With only a few weeks to go until RightsCon Toronto, we are highlighting the vital work of our community members around the world in defending and extending human rights in the digital age.
Melanio Escobar is a Venezuelan activist, journalist, and technologist working to protect secure communications and free expression online in Latin America.
From 2013 to 2014, Venezuela was in great chaos, with months of daily demonstrations protesting the economic crisis and increasing restrictions on basic human rights. The government imposed heavy crackdowns, arresting hundreds of protesters — many of whom were young students — and denying them access to their families, friends, or lawyers. Melanio explained, “As a journalist, I couldn’t believe that traditional media didn’t show any of this on their TV and radio stations.”
Venezuela experiences heavy censorship because the regime controls most of the country’s traditional media outlets. To fill the gap, Melanio used social media to inform people where the detained students and protesters were being held. The Maduro regime also started detaining people for speaking out on social media, and used a range of online surveillance tools to identify and track people to be jailed. “In the middle of that chaos, I found myself training activists around the country about digital security and how to avoid being tracked by the government,” Melanio said. Building on those efforts, he founded RedesAyuda, which uses tech and communications to empower NGOs and activists across Latin America.
RedesAyuda supports civil society across the full human rights spectrum, from indigenous groups, to LGBTI communities, to civil rights and gender rights activists, and many more. “We believe that anyone fighting for freedom and the recognition of rights needs to be supported and protected,” Melanio said. RedesAyuda helps these organizations address the many challenges they face in their work, including issues similar to those Venezuelans are dealing with under the current dictatorship. Melanio explained, “Speaking about the region, and not only Venezuela, we can point to the fact that most of the activists, NGOs, and journalists are being tracked, monitored, jailed, and killed. That’s why we focus our work in training activists all around South America — to protected them, to secure them, to make them aware of the responsibility that we all have for our own protection.”
RedesAyuda’s digital security trainings help civil society organizations to feel more secure and more confident in using the tools needed to pursue their work safely. RedesAyuda also helps these organizations to find new ways to communicate and reach new audiences with their messages. “That’s something we do a lot,” Melanio explained. “We help organizations and activists to speak the same language that younger audiences can understand and relate to.”
Conditions in Venezuela have made it very difficult for everyone — including digital rights activists like Melanio — to conduct their work. Economic instability has limited access to basic necessities —let alone hardware or other resources —and has triggered extreme inflation that undermines Venezuelan civil society’s ability to reliably fund operations. Government persecution continues to increase, making it ever more dangerous for Venezuelans to report on what is happening and advocate for their rights. Further, failing infrastructure means the internet connection is extremely unreliable throughout the country, and the government has banned many airlines from flying in and out of Venezuelan airports. Together, these problems make it even more difficult for Venezuelans to engage with the international community. Regardless, though, Melanio said, “I manage to figure out how to bypass these issues and get the stuff done.”
For Melanio, RightsCon is an important opportunity to connect in a stress-free environment with people working in a similar context. “It’s going to be very helpful to understand the challenges that we all face,” he said. “It will let me expose my work and the enemy we face, and to connect with people who are willing to raise their voices about Latin America and Venezuela´s freedom.” And, most importantly, Melanio said, “Being in a platform as big as RightsCon will allow me to speak for the thousands that we help who are voiceless right now.”
In his final remarks, Melanio added, “Please remember, the worst thing that could happen to an activist like me is not being jailed or killed. It is not being heard and not being supported by people who can but instead keep ignoring what’s happening around them.” You can find out more about his work at www.redesayuda.org and www.humanoderecho.com.
Millones de venezolanos sufren diariamente las consecuencias de la crisis humanitaria en el país. Una realidad que lleva a muchos a tener que buscar comida en la basura, recolectar cartón para sobrevivir, o entrar a aguas negras para buscar pedazos de oro. Estas son algunas de las realidades que capturó en 360 grados el equipo de la ONG Redes Ayuda.
Con una cámara GoPro y la disposición de sensibilizar a las personas ajenas a la situación que atraviesa Venezuela, los miembros de la organización no gubernamental se acercaron a diferentes personas con la petición de que por unos momentos, compartieran su vida con el mundo. “Los hicimos en 360 grados para que la gente pueda entender la magnitud de la crisis que se esta viviendo”, comentó el director de la ONG, Melanio Escobar.
De la idea resultaron 8 videos que están publicados en el canal de YouTube de Redes Ayuda. También fueron presentados en el Internet Freedom Festival realizado en la ciudad de Valencia, España, entre el 6 y 10 de marzo.
Al reproducirlos, el usuario puede deslizar la imagen hacia cualquier dirección para observar distintos ángulos de la grabación.
“Estas son personas sin rostro que nos la encontramos en todos lados todos los días. Nos acercamos a ellos para ver si podrían retratar la realidad que viven”.
Escobar asegura que todas las personas que abordaron para el proyecto expresaron sentirse ofendidos por las declaraciones del presidente Nicolás Maduro en que niega que exista una emergencia humanitaria en el país. “El Estado mantiene la pretensión de que la gente no come de la basura cuando la realidad es otra y aquí la presentamos”.
Es la realidad que vive un joven de 23 años, que decide sacrificarse para poder alimentar a su esposa embarazada y a su hijo de 4 años.
“Tengo 23 años, un trabajo estable y una familia que mantener. Me esfuerzo para que mi hijo de 4 años y mi esposa embarazada puedan alimentarse. Como de la basura desde hace meses, me avergüenza, es indignante, nunca me imaginé tener que vivir esta situación. Revisar bolsas con desechos y comer desperdicios al salir del trabajo se ha convertido en mi rutina, lo hago por necesidad, nadie debería vivir así. Le digo a mi esposa que en el trabajo me alimentan, para que no sospeche sobre el sacrificio que debo hacer. Espero nunca sepan que hago esto.”
