lOn August 20, in the town of La Guaira, in the north of Venezuela, on the Caribbean Sea, the security services arrested a young journalist, Ana Carolina Guaita. Two days later she was taken on a boat to an unknown destination, which appears to remain so to this day. Her parents are leaders of the opposition to Nicolás Maduro, the outgoing president and head of the party. “Chavista”who declared himself re-elected for six years without waiting for the recount of the elections held on July 28.
Ana Carolina’s parents were forced to hide somewhere in Venezuela or go into exile abroad. Why was their daughter arrested? Was it to pressure them to surrender to the authorities? We don’t know. We do know: testimonies of torture, ill-treatment and even rape are not uncommon in the regime’s prisons. And since July 28, Venezuela has been living days of lead. The repressive apparatus of power – a machine as brutal as it is sophisticated – intends to crush any challenge to its version of the elections. The results of the first demonstrations recorded at the end of July: at least 2,400 arrests, thirty people shot dead, more than 200 injured.
The opposition is being persecuted. Human rights activists, lawyers, trade unionists and journalists are being targeted. Selective or indiscriminate arrests, “disappearances”, Kidnappings, families of detainees rescued by the police and militias of the “Chavista” party in power since 1998: the arsenal is well-known and evokes sinister memories on the Latin American continent. Quoted on August 10 in the New York TimesCarolina Jiménez Sandoval, president of the Washington Office on Latin America research center, notice: “I have been investigating human rights violations in Venezuela for years, but I don’t think I have ever seen such ferocity.”
Extent of poverty
On July 28, Maduro, counting on abstention and his control over the state apparatus, sought a third six-year term. Precautionarily, the party “Chavista” had found a pretext to prevent the popular opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, from running. Edmundo Gonzales Urrutia, a wise, septuagenarian retired diplomat, wore the opposition colors. Record turnout, but even before the count was finished, Maduro declared his “victory”The opposition made public the records of more than 80% of the voting machines: an indisputable success for Gonzales, who has since found refuge in Madrid, while María Machado lives in hiding.
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