Venezuela's Madura Tottering Toward Collapse
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| Antonio Rivero, a retired general now living in the United States, was shocked in 2008 when he suddenly began encountering Cuban officials in military meetings and training. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins |
"[The Venezuelan government subjects prisoners viewed by them as political opponents to] electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags, water boarding, beatings, sexual violence, water and food deprivation, stress positions and exposure to extreme temperatures."
Michelle Bachelet, UN Human Rights commissioner
"The abuse of military officers has grown because they represent a real threat for Maduro's government."
"This has been Maduro's decision. He's the one giving orders there."
General Manuel Cristopher Figuera, former head, Venezuelan intelligence
"If we stay silent, they win."
"This is what they want, to make everyone live in fear."
Carmen Acosta, Maracay, Venezuela
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| A proliferation of flag officers means even top officials, like Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino (speaking) and Admiral Remigio Ceballos (right), have limited ability to command. REUTERS/Handout/Venezuelan presidency |
Venezuela's military has been loyal to its president, Nicolas Madura; which is to say up to the present point. Just as over four million Venezuelans have become refugees, fleeing the country of their birth where they cannot find employment, where food and medicine has become scarce, where graft, corruption and violence grow exponentially as the country continues to fall into greater depths of dysfunction, the military too is discovering that the shortages of life-sustaining fundamental elements of civilized existence are now affecting them as well.
The country, rich in the enviable natural resources that once made it the generous supplier of petroleum products to its neighbours has been incapable of managing its own resources, and even oil to run industry, much less vehicles is in short supply, its economy crimped and crumbling. Most top military leaders remain loyal to their chief, the president; they are not suffering the kind of deprivation that lower-grade officers much less general conscripts do. Yet among them are those whose allegiance is now suspect.
Retired Naval Captain Rafael Acosta was among them, arrested by the country's intelligence forces and by the time he appeared at a military tribunal he was in a wheelchair, the product of torture, begging his lawyer to "help me". Three weeks later he was being buried, his body wrapped in brown plastic. Leaked autopsy report detailed blunt force trauma and electrocution. A signal notice to others in the military of the fate that awaits them should they too be suspected of turning against their president.
Factions inside the military and security forces have staged a number of attempts at overthrowing or assassinating Nicolas Maduro, their reward so far swift with state media naming the threats "a continuous coup", leading the Socialist Party justifying surveillance, arbitrary detention and torture of 'enemies' within the country's 160,000-strong armed forces -- to prevent plots claimed to number a dozen and more, all intercepted, those accused summarily dealt with.
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| The late Hugo Chávez (front row, in red cap) a former lieutenant colonel and coup leader who was elected president in 1998, began remaking the military almost as soon as he took office. REUTERS/Handout/Venezuelan presidency |
Maduro's government considers the military a threat to its existence, no longer as trusted as they once were before the country was felled by inept governance, tyranny, corruption, threats and economic collapse. According to the Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy based in Caracas, 217 active and retired military officers are held in Venezuelan jails, including a dozen generals. At least 250 cases of torture committed by the security forces against military officers, their relatives and opposition activists have been documented by the coalition since 2017, with many victims years in jail without trial.
"[The weaker the government is] the stronger is the torture against the people they consider dangerous", explained coalition lawyer, Ana Leonor Acosta. Juan Carlos Caguaripano, a National Guard captain, led a failed assault on a military base in 2017 and was rewarded by being beaten, suffering testicle injuries. Oscar Perez, police officer who led an anti-government guerrilla unit, shot 14 times at close range by security officers January 2018, after offering repeatedly to surrender while involved in a shootout he broadcast live on social media.
Venezuelan Air Force Major Andrik Carrizales, shot in the head by security officers after joining a failed effort to take over a weapons factory in Maracay onApril 30. Maracay is home to the nation's main air bases and military academies.
Labels: Economic Collapse, Maduro, Military, Venezuela
posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 30, 2019
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