The popular rebellion on Monday, July 29, 2024, was answered by the dictatorial government of Maduro with brutal repression, which so far has not ceased.
By Leonardo Arantes – Unidad Socialista de los Trabajadores (Socialist Workers Unity)
Maduro and his government have unleashed a brutal repression in response to the massive mobilizations of working people, the popular sectors, and youth, who did not wait for the any call from the political leadership of the bourgeois opposition before manifesting in the streets their indignation and rejection of the fraud committeed by the pro-government National Electoral Council (CNE). Maduro’s repressive escalation which, according to figures put out by the organization Foro Penal, has put than 1,400 people in jail for protesting and left more than 25 dead. Meanwhile, the same government boasts of more than 2,400 detainees, with the clear purpose of sowing terror among the working class and the poor.
Who is the repression targeting, and what are its objectives?
A striking characteristic of this repressive offensive is the fact that it is directed mainly against the popular sectors, more than 95% of the detainees come from the poor neighborhoods and popular sectors of the country, who spontaneously mobilized during Monday, July 29 and part of Tuesday, July 30, 2024. This is also where the government is making use of the so-called Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) and its para-police apparatus known as “colectivos”, who have burst on the scene with unusual cruelty, killing, wounding, shooting left and right, detaining people, and even raiding homes without any kind of warrant.
First, this makes the class character of the government and its repression clear, but also shows that one of their objectives is to sow panic and terror among the working class and the poor. This is in order to avoid any hint of protest coming from these sectors, whether it is against the blatant electoral fraud, or for wages, other labor conditions, public services and social living conditions.
From the Unidad Socialista de los Trabajadores (UST), defenders as we are of the right to protest and of democratic freedoms as a whole, we denounce this repressive escalation of the government, its attempts to criminalize popular protest, as well as the thousands of arbitrary arrests that have been carried out. We categorically point out that the injuries and assassinations perpetrated by the National Guard, the National Police, and the para-police forces, are the absolute responsibility of the dictatorial government of Maduro.
We demand the immediate cessation of repression and of the criminalization of popular, labor and social protest. We also demand the freedom of the thousands of demonstrators imprisoned for protesting, as well as the cessation of abuses, outrages and terror against the communities by the military (GNB), police and para-police forces.
The repressive raids have not ceased
A little more than two weeks after the popular protests of June 29, the government’s repressive raids have not ceased, instead they have taken on a more selective strategy. While the police and para-police forces have continued to sow terror in the streets of the main cities of the country and in the popular neighborhoods; they have also resorted to annuling and/or cancellation the passports of human rights defenders, journalists and activists, both inside and outside Venezuela, as well as their detaining them or “disappearing” them.
Likewise, there have beean arrests, kidnappings and disappearances of the political opposition, trade union and social leaders. It should be noted that subsequently judicial proceedings are opened and carried out, in which those that have been detained are prevented from having the right to defense, and where relatives are deprived of the right to see them, or even know where the detainees are being held. In addition there have been threats and intimidation against civilians who are forced to take refuge or to consider forced exile to preserve their life and freedom.
Similarly, there have been violations of the freedom of expression and the right to information for users of social networks (RRSS) and the independent press. There have also been measures to block social media such as X (in the first instance for 10 days), digital messaging systems such as Signal, coupled with announcements and calls by Maduro to boycott Whatsapp, as a possible preliminary step to its blocking its use, among others. In addition the odious and macabre “operation tun tun”, has been implemented, consisting in the practice of informing on and subsequently capturing people who express their opposition to the government, under the argument of “incitement to hatred”.
In addition to all this, there have been announcements from the government about the approval of new repressive laws to “regulate”, limit and/or directly restrict the use of certain web applications and social media networks. These laws would be added to the already existing authoritarian and repressive legislation, such as the so-called “Law against hate”, “Anti-blocking Law” and “Law against fascism, neo-fascism and other similar expressions”.
Another announcement from the government, in this repressive drift, has been the reinstatement of the old practice of forced labor, mainly for the rushed construction of prisons, more precisely of new facilities, in the well-known prisons of Tocuyito and Tocorón (in the states of Carabobo and Aragua respectively). For this purpose, they are also transferring workers (under the offer of remunerations of up to $500), with the purpose of imprisoning demonstrators, those who have been arrested for protesting, and opposition activists, under the accusations of terrorism, conspiracy, incitment to hatred and other crimes (including common crimes) that the government may wish to charge them with.
In addition, we must add the coercion, blackmail, threats of dismissals, and firings that have been perperated by state companies and public agencies against workers for “disloyalty”. In this sense, “disloyalty” is understood as the action of not having voted for the government, having voted against it, or receiving, disseminating and maintaining in their cell phones or other electronic devices content not favorable to the government.
More than one hundred workers are known to have been dismissed in the state-owned television channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) and at least 32 workers (of which we are aware) in the different areas of the state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). These dismissals have been ordered after abusive searches of workers’ computers, tablets and cell phones, their statuses and groups on Whatsapp, Telegram and publications in any social media network.
The UST repudiates the implementation of all these arbitrary, authoritarian practices, which violate the most elementary democratic, political and human rights.
The inconsistency of the bourgeois opposition in the face of repression
Here we consider it necessary to denounce the inconsistency of the bourgeois opposition, headed by María Corina Machado (MCM) and Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), in their denunciations of the repression that has been unleashed against the popular sectors by the Maduro dictatorship. While the latter is carrying out a wave of abuses and outrages with unusual violence against the popular sectors, the youth and the working population, the opposition leadership has limited itself to making general calls to “not always be in the streets” to “take care of each other” to “act with intelligence”. They also speak of “having trust” and of “operational pauses”. There has been no call to mobilize as a whole to confront the repression against the popular sectors.
At the same time they have only made denunciations and statements when some of their leaders have been arrested, while they limit the mention of repression against the popular sectors only when they are urged to do so, or demagogically during the mobilizations, like that of August 17, when they tried to stir up support for their preferred tactics of negotiation and international pressure.
In one of his statements, MCM made a lukewarm call to the Armed Forces not to repress, without any forceful denunciation against the repressive actions of this body, whose privileged leadership, turned into Bolibourgeoisie due to its links with legal and illegal businesses protected by the State, constitutes the strongest point of support for Maduro. This is explained by the interest of the opposition leadership in avoiding entering into conflict with an institution that, at the end of the day, constitutes the fundamental support of the State, and that an eventual government of the opposition plans to lead with the same logic as the Maduro government does today.
Worker and popular, democratic organization and unity of action to defend ourselves and defeat repression
This is why we at the UST consider it necessary and urgent, that the unions and independent organizations; including neighborhood organizations, popular, democratic, student, political, and others, get together and organize in a broad, unitary, autonomous and democratic way to prepare the defense against repression and defeat it.
We believe it is pertinent to build the broadest unity of action of all the democratic, fighting, popular, student and workers sectors, to discuss and undertake actions from the neighborhoods, mainly to defend ourselves from repression, to protect ourselves and confront police and parapolice abuses, as well as to build broad mobilizations that are capable of defeating the repression. Finally, we exhort the troops to organize themselves to prevent the abuses of the officers and not to repress the poor and working people who demonstrating, from which they themselves come. At the same time, we call on those workers, oppressed sectors, and the poor to establish a dialogue with their relatives who are in the Armed Forces and the police, to make them aware of what is occuring, and thus contribute to their organizing against the abuses of the officers (middle and high command mainly) and against the repression.