La violación del derecho al acceso a la alimentación fue uno de los temas que abordan los vídeos 360. Los supermercados que muestran el otro lado de la realidad venezolana fueron escogidos de distintas zonas de la ciudad y corresponden a distintas clases sociales –alta, media y baja–, pero todos comparten un mismo aspecto: sus anaqueles vacíos. Escobar explica que la escasez de alimentos no ha sido caracterizada por clase social, sino que es algo que viven todos los venezolanos, y sus vídeos lo comprueban.
Otro de los testimonios registrados en cámara es el de un minero del río Guaire, un “nuevo oficio” al que cada día recurren más personas en la capital venezolana para conseguir dinero. “Estas personas prefieren sumergirse en una cloaca para conseguir una pepita de oro a tener que trabajar en un empleo normal por un mes”, indica Escobar, pues cada gramo de oro es valorado en casi cuatro millones de bolívares, un monto tres veces superior al salario mínimo.
El video, el único que no consta de formato 360 por motivos técnicos, muestra a un joven en la orilla del Guaire, el desagüe de desechos residuales más grande de Caracas.
“He conseguido de todo en el Guaire, una cosa más desagradable que otra. Unos días con más suerte que otros, hay semanas en las que no se gana nada. Me ha costado una que otra enfermedad pero me ayuda a llevar algo a mi familia, somos 12 en la casa”.
En el último minuto de la grabación, la suerte llega al joven en forma de un zarcillo de oro.
La presos políticos, y las malas condiciones en las que viven los presos venezolanos, ocupa otro de los videos que Redes Ayuda realizó durante un foro, en donde simularon una celda policial con medidas de “3 x 2 metros”, donde normalmente un privado de libertad pasa sus días junto a 20 ó 30 apresados más. Las paredes de la celda llevan los nombres de más de 200 apresados injustamente.
“Una cara representa a cada preso, no solo los políticos, sino los presos comunes también. Es una muestra del hacinamiento que se vive en las cárceles”.
Puedes ver todos los videos en la lista de reproducción que preparó Redes Ayuda en su canal de YouTube a través de este enlace.
La desesperanza parece reinar, el fracaso de la Rebelión Popular aunado a la migración de miles de venezolanos producto de la crisis humanitaria dibuja un paisaje desalentador en esta tierra que alguna vez fue de gracia; hiperinflación, represión, cerco de derechos constitucionales, delincuencia, escases de medicamentos y comidas son el coctel que da vida al peor período que haya vivido Venezuela desde 1814.
Este momento de degradación de las condiciones de vida se sintetiza en el informe ENCOVI 2017 que concluye que 82% de los hogares venezolanos viven en pobreza, de los cuales el 52% es extrema; 75 % de los venezolanos sufrió pérdida de peso en un promedio de 8 kilos y medio por persona, lo que ha llevado que familias enteras consumieran tubérculos de yuca amarga, generando víctimas fatales.
Pero aunque el panorama es turbio, esto no significa el fin de un proceso de transición que se inició con el quiebre de la hegemonía gubernamental, a diferencia de la década de los noventas existe un nuevo paradigma de inclusión, democracia y libertad en los venezolanos; como sociedad hemos entendido que no son palabras, sino perspectivas que hay que defender. Por ello, seguiremos aquí, en el momento más obscuro de nuestra historia republicana apostando por el cambio y resistiendo los embates autoritarios.
Este nuevo paradigma se manifiesta en la multiplicidad de organizaciones sociales de asistencia y apoyo a los venezolanos más desfavorecidos que brotan del asfalto que por primera vez en la historia y sin pretenderlo, están superando al Estado actuando en red, con vocerías rotativas y gestionando sus propios medios para hacer presión.
Por ello, somos conscientes de que el retorno de la diáspora puede estar próximo, por consiguiente dedicamos este número a todos los venezolanos que abandonaron su terruño para prepararse o para vivir cosas que su lugar de origen no puede brindarles de momento. Todos los que no nos acompañan, esos 4 millones de coterráneos algún día volverán, para ayudarnos a reconstruir la nación.
Sabemos que aunque la dictadura se presenta fuerte, lo cierto es que estamos siendo testigos de la caída del proceso bolivariano, esto nos lleva a insistir y persistir por una Venezuela distinta, del lado de la sociedad civil donde nos vemos y reconocemos como iguales. La resistencia pacífica crece y se extiende, somos ejemplo de ello.
Cada día vemos el conflicto entre el viejo sistema operativo del país y los nuevos actores nacidos de la tecnología comunicativa omnipresente. el cambio afecta a la sociedad civil, la empresa y la democracia. Disrupt ecuador 2017 es un evento con agentes de cambio latinoamericanos para discutir y reflexionar sobre los desafíos para re-diseñar al ecuador con las herramientas del futuro.
Melanio Escobar, periodista venezolano con más de 12 años de experiencia en medios de comunicación, fundador de la ONG en DDHH RedesAyuda y de Humano Derecho Radio Estación, productor audiovisual, docente de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, columnista del semanario Tal Cual y cronista de protesta. Melanio Escobar documenta la realidad venezolana durante su época mas difícil, donde la hegemonía comunicacional del estado ha creado un contexto de censura y autocensura que hace del informar algo casi imposible. Melanio ha desarrollado nuevos mecanismos para el registro, denuncia y difusión de información útil, en pro de ayudar a los venezolanos en el ejercicio de su derecho a la libertad de expresión, de informar y de ser informados.
