene en Venezuela una población de 5,6 millones de habitantes, y sus procesos de paz, al tiempo que rechazó la campaña que emprenden medios colombianos e internacionales para señalarlo como anticolombiano.

"Yo lo que soy es antiparaco, antinarcotraficante, eso sí soy, y amamos al pueblo de Colombia", respondió. 

El jefe de Estado reiteró que "solo con justicia, habrá paz", por lo que la voluntad del Estado venezolano está dirigida a realizar las investigaciones que sean pertinentes –como se hizo en el caso del joven dirigente Robert Serra y la comunicadora social Adriana Urquiola, ambos asesinados por órdenes dadas desde Colombia y en vinculación con acciones desestabilizadoras promovidas por la derecha– para desmantelar los planes paramilitares que atentan contra la tranquilidad de los venezolanos.

Rechazó una vez más el paramilitarismo por considerarlo un flagelo que, como la gangrena, va destruyendo el tejido político, social y económico de las sociedades, y reconoció el compromiso del presidente de Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, de acabar con dicha problemática, voluntad que, comentó, se ve reflejada en la colaboración que ha prestado la justicia colombiana en la resolución de los casos mencionados.

"Agradezco a Santos, lo respeto como jefe de Estado a pesar de las diferencias ideológicas y políticas. Usted está haciendo algo muy noble, está buscando la paz con valentía y con coraje, y lo apoyamos con todo en Venezuela y América Latina, pero Venezuela tiene que decir la verdad, porque como decía Simón Bolívar las gangrenas políticas no se curan con paliativos y nadie podrá curar ninguna enfermedad sin saber su causa", manifestó.

Venezuela contra el narcotráfico

El jefe de Estado también destacó los aportes de los efectivos de la Aviación Nacional Bolivariana, quienes han derribado un total de 92 naves con 180 toneladas de drogas ilícitas que provenían de Colombia con destino a Venezuela.

"Venezuela es el primer país que apoya una ley de intersección aérea, que entró en vigencia en 2012 y con la que hemos dado un fuerte combate contra naves de narcotráfico que vienen desde Colombia. Hemos neutralizado, de distintas formas, a 92 naves, golpeando 180 toneladas de drogas ilícitas. Tenemos un combate tremendo contra el narcotráfico", expuso el Presidente.

De igual forma, celebró los esfuerzos del Estado venezolano para lograr la detención de 100 capos de la droga, que se dedicaban al tráfico de sustancias ilícitas hacia Estados Unidos, América Latina y El Caribe.

"Hemos capturado a más de 100 capos duros de la droga y hemos entregado a Colombia y a Estados Unidos 70 de ellos. Estamos enjuiciando a una parte de ellos en Venezuela y estamos por entregar en los próximas días más de 30 sujetos del más alto nivel del negocio de la droga en Colombia", detalló.

 AVN 24/08/2015 21:15

Paramilitary language games

In Venezuela the term paramilitary commonly used to refer to Colombian right wing criminal organizations formed during that country’s internal conflict.

In its conspiracy rhetoric the Venezuelan government often claims that groups it denominates as “paramilitary” are in the country and in cahoots with the local Venezuelan opposition engaged in “destabilizing” activities.

By explaining common crimes in Venezuela as an expression of infiltrated paramilitaries, the government also tries to blame the local opposition for the countries high levels of criminality.

Yesterday for example, the Minister of Interior, Peace and Justice, Gustavo González López, announced that intelligence officers of the Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional (SEBIN) have “disarticulated” a “criminal paramilitary band” which acted under the name Gamma and operated in the Sucre Municipality of Miranda. Opposition leader Capriles Radonski is governor of Miranda and government officials often claim that he is protecting military groups in his state.

González Lopez informed that several arrests had been made, but that the authorities were still searching for the “financiers” of the group. He further assured that those arrested “have links with the political use of criminal gangs.”

The minister also gave his explanation of what exactly should be understood by the term paramilitary: “it is basically an answer by the structure of the economic elite, the financial elite, the political elite, which seeks to sustain itself in power, in a blunt an persistent form [de manera grosera y persistente], one way or another.”

