“They took his life unjustly, he was not a bad person, not a criminal, he just got away…” sobs Jennifer Ibarra, Victor’s cousin, unable to complete the sentence.
Francisco Bueno, also a cousin of the 35-year-old worker who collapsed after being shot, said that “it was supposedly at the hands of the police” in Valencia, in the state of Carabobo (north-central), governed by Chavismo.
They were the ones “who were shooting, they weren’t shooting with pellets but with real bullets, and it was one of my cousins who fell on this occasion,” he says.
Victor was one of the Venezuelans who took to the streets to express their discontent with the results announced on Sunday at midnight by the National Electoral Council (CNE), accused of favoring the government, and whose counting was branded as fraud by the opposition.
According to witness accounts, Victor, the father of a 16-year-old girl and two children aged 10 and one, was shot in the chest on Tuesday.
“If you are in a peaceful march, they should not use force or shoot at citizens. They cannot kill the country, the people, the people who go out to defend their vote, to fight for a better Venezuela,” Bueno said in front of the house where the remains of Victor, who worked in a plastics factory, are being held.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who is leading the campaign of candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, Maduro’s main rival in the presidential election and whose victory in the elections is claimed by the opposition, denounced a “cruel and repressive escalation by the regime.”
“That is Maduro’s criminal response to the Venezuelan people who took to the streets as a family, as a community, to defend their sovereign decision to be free. These crimes will not go unpunished,” Machado said on the social network X.
“He is not a terrorist”
The pain of the deaths is compounded by the anguish of the hundreds of detainees whom both the prosecution and the Maduro regime describe as “criminals” and “terrorists.”
Dozens of relatives are gathering in front of a military barracks in Valencia anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones. According to the NGO Foro Penal, 46 people have been arrested in this city.
Niurka Mendoza, 38, has not heard from her son Ángel, 19, since he was arrested during a demonstration the day after the vote.
“They told me that they arrested him because he was in the protests and they are accusing him of terrorism. It’s not true, he is not a terrorist,” says Mendoza. She says that her son was arrested along with two minors.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab said Wednesday that there are 1,062 people detained for “fascinating behavior.”
Charges imposed by the regime
The charges they face include “inciting hatred” and “terrorism,” a crime that carries the maximum penalty in Venezuela: 30 years in prison.
“There will be no clemency, there will be justice,” said Saab, a Chavista.
Luis Armando Betancourt, coordinator of the NGO Foro Penal in Carabobo, said that the detainees “have not been able to have access to their families or lawyers, and their due process and right to defense are being violated.”
Many are transferred “to military sites, which is completely illegal and unconstitutional,” he said.
The anguish over the uncertain fate of those arrested is mixed with the sadness that overwhelms those who have lost loved ones due to repression.
“I am very disappointed by what has happened because a very popular phrase that our liberator Simon Bolivar has said is ‘Cursed be the soldier who raises his weapons against the people,'” said Adonis Alvarado, another relative of Victor Bustos.
“And that’s what happened. They took up arms against the people and my cousin was killed on the spot.”
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Photo by Juan Calero/AFP
“Assessment of arbitrary arrests”
A report published by Foro Penal indicates that, in total, 11 murders have been recorded in the country and 672 arrests in the events that occurred from July 29 until 9:00 am this Thursday, August 1reports the news portal El Nacional.
The president of Foro Penal, Alfredo Romero, reported that 75 men detained in connection with the recent protests have been transferred to the Yare III prison, located in Miranda state. Romero said that this non-governmental organization is carrying out the necessary verifications to confirm whether the citizens are actually in this detention center.
Analysts say that the repressive acts of the Venezuelan ruler are very similar to those carried out by the Cuban regime when the island’s inhabitants raised their voices against the dictatorship in the recent protests on July 11.
Source: With information from AFP/El Nacional