Desde abril hasta agosto del 2017, Venezuela experimentó un ciclo de movilización ciudadana que los grupos de los Derechos Humanos hemos denominado “Rebelión Popular”. Esta experiencia se caracterizó, entre otras cosas, por una extensión cronológica y territorial nunca antes vista (4 meses en 23 estados); la participación clasista e intergeneracional; su carácter propositivo y pacífico; aunado a una vocería difusa y compartida entre la sociedad civil y algunos representantes del poder legislativo. Este proceso se manifestó en una participación decidida de la población y en la consolidación de referentes de cooperación ciudadana como las Unidades de Primeros Auxilios (UPA) también conocidas como las “cruces” y sus múltiples colores afiliativos; así como el reconocimiento y promoción de las garantías presentes en la Constitución de 1999; y el rol institucional desempeñado brevemente por el Ministerio Público.
En respuesta el Ejecutivo convocó de forma inconstitucional una Asamblea Nacional Constituyente cuyo terrible saldo represivo se tradujo en 139 victimas fatales, 5326 personas detenidas; de las cuales 1048 están siendo juzgadas, de ellas 655 en tribunales militares siendo civiles; arrojando 676 nuevos presos políticos, la cifra más alta de privados de libertad en la historia republicana.
La participación de grupos paramilitares en la contención de las concentraciones, así como las agresiones y destrozos de la propiedad privada por parte de los organismos de seguridad; se tradujo en una paulatina pero ficticia desmovilización de la población, por lo que explicaremos a continuación.
La participación de las personas en las múltiples expresiones de protesta fue generando la articulación de lazos de afinidad y complicidad entre los participes de las protestas y las comunidades. Que se traduce en un fortalecimiento del tejido social que había sido desplazado y cooptado en el paso por el gobierno de Hugo Chávez. Es por ello, que la supuesta pasividad en las calles, se está transformando en un momento de internalización de los valores democráticos, en su profundización y sobre todo en la concertación de la mayoría de los actores sociales en el respeto y reconocimiento de los derechos consagrados en la Constitución.
En resumen, aunque los resultados del 15 de octubre no fueron los esperados, como sociedad civil no podemos escatimar en herramientas de participación. No hemos perdido, hemos ganado mucho y debemos seguir adelante en la promoción y defensa de los espacios de participación y de reconocimiento de las diferencias y valores democráticos. Aunque llegó el invierno pronto estaremos de nuevo en primavera.
Hemos, desde las ONG, trabajado muy duro para abrir canales de comunicación, interacción e incidencia en el ámbito social y de derechos como para que la elite política siga violando al pais, para que sigan destruyéndolo y derrotando cualquier tipo de avance posible para el recobro de la Republica y la democracia. Han sido días de reflexión, e internalización, sobre el porvenir y lo que estamos, como venezolanos, por enfrentar.
El panorama es oscuro y desalentador, por un lado estamos sometidos por una dictadura que en flagrancia les hemos visto cometer los crimenes más aterradores, que en un país con ley, solo uno de ellos sería suficiente para sacudirles y que cambien el poder por una celda. Al mismo tiempo, tenemos una oposición, al menos una fracción grande y de poder, que no quiere contrarrestar esto, que mas bien busca la colaboración, la cohabitación y su momento «político» para que con alianzas sucias puedan asumir su cuota en el status quo que desgobierna. Los ejemplos de esto, el fraude de las elecciones, los 4 gobernadores de AD arrodillados ante la ilegítima Constituyente, un zorro viejo como Henry Ramos Allup, con más paja en el rabo que canas en la cabeza, que necesita de pactos para permanecer a flote y que aunque nos compró con frases célebres, nos perdió con su actuar rastrero y de poca lealtad al momento histórico que atravesamos.
Aun y cuando, todo esto se nos viene encima como una avalancha, aun y cuando pareciera no tener una solución rápida, clara y efectiva, aun y cuando todo nos parezca tan duro e imposible, es el momento de actuar, de sumarnos y alzar nuestras voces unidas nuevamente. No para impulsar a un político o el otro, sino, para impulsarnos a nosotros mismos, los ciudadanos, desde la Constitución, desde lo que es correcto, desde nuestros principios innegociables, desde la lealtad por sobre la traición. No podemos permitir que los golpes de la elite mancillen el rostro de los sufridos, seremos los nadie pero somos el todo y ellos lo saben. Sin militancia, sin arrastre no existen, no son, no serán. Usemos nuestro poder para unirnos contra todo aquel que dañe la nación y solo demos nuestra mano a quien comparta nuestro objetivo: La libertad. Invito, a todo aquel que quiera una Venezuela libre, que dé un paso al frente y desde todos los espacios que ocupamos seamos artífices de un nuevo movimiento nacional por la democracia y de respeto a los DDHH. Los buenos somos más, es hora de que hagamos más ruido que estas basuras que se ríen sobre nuestras lágrimas y luchemos juntos por la paz que tanto anhelamos y por la cual tantos han muerto. Vamos, que si podemos.
Recklessly driving through the sloping streets of Caracas, Diego blares “Bonita,” the bass-heavy reggaeton hit of the summer. The stock speakers of his tiny sedan pulsate as we pass block after block of buildings, each cloaked with layers of razor wire and electrified fencing. Diego (whose name, as well as others’, have been changed to protect their identity) laughs and looks at me, smiling cynically, when I ask why it seems like no one bothers to stop at red lights.
“Do you want to be kidnapped or something?”
It’s the night of Thursday, July 27. In less than three days, Venezuelans will live through one of the most defining days in their country’s modern history — and one of the bloodiest. A vote nicknamed the Constituyente is scheduled for July 30. If successful, it would be a major step in president Nicolás Maduro’s march toward dictatorship.
Tonight, the sidewalks are empty and the roads nearly barren. For the few brave enough to be out, traffic laws go by the wayside. Even the sunlight brings little comfort. Just the day before we met, Diego was driving home after making a late-afternoon withdrawal at a nearby bank. En route, three men on motorbikes surrounded his car and tried to steer him off the road. “I always knew it was dangerous here,” he explains, “and you get used to it. But in my whole life, that never happened to me before.”