He also again linked paramilitaries to the murder of PSUV deputy Robert Serra last year and added: “they have mutated in a perverse way, they are trying to confuse [the population] by making us believe we are facing a simple problem [problemita] of common crime. I want to warn that this is not a problem of common crime but the use of common crime by the paramilitaries.”

Maduro: More and more conspiracies

Despite promises made during the weekend, president Maduro has failed to provide further evidence of the allegations of a coup d’état attempt against his government. However he did announce today that he has received information of new conspiracies.

In a meeting with supporters in the state of Guayana, Maduro warned that “the military forces, the police, and the people should be on maximum alert in the face of an armed attack that will come from Colombia, with the infiltration of paramilitary groups into the states of Zulia, Táchira, and Apure.”

According to Maduro these paramilitary groups are receiving direct orders form “the north” (United States).

Student protests in Táchira have been starting up again after the fatal shooting yesterday of a secondary school student by an officer of the Policía Nacional Bolivariana. Maduro reacted by condemning the shooting but also assuring that kids participating in the protests had been “coopted by extreme right sects.”

System of People’s Protection for Peace

President Maduro approved yesterday a Law of National Security which, according to him, creates a Sistema de Protección Popular para la Paz.

The system will directly answer to the President’s office and is based on “the labor class, intelligence teams, and control systems.” It includes four subsystems (for peace, popular power, protection, and operations) and will be headed by a Comandante, yet to be appointed.

The creation of this new People’s Protection System has become necessary, explained Maduro, in order to fight against the “terrorism and para-militarism orchestrated by the right.”

The Agencia Venezolana de Noticas quotes president Maduro: “through this instance, the ‘para-military threat that has come to our country because of the right-wing,’ and that is made visible through crimes such as the murder of the Deputy Robert Serra, committed on October 1, and the violent actions promoted by sectors of the ultra-right during the first semester of the year, which produced more than 40 murders.”

Paracos, Food, and Propaganda

Reporter José Vicente Rangel declared today that the guarimbas (barricades) of recent opposition protests show a level of organization and a capacity for mobilization that is “beyond the characteristics of Venezuelan [opposition] movements, of common militants and students.”

According the Rangel the fact that the protests have been so resilient and prolonged in time can be explained by the “existence of a new component:” Colombian paramilitaries linked Colombian ex-President Álvaro Uribe Velez.

The accusation that paracos (Colombian paramilitaries) are behind the opposition protests has become common in official discourse. This picture taken from the web page La Patilla shows a bag of rice sold in government stores. “No guarimbas! No paracos!” shouts a red shirted person while kicking a rat. On the background a women proclaims “With peace we also guarantee our food security!” perhaps implying the food shortages are also caused by the guarimbas.

Rodríguez Torrez: Two Colombians detained for magnicidio conspiracy

Today Interior and Justice Minister Rodríguez Torres announced that during a government intelligence operation denominated “Yellow File,” two Colombian citizens have been captured in a hotel near Caracas. According to Rodriguez Torres two rifles with telescopic sight, ten Venezuelan military uniforms, and “pictures of Maduro and Diosdado Cabellos,” were found in the hotel room. Authorities are still searching for third suspect.

Rodriguez Torres stopped short of accusing the Venezuelan opposition of being behind the plot, but he did claim that Colombian ex-President Uribe Velez has knowledge of it: “He has a relation [with the plan] and he is linked to drug trafficking groups.”

Minutes ago President Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) tweeted the following:

“The immediate reaction of the right in the face of the capture of the sicarios confirms their lack of scruples. Alert!”

“It is also an indication of the dangerous game in which they are moving. We will continue to guarantee peace even in the face of conspiracies.”

“I want to thank the Colombian Government for its cooperation in the identification of the sicarios and the rest of the hired gang recently captured.”

“I want to congratulate Minister Rodríguez Torres and all the patriotic personnel of SEBIN for the impeccable work they are doing for the peace of the country.”

More on the 18 war planes and the paramilitaries

The blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights has an excellent Q&A overview by David Smilde on the Venezuela Colombia relations, and some answers to recent conspiracy claims made in Venezuela. 

Here is part of the article:

Is there any truth to Venezuela’s recent claims that theVenezuelan opposition has purchased 18 war planes to be located in Colombia and that they captured nine Colombian paramilitaries conspiring to kill President Maduro?

