The militarization of the country in recent years has brought deep consequences to the daily life of Venezuelan society. This fact has generated an escalation in the levels of violence, which now combines a diversity of actors: from military and police groups to militias and parastatal armed organizations, passing through criminal gangs that act with the acquiescence of the State. This dynamic has increased the levels of institutional violence and has been justified under the logic that we are in a situation of war.
Sociologist Verónica Zubillaga, Professor at the Simón Bolívar University and member of the Network of Activism and Research for Coexistence REACIN, analyzes this phenomenon and proposes to move towards a serious transitional justice process in which all sectors of the country are represented, with a relevant role for victims and survivors. Otherwise, we risk deepening the levels of violence that we have been experiencing, bearing in mind that a simple change of government is not a guarantee of overcoming the authoritarian legacy and preserving people’s lives.
– In which context do the recent murders by the security forces in Venezuela take place?
The murders perpetrated by the security forces occur, of course, within the historical context of police abuses in our country. In other words, as has been profusely pointed out among the academics who work in this area, there is a tradition of police abuse and noticeable militarism within the forces of public order in our country. We have had very authoritarian states in their relationship with the working class. As in other Latin American countries, they have seen their rights repeatedly violated. The bloody repression of February 27 and 28, 1989, as well as the Cantaura (1982), Tazón (1984), Yumare (1986), and El Amparo (1988) massacres demonstrate this. Deep down, as I once heard the Brazilian sociologist Michel Misse say, in Latin America and, in particular, Venezuela, we have not yet incorporated the sacred value of the lives of all inhabitants. The old hierarchies persist. We have yet to learn that basic aspect of modernity.
With the dawn of the Bolivarian Revolution and a political discourse targeted at the excluded, some sectors felt frankly hopeful. The oil boom between 2004 and 2012 allowed years of a slack and temporary increase in consumption. It even made it possible to pay for a commission for police reform. But with the sharp decline in oil prices and the oil industry, and the advent of economic collapse in 2014, the seductive utopia of the revolution gave way to the deepening of militarization aimed at controlling discontent and pursuing the illicit emergency economies in which groups from the working-class neighborhoods are involved, notably young men.
We are experiencing a deepening of militarization, not only in the sphere of citizen security but in society as a whole. The social conflicts that are an intrinsic part of community life are seen as a situation of war. Militarization thus implies a logic of coercion; the perception of adversaries as enemies and an armed component, hence the proliferation and visibility of weapons that permeated different areas of our social life in what was defined as “a peaceful but armed revolution”, especially after the 2002-2003 political conflict.
New parastatal armed actors gained visibility in the exercise of coercion or control of dissent in association or competition with the police forces. In this political economy of war, more powerful weapons also reach criminal groups because of their links with the police and military forces. More heavily armed criminal groups generate more ostentatious armed responses by sectors of the state forces, thus contributing to the escalation and the conversion of the forces of public order into actors of illegitimate violence. Extrajudicial killings are encouraged in these types of contexts.
The literature on criminal violence also coincides in pointing out that the increase in militias or armed parastatal groups is associated with the increase in organized crime and criminal violence, as new economic opportunities appear linked to armed coercion. An example of this is the income obtained from the forced protection imposed by the parastatal armed actors, who also associate with and corrupt the police forces. Militarization, and the proliferation of weapons associated with it, produces perverse dynamics that suffocate social life and subjects us to highly despotic armed regimes.
– When the figures for extrajudicial killings are analyzed, it can be seen that most of the victims are young men from working-class neighborhoods. What is the reason for this?
Working-class neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by institutional violence and, more specifically, lethal police violence. It has to do with the marginalization and low appreciation of the lives of ordinary people, which I mentioned earlier. We have repeatedly spoken about the fact that, in our country, the sustained and massive violation of the Right to Life in the context of militarized police operations is concentrated against the young male population of working-class neighborhoods. This was confirmed in the Report of the High Commissioner of the Office for Human Rights and the Report of the Fact-Finding Mission, both bodies of the United Nations.
In recent decades, victimization concentrated in this population has been associated with a sustained narrative of lethal stigmatization. With the use of the term lethal stigmatization in my works, I want to highlight, in the first instance, that the construction of the idea that the young male population of working-class neighborhoods is responsible for violence and crime in the country has implied that the lives of good and decent citizens depend on their elimination. In this sense, by defining this population as “responsible” for violence from the state power, the State gets rid of its fundamental responsibilities. That is, the obligation to preserve life as the highest priority; the development of public policies that allow peaceful coexistence; the control of arms and ammunition; and the guarantee and surveillance of police forces that are meant to protect the population, among many others.
Second, with the term lethal stigmatization I also want to emphasize that these definitions urge and justify the murder, rather than the imprisonment, of those who are defined as criminals. Thus, instead of the traditional incarceration of young people from low-income areas – defined as potential criminals – these definitions justify their killing, thus solving the contradictions of a Bolivarian government that initially identified itself with the disadvantaged sectors.