Graffitied portraits of President Nicolás Maduro (left) and former President Hugo Chávez in a barrio of western Caracas.
You have to look back to the days of Hugo Chávez to understand how Venezuela ended up a country where only 12 percent of people feel safe walking alone at night — lower than Iraq and Afghanistan. Chávez, simultaneously beloved and maligned, presided over the country for more than 14 years before succumbing to cancer in 2013. His death came just as oil prices, Venezuela’s main export, were near their peak. With proven oil reserves bigger than Saudi Arabia’s, the $100 (or just about) that every barrel generated helped create a waterfall of cash, which powered Chávez’s socialist-inspired experiment. But shortly after Chávez died, oil prices worldwide collapsed and the petrodollars dried up. His successor, current president Nicolás Maduro, has failed to find a way to keep the economy afloat. By continuing the socialist policies of his predecessor without the cushion of $100-a-barrel oil, he’s plunged the country into free fall.
During two weeks in Venezuela in late July, I watched the currency collapse from a rate of 7,600 bolívars per one U.S. dollar to just under 20,000. If you exchanged the equivalent of $1,000 into bolívars when president Maduro took power in 2013, that money would now be worth less than two bucks.
The financial downfall came hand-in-hand with political deterioration, which was about to culminate in the Constituyente of July 30. That day, Venezuelans were forced to watch 545 hand-picked Maduro loyalists, including the president’s own wife, usurp the country’s democratically elected parliament to form an all-powerful body named the Constituent Assembly. It can dissolve institutions, rewrite the constitution, and sic government troops against whomever it pleases. Its first order of business was to remove Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diáz, a former Chávez loyalist who’d turned sharply against Maduro in 2017.
On the ground, the vote left Venezuelans in shock. Deep down, many had believed that their government would never go through with the Constituyente. It seemed too risky: the domestic backlash would be overwhelming, and the international fallout could paralyze trade. For many of the young people I met, July 30 became the day they were finally forced to leave the only home they’d ever known.
Sofia
After Diego’s first personal brush with kidnapping the previous day, he was now bravely recounting the details of his escape to Sofia, our new passenger in the backseat.
“We call that express kidnapping, it’s really popular in Caracas!” says a giddy Sofia. She’s 27 years old, a former classmate and lifelong friend of Diego’s. Almost braggingly, she explains that her own father was kidnapped. “But he was driving a shitty company car, so they were like, ah fuck, we kidnapped a poor person!”
Her father was quickly released after the family paid a small fee. It was a pretty good kidnapping as far as these go, she says. Usually, an express kidnapping entails about 48 hours in captivity before the victim is ransomed back to their family for $5,000-$10,000. People in Caracas tend to describe crimes that don’t result in death or injury as “pretty good.”
Sofia and Diego met in high school and grew up as part of a tight-knit group of 12 friends. The boundlessly energetic Sofia works as a freelance graphic designer and comes from a comfortably middle-class home just minutes from Diego’s. Both grew up with money, and tease each other about what would happen if they got kidnapped together.
“When we drive at night, we joke to each other, like, if we get kidnapped, I’m telling them that Diego’s family has lots of money and they should take him!” giggles Sofia as she slaps Diego on the shoulder.
In a fit of laughter, Diego claps back. “No way! I would tell them that your family has a business and you have way more money so they should take you!”
This is the end of their time together in Caracas. In recent years, they’ve watched eight out of their 12 closest friends flee Venezuela for safety elsewhere. A ninth has finally made the decision to leave. And now Diego is looking into the paperwork to emigrate to Argentina. Despite losing the majority of her friends, Sofia is staying put for the time being, though she’s not exactly sure why.
“Every day my parents tell me to leave and I don’t know what keeps me here anymore. I hate talking about it. Honestly, I don’t know.”
In downtown Caracas, activists spelled out “Fraude Constituyente” using five-bolívar notes.
With the vote looming on Sunday, Diego and Sofia took me out for arepas at their favorite neighborhood spot on Thursday night. In days gone by, this is where they’d fill up on the Venezuelan staple after hitting the bars for a night of partying.
“This place used to be packed on Thursday nights,” Sofia laments as we take our seats in the near-empty restaurant. Right now it’s just us and a handful of other patrons scattered across a few dozen tables. The waiters, who outnumber the guests, pace around trying to look busy.
As recently as last December, Sofia was enjoying Christmas with her family on the beaches of Margarita Island, a vacation hotspot just a short flight from Caracas. Even then, despite the string of chaotic years that started in 2014, she says she couldn’t have imagined that things would get as bad as they are now. In the current atmosphere, her father has become so paranoid, he’s stockpiling supplies in preparation for civil war.
As we eat our arepas, Sofia jokes that I better get used to them, because I’m now stuck in Venezuela forever — in the previous two days, virtually all international airlines have suspended flights to Caracas. Deep down, Sofia genuinely fears that the weekend will be a catastrophe. She, like many others, expects that if the Constituyente goes through, there will be a massive uprising in the country.
“Cheers to the end of Venezuela on Sunday,” she hollers, raising her beer for a toast. “Fuck you, Chávez!”
When Diego debates whether to get another beer — tomorrow is a workday — Sofia eggs him on: “Why you worried about work? You’re gonna die on Sunday anyways.”
On the way home, we drop off Sofia and head back to Diego’s apartment in a hillside gated community. The 27-year-old still lives here, his childhood home, with his mom. His father, a lawyer, passed away not long ago. Despite holding down a full-time job as an accountant, he can’t afford to move out. The job barely pays him enough to afford food and basic essentials. Still, that puts him into the category of high earners at his age.
Diego and his mom look out over Caracas from their eighth-floor, caged-in balcony.