Of course stranger things have happened and from the outside it is impossible to know without actually seeing the evidence. But neither claim seems likely. Eighteen warplanes, depending on the model and whether they were used or new would cost somewhere between $250 million and $1 billion and it is hard to imagine who in the Venezuelan opposition would be willing to put forward that much money for such a venture. Any actual belligerent action would require extensive ground support, ammunition and ground troops. This does not seem plausible even if it were free.

Paramilitary conspiracies against the Venezuelan government are, of course, a possibility. But the timing seems unlikely. Assassination attempts usually come from groups who feel threatened by strong leaders that oppose their interests. But Maduro has struggled in his first two months and many people in the opposition and in Chavismo doubt he will finish his term. It’s not clear why right wing opponents of the Venezuelan government would want to take him out violently.

Venezuela has a long and porous border with Colombia which means in states close to that border there is extensive presence of guerrilla, paramilitaries and all sorts of irregular groups involved in contraband, kidnapping, and drug trafficking. Any given day of the week the Venezuelan armed forces could round up some paramilitaries or other irregulars and accuse them of whatever they want. So it would require some real concrete evidence beyond mug shots to make this story plausible.

May 2013. The “Mercenaries Plot” and other various miscellaneous plots form May

(Parts of this chronology were previously published in the blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights)

May 4, Maduro renews his accusations made in March, mainly against Alvaro Uribe, ex-president of Colombia, but also against Roger Noriega and Otto Reich, of being behind a plot to kill him: “We have the proofs and sufficient elements to think that there are plans, directed from Miami by Roger Noriega and Otto Reich, and form Bogotá by Alvaro Uribe to make me physically disappear. Uribe is behind a plan to murder me. He is a murderer.” He elaborates the denunciation claiming that there are “sectors of the right” that are in cahoots with Uribe and with paramilitary mercenaries that are “trying to penetrate the country through jungle trails.” On May 3 Maduro had also accused Uribe of being behind a crime that shocked public opinion, the assassination of Johnny González, a sport journalist shot dead in Caracas. Maduro claimd that “we have to be careful, behind all this could be the hand of Uribe Vélez, of the paracos (Colombian paramilitary).” On May 7 the Colombian Foreign Minister María Ángela Holgín met the Venezuelan Ambassador in Bogota Iván Ricón, and short of presenting a formal protest note, she did express the dissatisfaction of the Colombian government for the treatment the ex-president had received form Venezuela. On May 8, Uribe´s lawyers asked the asked the IACHR to extend a precautionary measure in his favor as he is the victim of an “irresponsible public persecution.”

May 4, on a cadena, Maduro accuses opposition Mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma of being a “traitor to the fatherland” for meeting Mayors of the Miami area, and calls the on the General Attorney (Fiscal General) to open an investigation on him for “calling for a foreign intervention in Venezuela.” On May 5 Maduro further criticized Ledezma´s visit to Miami and called him an “adeco mequetrefe (good for nothing member of Acción Democrática), corrupt, traitor to the fatherland,” and a murderer. He insisted that “The Fiscalía has to look into this and see if there are elements, according to the law, to qualify this as treason to the fatherland, because we cannot accept someone asking for the interventions of a country like the US in internal matters.” Ledezma answered that in fact he did meet with local Miami officials during his trip and with representatives of the Venezuelan exile community in Miami in the local Venezuelan hangouts “El Arepazo” and “Café Canela”, but that he has never called for a foreign intervention. On May 8, PSUV representatives to the Municipal Council of Metropolitan Caracas Nahum Fernández and Alexander Nebreda, denounced in a press conference that Ledezma has been using public resources to travel around the world to “conspire against Venezuela”. They claim that Ledezma, on his trip to Miami, ostensibly to meet Mayors of the city, in reality had met with “agents of the spying web of the Israeli Mossad.” They added that “He has travelled to Miami in order to conspire in a campaign that seeks the international non-recognition of our leader Nicolás Maduro, legitimate President of the Republic.” Ledezma answered on his twitter account: “The only treason to the fatherland is to give our oil away to the Cuban government.”