Additionally, given that this population concentrates in specific urban areas and is linked to the territorial extension of poor neighborhoods, social geography has also become the subject of lethal territorial stigmatization. Hence, militarized operations with high lethality, such as the Operation for the Liberation of the People (OLP), have been concentrated in the poorest areas of Cota 905, El Cementerio, y El Valle, referred to by the authorities as “corridors of death” [2]. This is why I speak of lethal territorial stigmatization.
In light of this situation, it seems to us that we have to begin to discuss comprehensive reparation processes especially for that sector of the population. In Colombia, for example, where the highest proportion of victims also come from vulnerable sectors, the reflection on justice and reparation points to the need of thinking about justice in a more complex way. In other words, reparation in contexts of inequality and exclusion, where the majority of the victims of massive rights violations come from the working class, is considered in addition to the dimension of corrective justice — the consideration of harm; the amount of the reparation and the beneficiaries — a dimension of transformative justice, to the extent that resources are used to carry out material and symbolic reparations that envision transforming the situation of marginalization and social stigmatization of the victims [3]. In any case, transforming the situation of inequity that persists, and that has deepened in recent years, continues to be an obligation of the society to guarantee a future of coexistence. We have to begin these debates and reflect on our country and the long journey that this process implies.
– What is your interpretation of the role of the State in strengthening institutional violence?
It is important to highlight two patterns that were revealed in our research from people’s experiences. One is the transformation of the action of the State in time; from a traditionally authoritarian action by the police forces, expressed in mass incarceration, to an action that manifests systematic brutality: the killing of men in poor neighborhoods. And the second aspect is the feeling that people have that this systematic brutality is inserted within a machinery, that is, on the one hand, there are orders to murder, with the collaboration of subordinates and amid other forms of abuse, such as looting; and on the other, there is institutional coordination to commit, trivialize, and hide the massacre.
There are some indicators of the first pattern, the transformation of state action over time. Of course, we have the figures from the Prosecutor’s Office; the notable increase in cases of resistance to authority; but also, and abundantly, the ethnographic data collected in our research in neighborhoods affected by these policies. People systematically compare the past with the present and note a difference: “In the past, they were arrested, they were taken prisoner […] now they kill them.” According to the experience of the people, the turning point was experienced with the launch of the OLP, which marked the beginning of a pattern of action in the whole of the police forces and what has come later: the Special Action Forces (FAES) of the Bolivarian National Police.
The second pattern, the atrocious machinery explained by Brazilian anthropologist Martha Huggins, becomes visible in the stories of the people, but also in those of the police officers with whom we spoke. Women and young men tell about how the police officers in these armed incursions say “they are following orders” and that the agents “have orders to kill.” They also detail how the agents simulate armed clashes by firing into the air and “fabricate” the crime scene for the prosecution. These recounts are consistent with the testimonies that we have collected from police officers who narrated that once seen the prisons “overcrowded”, it is time to “eliminate”.
This rationale is further verified in repeated public statements of high officials. In these communications, the increase in the figure of “resistance to authority” is an indicator of the “effectiveness” of the policies. In other words, deaths are indicators of the success of crime reduction policies. These deaths are trivialized as if they were not human beings; as if they were simply results and statistics. It becomes evident the radical dehumanization of the State, whose normative function is to guarantee life. Dismantling this machinery seems complicated but urgent to ensure a future of rights and democracy.
– How can we overcome these abuses of power? What are your recommendations?
Dismantling this authoritarian legacy and this machinery of death constitutes a challenge for a democratic future, as well as prioritizing the preservation of the lives of the people and exerting maximum intolerance against abuse, killing, and impunity.
The imminent risk is that even with a change of government, this overwhelming military machine will be prolonged and criminal violence will deepen. The temptation of any government will be holding on to an iron fist, which is thought to counteract the action of parastatal armed groups or confront organized crime gangs.
The comparative study of the relationship between transitions from authoritarian regimes to democracies and criminal violence, reveals that the epidemic of violence, namely organized crime and violent deaths deepened in the transitional countries that failed to complete a serious transitional justice process, as was the case of Brazil, El Salvador, or Mexico. This is in stark contrast with the countries that established robust truth commissions, a serious commitment to justice processes, reforms of the security apparatus that seek to break away with the authoritarian legacy of repression, and the firm intolerance against impunity to guarantee the non-repetition of atrocities. This is the case of Bolivia, Chile, or Peru [4].
The core of the issue is that in the case of the first group of countries —Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico— the operators of the authoritarian state —the military and police officers— who are key in the transition and democratization process, migrated and associated themselves with criminal groups to fight the state; or confronted each other in a process of fragmentation and deinstitutionalization; or continued in association with criminal organizations; or, finally, perpetuated the system by implementing iron fist policies that also prolonged police abuses, all of which favored the deepening of the typical lethal violence in those transition contexts. On the contrary, transitional justice processes with a serious commitment to expose, prosecute, and punish those responsible for serious human rights violations allows a redefinition of the patterns of the exercise of coercion by the State, sending a message of zero tolerance against impunity, dissuading, and preventing these operators from prolonging their role in the epidemic of violence [5].