Sitting in the apartment that night, Diego and his mother receive notifications from their community Whatsapp group, the most popular form of organization in the country. The neighborhood will protest tonight, as it does most nights.
The two scurry for pots and cookware from the kitchen. As one neighbor blares the Venezuelan national anthem through loudspeakers, the pair bang their kitchenware together, creating a cacophony of sound inside the home. The entire neighborhood joins in, bringing an explosion of noise from every direction. From behind the steel bars enveloping their balcony, they look out over the surreal beauty of Caracas.
Carlos
Right next to Petare, Caracas’s largest barrio, sits a gated community of bungalows and small two-story homes. They look almost identical to those you’d find in any middle class American suburb. Surrounding it are dull-gray, Soviet-style high-rises, reminders of Venezuela’s close ties to Russia. On a nearby hill, the trademark huts of impoverished Latin American barrios overlook the gated community. From afar, these rows of tiny, dilapidated homes look like an orange staircase running up the mountainside.
This is where Dr. Carlos Sambrano lives. He’s a 25-year-old dentist working to become a maxillofacial surgeon, and over the phone he tells us his house will be easy to find.
“You’ll know. Just look for the one without a gate.”
He’s directed us to a cul-de-sac, at the end of which we spot a crew of construction workers standing outside a bungalow. Getting closer, we see them welding together thick steel bars.
Two nights earlier, on July 26, a squad of heavily armed officers from the anti-extortion and anti-kidnapping unit (CONAS) rode into the residential community in an armored personnel carrier, drove straight down the street, and rammed into the Sambranos’ gate. Behind the gate and off to the right, hiding in fear for his life next to a cement pillar, was Carlos.
He watched in terror as it only took two attempts for the APC to power its way through the heavy gate. Once inside, a CONAS operator opened fire, shooting eight live rounds into the home. The bullets blasted through the windows of his grandmother’s bedroom.
From inside the APC, one of the CONAS men spotted Carlos cowering behind the pillar. He stepped out and fired shots just above Carlos’s head.
He then grabbed Carlos and put a gun to his head. His father, now outside, yelled to the officer, “What are you doing! I’m a doctor, this is my house!”
In the blink of an eye, another CONAS officer kicked Carlos’s father to the ground and hovered his shotgun over his chest. Reflexively, Carlos moved to help his father, but as he shifted his weight, the CONAS officer repositioned his gun, pressing it into his neck.
At this point, Carlos knew why they were there. His crime was that he’d been out in Petare earlier that night giving medical aid to protesters who’d been wounded in clashes with the National Guard.
“The soldier said to me, ‘don’t you know we’re at war? Why are you out there helping them?’”
Closed-circuit cameras filming the Sambrano home were running the whole time and caught the terror unfold.
«This is Caracas, it’s not Baghdad or some place in Iraq, you know,” he says as we watch the tape. “It shouldn’t be happening here.”
Carlos Sambrano working the late shift at a public hospital in the western Caracas barrio of Catia.
Having lived through a nightmare, Sambrano still considers himself lucky: at least he hadn’t been taken away. Disappearing had become all too common among government opponents and activists.
Later in the week, he tells me that his parents have had enough. After the raid, they decided it’s time for him to get out of the country.
His workplace — a public hospital in the barrio of Catia — is in disarray. A stray dog walks into the hospital, past a guard at the entrance, and no one pays it any attention. The dog passes us, walks down the poorly lit hallway, then strolls right on back where it came from, as if it were on patrol.
Carlos says he has nothing to give his patients apart from his time. Virtually no medicine, and few tools, are available. If someone comes in expecting treatment, they have to bring their own medication. If they can’t afford it, they have to gather the money somehow, or apply for government assistance, which can take months to be approved (if it’s approved at all).
“I’ve been to all the protests since 2014. It’s not working, it’s not solving anything. They’re just killing more people, and no one is doing anything about it. But on the other hand, this is a career I’ve always wanted and it would be really complicated to start it again in another country,” Carlos tells me. “But that’s what’s happening in this country, all the brilliant people, the brains, they are leaving.”
Gaucho
It’s Saturday, July 29, and we’re far away from Petare, in Altamira Square, an affluent section of downtown Caracas. More than anything, the young teenagers who call the square home dread disappearing. Belonging to a loose grouping of young frontline protesters nicknamed La Resistencia, the boys say their opposition has made them marked men for SEBIN, the Venezuelan intelligence agency.
Since April, SEBIN has been methodically rounding up protesters and activists. Those who get caught are locked away in El Helicoide, a massive, 25-acre prison complex that sticks out among Caracas’s mountainous landscape like a vision from a dystopian novel.
“I’ve been detained three times, but thank god I was underage, so they let me go,” says one tall boy in a ball cap and glasses. He stands out among the jumbled array of teenagers not just for his height, but for the respect the others give him.
“You can see the battle scars,” says the 16-year-old, nicknamed Gaucho, as he points out a variety of small marks on his body.
Gaucho is here almost every day, even though he works nearby as a waiter, studies in culinary school, and has a five-month-old baby. It takes him around an hour to trek to the square from his home in a Chavista stronghold outside Caracas. He lives there with his mother, a sanitation worker who goes so far as to lock him inside the home to prevent her boy from protesting.
Protesters from the Resistencia movement walking on an empty Caracas highway.
As the day wears on, the makeshift blockades set up to surround the square are solidified, and more young people flock in for the fights. Some wear stopgap armor, including old gas masks and carpet vests. Most fight wearing nothing more than a T-shirt over their face.
With rocks, wires, rope, and garbage fires, they construct a flimsy fortress, trying to block every road in and out of the central square from the inevitable arrival of government forces.
Gaucho’s here because a single diaper for his kid can cost up to 4,000 bolívars. The 100,000 bolívars he brings in each month, working six days a week as an assistant cook, is barely enough to survive, even when combined with his mom’s salary. Neither qualifies for government food stamps because they both receive food at work.