May 4, in the same allocution in which he called on an investigation on Ledezma, Maduro named the US President Obama as the “chief of the devils.” He lamented that “Obama has been dragged to ultra-reactionary position by the Pentagon,” and alerted “all independent governments of a plan by the North American government to produce what has been called ´The War of the Dogs´ in Venezuela, to justify an imperialist intervention. Know, all friends of the world, sons of the Liberator and of Hugo Chávez, that we are ready to defend our right to be free from any form of imperial domination.”

May 6, the new Justice and Interior Minister, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, in a television interview with José Vicente Rangel, gives details of a “conspiracy plan” that has links with foreign agents. The objective of this plot is to “intoxicate society with fear and destabilization” by making demands for the non-recognition of established institutions (he does not specify if he is referring to the similar, previously denounced, “April Connection” plot). The conspirators include NGOs, political parties, the media, and social media web sites. As proof of this plot Rodríguez Torrez mentioned a 2010 meeting in Mexico between Freddy Guevara, Yon Goicochea, Lester Toledo (opposition leaders) and “two retired Generals” to “talk about a plan for civil resistance.” The plot would further include Alejandro Plaz Castillo who would have, according to the Minister, presented the MUD with a “rapid action plan” to cry fraud after the 2012 presidential elections (although the MUD did not claim fraud at the time). This plan would include Armando Briquet (head of the Capriles campaign) and Herique Capriles himself. The far reaching plot thickens with “important components such as Álvaro Uribe, Otto Reich, and Roger Noriega, (…) with the aim of creating the conditions for a civil war in Venezuela.”

May 14, Maduro announces that there is a plot to make him quarrel with National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, and then “physically eliminate” one of the two, so as to blame the survivor for the crime: “They attack us and say that we hate each other. You know what´s the objective? To promote demoralization and division. (…) The objective, this may sound macabre, is to try to physically eliminate one of the two and blame the other. These are the perverse and macabre objectives and sentiments of those behind these plans.”

May 15, PSUV Governor of the State of Táchira, José Gregorio Vielma Mora, reveals a plot by paramilitaries to assassinate him. The plot was discovered after investigations by intelligence services in the State of Zulia, governed by the opposition. Vielma Mora claims to have been named first in a list of politicians of Táchira that should be assassinated “with two shots, in the areas of the back of the neck and the head”. The Governor does not inform who are the other politicians named in the list. 

May 16, during a visit to the State of Barinas Maduro suggests that at least part of the citizens insecurity problem in that State is due to the plotting of the “fascist right”. He declares that he has “no doubt that the right, and external factors, are bringing in groups in order to kidnap and kill for money. (…) You know who those external factors are, you know who they are because I won´t be naming the devils in this sacred home [Chávez´s family house in Barinas], but I have no doubt that they are moving the buttons of paramilitary and that they will try to bring in groups, just as they do in Barinas with the sicarios, and in that way they will keep setting on the insecurity issue.” He added that “they did the same thing by bringing in hard drugs to our barrios, to give away for free to young people.” 

May 20, after the opposition reveals a recording of Mario Silva supposedly reporting to a Cuban agent, Silva writes on twitter that it is all a montage and that “Zionism is doing a good job.”

May 27, in an interview in State channel VTV, Maduro accuses CNN of promoting foreign intervention and a coup d’état in Venezuela. According to him the international news broadcaster is “at the service of destabilization, (…) openly calling for a coup, (…) and has turned into the spearhead of the promotion of intervention.” CNN answered in a communiqué that it had repeatedly and unsuccessfully invited Maduro to an interview.

May 27 Maduro alerts that there is a foreign plan to sabotage his citizens security initiative Plan Patria Segura which includes the deployment of military officers to the streets. Maduro explains that “some characters of the fascist right are planning a meeting, we know where, how, and when, in a neighboring country with a sinister character who is used to violence. The plan is to sabotage the Plan Patria Segura. (…) We have to be alert against sabotage. They want to bring groups of sicarios, drug traffickers to bring in hard drugs. People, be watchful of these groups.” The Technical Secretary of the Presidential Commission for Arms Control, Pablo Fernández, reaffirms Maduro´s theory declaring in an interview in the public VTV that “they [the opposition] are looking for international alliances in order to sabotage the advances in the security policies.”