I spoke once to a policeman who was involved in the OLP. He and his colleagues were told that they would be sent to jail or killed if there was a regime change, so they must “fight and die for the revolution.” At that moment I told him that it was pure revenge, that we rather aspire to recover rights and install a justice process that traditional justice does not cover due to the magnitude of the violations. I was talking about transitional justice. This is a very important message to guarantee us a future.
Indeed, I think we can learn from some aspects of the complex Colombian experience and the transitional justice process that they have been advancing. For example, regarding the peace agreements in criminal matters, which designed a sophisticated judicial architecture halfway between criminal justice and restorative justice. Those willing to confess, collaborate with the truth commission, ask for forgiveness, acknowledge their responsibility, and contribute to repairing their victims, serve restorative sanctions (restorative justice prevails); other cases will be submitted to ordinary justice, such as going to prison (criminal or punitive justice), depending on the moment in which they recognize their responsibility. [6] These are very complicated issues that we need to learn. As Cristián Correa [7] explained in a conversation on this topic, that could be the approach, and then comes the intricate task of examining the type of violation, the level of involvement in the perpetration, and the contribution to the truth, while preserving sanctions for those responsible for the most serious violations that do not contribute.
So we have before us the arduous challenge of conceptualizing, forging, and materializing a transitional justice process that, amid the search for truth and justice, sends a clear message and sign on the unacceptability of both impunity and revenge.
– Finally, what do you think is the role of ordinary citizens and organized civil society to reverse the situation of institutional violence?
I believe that we have very important challenges ahead. We have to continue registering what we live and advance in the documentation of cases to prepare ourselves when the moment of the search for truth and justice arrives, emphasizing once again that justice does not equal revenge. You have to insist on this message to recover the language and experience of rights and citizenship.
And in that sense, we have to broaden the spectrum of political imagination to conceive a common horizon. We need to talk more about negotiation, agreements, transitional justice. Michelle Bachelet’s Report and the Report of the Fact-Finding Mission showed that something serious is happening, which probably ordinary justice will not be in full capacity to assume. The different sectors of Chavismo must see these reports, not as a weapon to attack them politically, but as a serious diagnosis of the situation. And the sectors of the political opposition must understand that the crimes described in the report do not occur in a vacuum; there is a tradition of abuse that has seriously worsened. If this machinery is not dismantled, we will be condemned to the continuation of serious human rights violations even with a regime change.
We learned from the Chilean experience that all sectors must be represented in a process of transitional justice and a truth commission. In our case that includes the different factions within chavismo and the opposition, among other actors. The process must look extensively into the events in our contemporary history since at least 1958, and their participants must enjoy legitimacy from everyone.
It is necessary to begin to speak of sincere processes of reconciliation, integral and symbolic reparation, in which the victims and the surviving relatives hold a leading role; a process of restorative and transformative justice to forge a memory of what happened and ensure non-repetition. El Helicoide, the current headquarters of the SEBIN and detention center for political and regular convicts, could serve as a symbol that embodies our history of unfinished modernity, negligence, exclusion, repression, and death by the forces of public order. Due to its powerful history, this building could become a space for memory, a research center, and a headquarter for reflection, debate, construction of memory, and, ultimately, symbolic reparation.
Anyway, it is a long way with multilayered processes. They will require international support and learning new lessons. We need to be vocal and exert pressure to transform the cultural and institutional practices of death and persist in prioritizing life as a supreme value.
Interview by Manuel Zapata, S.J. [1]
References:
[1] Director at Centro Gumilla.
[2] The term began to be used by @Freddy Bernal, who tweeted on March 26, 2016 : “How many police officers and civilians must die? We must take the police and the military to the death corridors of Caracas.
[3] Díaz Gómez, Catalina; Sánchez, Nelson y Rodrigo Uprimny. (2009). Reparar en Colombia: los dilemas en contextos de conflicto, pobreza y exclusión. Bogotá: Centro Internacional para la Justicia Transicional (ICTJ) y Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad (DeJuSticia).
[4] Guillermo Trejo; Juan Albarracín y Lucía Tiscornia. (20198). Breaking state impunity in post-authoritarian regimes: Why transitional justice processes deter criminal violence in new democracies. Journal of Peace Research. XX(X).
[5] Ibid.
[6] Villamizar, Juan; Baquero, Diego; et al. (s/f) Estudio sobre el reconocimiento de responsabilidad en el proceso de la ley de Justicia y Paz: aprendizajes y recomendaciones para el sistema integral de verdad, justicia, reparación y no repetición. Centro Internacional para la Justicia Transicional, Fundación Aulas de Paz y Universidad Santo Tomás.
[7] Cristián Correa is an expert in the implementation of reparation programs for massive human rights violations. International Center for Transitional Justice (www.ictj.org)
Translated by José Rafael Medina