Where he lives, outside Caracas, a packet of corn flour can cost 15,000 bolívars, or 15 percent of his monthly income. In Caracas, the same packet can be bought for 2,500. “The situation is way more critical outside this city,” says Gaucho, echoing what many others tell me that week.
On Saturday, toward the end of our second day in the square together, Gaucho emphatically answers no when I ask if he sees a future for himself, or his child, in this country.
“I was raised here, I love this country, but if we stay in this situation, there’s no future for me here. People have gotten tired of waiting in line for food, or getting killed for a single pack of bills.”
Before leaving him, Gaucho explains that if things don’t change in the coming days, he thinks the people will turn their guns against the cops. The next day, on July 30, while Gaucho was protesting in the nearby district of Chacao, activists set off an improvised explosive device among a convoy of officers on motorbikes. The IED left two guardsmen burning in the street near Altamira square, and wounded seven in total. That evening, as we rode past the charred remains of their motorbikes, a group of scrap salvagers were busily picking apart the pieces. Next to them, on a brick-walled portion of the Canadian embassy’s electrified perimeter, protesters graffitied the words Dictadura Tas Claro: it’s a dictatorship and you know it.
At least a dozen people had died in the four days leading up to the vote, and up to 14 more were killed on Sunday alone. The week had been the bloodiest stretch of one of the most vicious crackdowns in modern Venezuelan history.
Escobar
On Monday, July 31, Caraqueños awoke in a dead democracy, but they also started their day in a city that felt normal — or something approaching that — for the first time in months. The blockades were gone, cars took back the streets from protesters, and people returned to work.
That morning, in a sheepish attempt to rally the troops, opposition politicians took to Periscope and Twitter asking Venezuelans across the country to pull over in protest at noon. Virtually no one did.
The request prompted 31-year-old journalist and human-rights activist Melanio Escobar to sarcastically tweet, “last week they told us we’d be marching on the Presidential Palace by Friday, today they want us to turn off our cars at noon.”
In the courtyard of his apartment later that night, Melanio laughs when I ask about the opposition’s contrasting messages.
“Bro, these guys are just a joke sometimes,” says Escobar, whose punk-rock look sits in stark contrast to his jovial presence.
Journalist and human-rights activist Melanio Escobar, documenting the protests ahead of the July 30 vote.
By Monday night, the government had already declared Sunday’s vote a wild success, claiming that over 8,000,000 people had voted. Then the London-based, Venezuelan-owned company that manufactured the software used in the voting machines, Smartmatic, gave its own version of events, stating that not only was that number an unequivocal lie, but that they had proof the vote had been tampered with. Backing up the claims were scores of employees from state-run companies who divulged that they’d been pressured into voting. Their superiors had made the choice very clear: either vote on Sunday or don’t bother coming in on Monday. More ominously, NGOs and activists were revealing that the government had been withholding food disbursements until citizens showed proof they’d voted.
As the aftermath played out domestically, the United States, alongside most Latin American countries, came out against the vote and refused to recognize the results.
Escobar emerged from Caracas’s underground punk rock scene to become a respected independent journalist and the leader of a human-rights NGO (his good friend Miguel Pizarro, now the congressman representing Petare, is another veteran of the scene). The work puts a target on his back — so much so that, like Diego and Gaucho, he’s seriously considering restarting life elsewhere.
“But I don’t think it’s fair,” laments Escobar that night, “I mean, I’m not doing any harm to Venezuela, they are doing it, so why should I leave? It’s frustrating.”
Escobar has seen many of his friends flee, and adds that some of the girls he’s known for ages have even been forced to turn to prostitution to get by. For those who’ve stayed, the July 30 vote marked the end of their patience.
“I have so many friends who had their own red line. They would stay in the country until the Constituyente, but if the Constituyente went through, they said, then I’m gonna get the fuck out of here.”
Earlier in the week, Escobar had taken us across the city, methodically documenting the signs of protest and staggering poverty to his followers on Periscope. From hours-long lines outside grocery stores, to La Resistencia teenagers blockading the highways with burning garbage, Caracas was in a state of utter chaos.
Still, on that day, not only was he full of hope that the situation would soon get better, but he was certain the Constituyente wouldn’t pass.
“The Constituyente is too insane, even for this government,” he told me as we stood on a bridge overlooking an empty highway before a flock of over twenty National Guardsmen on motorbikes swarmed us to find out what Melanio, wearing a white PRESS helmet, was filming.
Now, after the vote, he can already see his own breaking point on the horizon.
“I don’t see myself picking up a gun.” Normally calm, Escobar stutters before pausing to gather himself. “You can see this gets to me,” he says before continuing. “What’s the point of fighting for this country if everyone is going to kill each other for food? It’s not worth it. It’s one thing to fight for democracy, but if we’re going to be cowboys on the street, killing each other just to get some bread, dude, it’s not worth it. Fuck the country, fuck your flat, fuck your patriotism, just get the fuck out of here.”
Federica
On Tuesday, two days after the July 30 vote, I meet up with Federica Davila, a 23-year-old medical student. We met for the first time during a protest on Sunday, where she was working with the Green Helmets, an organization she’d founded. The group of volunteer trauma medics has made headlines around the world, and has also endured the scorn of the government.
During a protest five weeks earlier, Federica broke her foot. While in the hospital, a young teenager who’d been shot in the chest was wheeled in only to die right next to her. Countless scenes like that convinced her to rip off her cast and get back to work on July 30. “It was too important to miss,” she tells me.
Federica’s parents have grown accustomed to seeing their daughter out in the nightmare. While they were terrified at first and begged her to stay home, her dad, a doctor himself, decided to join the Green Helmets after realizing how important their work was.
