Calls to “the streets” of the extremist right have left 295 Venezuelans dead

Published at: 16/08/2024 01:40 PM

The violent actions promoted by the domestic and international extremist right have not only caused damage to public property, such as education, health, recreation and State institutions; they have also left the missing toll of 295 victims in 25 years.

The number was confirmed by the executive vice president , Delcy Rodríguez , last Monday during the development of the National and State Security Council , when she specified that between 1999 and 2019 more than 270 people were victims of violent acts promoted by the Venezuelan opposition, adding that 25 should be added to that balance generated on July 29, 30 and 31, following the call to the streets made by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González after the election results were announced.

Rodríguez recalled that, during the events of the 2002 coup against Commander Hugo Chávez , 19 fatalities were registered, while in the business strike of late 2002 and 2003 there were two deaths; to this we must add 10 deaths in the violent demonstrations of 2004.

In 2013, the right-wing script that consisted of describing the elections as fraudulent and calling the streets left 11 dead. Meanwhile, the route they called “La Salida” in 2014 closed with 43 people dead and in the guarimbas of 2017 the number rose to 155 people killed. In the violent demonstrations of 2019, 30 people lost their lives.

In 2018, a report by the Support Network for Justice and Peace revealed that nearly 50% of the fatalities of opposition violence (guarimbas ) in 2017 were alien to actions to disrupt public order, but “they compromised their lives simply because they were going through the passage of Guarimba , where free movement had been prevented,” said the president of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) at the time, Delcy Rodríguez, from Casa Amarilla, in Caracas.

According to this report, 64% of the deceased are the responsibility of civilian individuals, while the rest correspond to security agencies. Rodríguez indicated that to date there was “a lot of evidence that events in which fatalities occurred were specially funded by groups linked to the Venezuelan opposition.”

As for the injured, it was known that in the last 25 years the balance has been 2,891; in 2002 there were 71 people; in the business and oil strike of 2003, 10; in the guarimbas of 2004, 193. In the post-election violence of 2013, 78. In the demonstrations of 2014, 878; in the guarimbas of 2017 there were 1,429 and in the events of 2019, 232.

Violence has always been part of the plans of the right as an alternative for a change of government, the electoral route has never been a viable option, since they do not have the support of the people; faced with this situation, they resort to the funding of violent groups responsible for generating chaos and destabilizing the country.

The recent events are a reaffirmation that the right wing knows no other way of doing politics other than calling to break peace in the country, because after the call to ignore the victory of Nicolás Maduro, the right wing caused violent acts in the country in which 192 people were injured, of whom 97 belong to the State security forces, 58 to the Police Bolivarian National (PNB), 32 to the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), six to state police and one to the Criminal and Criminal Investigation Corps (CICPC), said the Attorney General of the Republic, Tarek William Saab.

The guarimbas represent the most violent expression of an orchestrated plan to overthrow the constitutional government of President Nicolás Maduro and show the real face of the Venezuelan radical opposition; whose actors have always been the same: Leopoldo López, María Corina Machado, Henrique Capriles and Juan Guaidó; and now former presidential candidate Edmundo González joins.

Mazo News Team