Federica, a medical student and founder of the Green Helmets, prepares to provide medical assistance to protesters.
“It’s very hard as a med student because you have constant contact with the people who are the poorest,” she says. “They go to the public hospitals that we work at because they can’t afford the private clinics, and you see people in their hardest times ever, starving for food. There’s no medicine, and it’s very hard to know that you could help this person, but you have no option, you have no medicine, no resources, no treatment.”
On this Tuesday, after five months juggling a gruelling schedule of medical school, hospital shifts, and protests, she’s taking a break to get her nails done. For those who’ve retained some of their wealth amidst the collapse, like Federica’s upper-middle-class family, small luxuries like the salon are still available.
Inside the salon, a small TV relays news of an arrest. Almost immediately, Federica and the two young women attending to her (who asked not to be named) crowd around her smartphone to watch a newly released video streaming on Twitter of Leopoldo Lopez, the face of Venezuela’s opposition, being taken from his home by SEBIN in the middle of the night. As they play it, the lights in the mall go out.
“Welcome to Venezuela,” quips Federica. “You’re living the whole experience. This happens often in the operating rooms too, and then they have to operate with their cell-phone lights. At my dad’s house, the lights go off once a day.“
The women discuss Sunday’s vote, and all three agree that it was fraudulent. One of the assistants, however, admits that she took part. She had to vote in order to get her CLAP bag, a colloquial term for the packages of cheap food and goods sold at government-subsidized prices. She relies on the affordability of CLAP bags to provide for her child. Without scolding her, her colleague asserts that she’d rather refuse the bag than participate in the fraud. She adds that one of her friends was just fired from his job at a state-run company for refusing to take part in the vote.
In a Caracas mall, cell-phone light helps spa workers finish a manicure during a power outage.
Affording food isn’t a problem for Federica. Her splurge today will cost her a little over 250,000 bolívars — more than twice the minimum wage that each of these workers earns per month.
After finishing her manicure under the aid of cell-phone lights, Federica suggests we grab a meal at the food court downstairs. There, a handful of restaurants are open and serving a scant few customers. When we take our seats, the waiter who serves us studies Federica’s face for a minute before offering his hand.
He tells her that he knows who she is and wants to thank her for the work she does, because he knows all about it first-hand. Recently, he was shot with a rubber bullet while protesting in the streets. He looks around before discreetly unbuttoning the top portion of his dress shirt to reveal a dime-sized wound.
“I became a protester because I have two kids and I don’t want to stand in lines for food anymore,” he tells us when I ask what spurred him into the streets, “and I don’t want to constantly watch over my back for SEBIN.”
I join Federica later that night at a party in a gated apartment complex in Caracas. Here, the booze flows freely and the liquored-up guests are all in good spirits, but they all also want out of the country.
One 35-year-old engineer, a Green Helmets volunteer who evacuated wounded protesters on his motorcycle, says that his life here is over. He’s got a wife, a kid, and the money to leave, and now it’s time.
The young med students, some of them not even 20, all tell me their plan is to get out too. It reminds me of something that Dr. Jose Manuel Olivares, a young doctor-turned-congressman, had told me earlier in the week. Out of 87 people in his med-school graduating class, only five were left in Venezuela; he was the only one still working in a public hospital.
Diego
Following the vote on July 30, the opposition tried to hold a vigil for the protesters who had died across the country on Sunday. The small gathering was quickly dispersed with tear gas.
And that was it for the protests. The movement that started in April had died, alongside some 120 or so Venezuelans. Countless more were now wounded for life, while others had vanished or been locked up. President Maduro had not only kept power, but increased it. Weeks later, the city remains quiet.
On my last night in Venezuela, Diego and I go for beers at his favorite bar in Caracas. The night air is cool, as it always seems to be here, and the bar plays a succession of 2000s rock songs. For once, a nightspot is pretty full.
The young man who just last week was a fervent protester is now totally deflated. He’s removed himself from all his protest groups on Whatsapp. “I can’t stand to see the people posting ‘we still have hope’ in those groups,” he tells me as he sips a blue bottle of Solera Light, his beer of choice. He jokes that it’s 2,000 bolívars but by the time we get the bill, it might be 4,000.
Diego, born and raised in Caracas, looks out over the landscape of his hometown.
Yesterday, he booked a flight to Argentina for September, to start a new life. Diego tells me he’s worried about Sofia. After he leaves, she’ll be the only one left. “I can’t understand why she’ll stay,” he says, “she was the first to propose leaving.”
In Argentina, Diego will probably try to find quick work as a waiter to start bringing in some money right away. His goal is to go into the hotel business, and he’s got a good shot. As a former accountant who speaks fluent English and Portuguese — a huge plus, as Argentina gets lots of tourists from Brazil — he should do fine.
Driving home from the bar, Diego opens a beer. “It’s okay, there are bigger problems here now,” he jokes as we rip through the empty streets. We see a small group of die-hard protesters guarding the entrance to the highway and trying to block it off. As we drive past, he yells in anger, “oh come on, give it up, Maduro is going to be here forever!”
It’s the first time I hear Diego accept what, for others, has already been a foregone conclusion: there was no way out of this mess that didn’t involve leaving Venezuela. Between the hopeless downward spiral that the country has become and rebuilding his life from scratch, he chose to try his luck elsewhere.
***
Christian Borys is a Canadian journalist who’s written for BBC News, CBC, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, and others. He tweets @ItsBorys.
Defensores de los derechos humanos coincidieron en que en Venezuela ha habido un retroceso en el sistema democrático, al punto de que se encuentra casi extinguida. Afirmaron que los ciudadanos han sido privados de sus derechos fundamentales como a la libertad de expresión, al libre pensamiento, a la asociación política, a la manifestación pacífica y a la elección popular.
Hoy, como se acostumbra desde el año 2007, en Venezuela y en otros países del mundo se celebra el Día Internacional de la Democracia. “A pesar de que no hay democracia perfecta, siempre en los países es importante que la calidad democrática vaya en aumento y no en retroceso. En Venezuela, desde 1999 ha habido un grave retroceso. No se respetan los derechos democráticos ni civiles ni políticos. También se violan la libertad de expresión, de asociación y de manifestación pacífica”, manifestó Manuel Vírgüez, director de Movimiento Vinotinto.
El abogado indicó que ha sido en el gobierno de Nicolás Maduro que los ciudadanos han vivido la mayor violación sistemática progresiva de los principios democráticos, no solo establecidos en la Constitución vigente, sino en tratados y pactos internacionales que Venezuela ha suscrito.
“Desde hace aproximadamente un año podemos decir que estamos frente a una dictadura. Antes, en 2015 estábamos frente a un gobierno autoritario en el que existían rasgos de una democracia”, expresó Mariano Alvarado, defensor de los derechos humanos.
Aseguró que el gobierno desconoce los elementos esenciales que caracterizan a los sistemas democráticos: “No existe un Estado de Derecho democrático, no hay separación de poderes ni respeto al voto popular. Se ha convertido en un riesgo opinar en contra o ser disidente del gobierno. Se viola reiteradamente el derecho a la manifestación pacífica y la discriminación política va en aumento”.
Ambos activistas coinciden en que desde la suspensión del referéndum revocatorio que solicitaron miles de venezolanos el año pasado al Consejo Nacional Electoral, quedó desquebrajada la democracia en el país, pero este año, con las decisiones del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia en contra de la Asamblea Nacional que fue elegida a través del voto libre y universal, y con la elección de la asamblea nacional constituyente, la democracia quedó suprimida.
“Promulgar leyes que no obedecen al espíritu democrático, como la ley del odio, recogen elementos fundamentales de las grandes dictaduras del mundo”, indicó Vírgüez.
“Lo que sucedió el 30 de julio con la elección de la asamblea nacional constituyente demuestra que no tenemos ni un poquito de democracia”, manifestó Luisana Subero, directora nacional de Votojoven. Explicó que el hecho de acudir a las urnas electorales no significa vivir en democracia, sino que eso también consiste en que haya instituciones independientes, respeto a los derechos humanos y a la decisión de todos los ciudadanos.
Reactivación. “Hay que entender que el ejercicio de los derechos es parte fundamental para el retorno de la democracia y sin esta no hay derechos humanos. Venezuela es un país que está en dictadura, por ende, esos derechos no están en la agenda del gobierno, es una política de Estado violar esos derechos”, manifestó Melanio Escobar, director de Redes Ayudas.
Escobar, junto con otros miembros de diferentes organizaciones de la sociedad civil, llamó a los ciudadanos a hacer valer y retomar los derechos republicanos en el país. Hoy, desde las 11:00 am, se concentrarán en la plaza Miranda, en Caracas, para conmemorar de manera pacífica el Día Internacional de la Democracia.
Principios democráticos vulnerados
Para las Naciones Unidas, la democracia y la gobernanza democrática consisten en que los derechos humanos y las libertades fundamentales son respetados, promovidos y cumplidos, lo cual permite que los ciudadanos vivan con dignidad.
De acuerdo con el Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos, firmado y ratificado por Venezuela en 1996, establece en sus diferentes artículos que la base de los principios de la democracia son las siguientes:
-La libertad de expresión
-La libertad de reunión pacífica
-El derecho a la libertad de asociación con otras personas
-El derecho y la oportunidad de tomar parte en la conducción de los asuntos públicos, directamente, o por conducto de representantes libremente elegidos
-El derecho al voto y de ser elegido en comicios periódicos genuinos que se realizarán mediante el sufragio universal e igual, y tendrán lugar por voto secreto, garantizando la libre expresión de la voluntad de los electores.
Desde el año 2007 se celebra el Día Internacional de la Democracia, iniciativa de la Organización de Naciones Unidas, para examinar el estado de la democracia en el mundo y promover e incentivar la participación ciudadana. “Democracia y prevención de conflictos”, es el lema de este año, que busca reforzar las instituciones democráticas para promover la paz y la estabilidad.
Melanio Escobar, fundador de la ONG Redes Ayuda, hizo un llamado este jueves a la sociedad civil a participar en una actividad de calle en defensa de la “Democracia viva”
este 15 de septiembre en Caracas.
“Los problemas del país siguen, por eso tenemos que exigir y defender nuestros derechos ciudadanos de forma pacífica…Por ello los invitamos este viernes 15 de
septiembre desde las 11:00 de la mañana hasta las 3:00 de la tarde en la plaza Milenium de Los Dos Caminos, Caracas, con apoyo de diferentes ONG’s, Redes Ayuda,
Humano Derecho, Radio Estación, Voto Joven, Provea, Caracas Mi Convive… convocamos la actividad ‘Democracia Viva’ para resaltar el sentido e importancia que tienen la
democracia para los venezolanos”, precisó.
Diversas organizaciones sociales convocaron para este viernes una protesta pacífica en lo que será el Día Internacional de la Democracia.
Redes Ayuda, Voto Joven, Caracas “mi convive”, Las Piloneras, Dale Letra y el Instituto Progresista son parte de las entidades que participarán en la jornada.
“Tendremos diferentes tipos de actividades para conmemorar el Día Internacional de la Democracia y volver a retomar los espacios públicos. Decidamos entre los ciudadanos cuál es el camino que queremos tomar para recobrar la sociedad venezolana”, expresó Melanio Escobar, fundador de la ONG Redes Ayuda.
El encuentro será en la plaza Miranda ubicada en Los Dos Caminos, desde las 11:00 am hasta las 3:00 pm.
