Posted on 02/14/2003 12:16:14 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela - Secret police tortured a university student who participated in a youth protest against President Hugo Chavez, the rector of the Central University of Venezuela alleged Thursday.
A high-ranking official of the Interior Ministry, which oversees the federal secret police, denied the claim. The official spoke only on condition of anonymity.
University Rector Giuseppe Gianetto told Union Radio that 18-year-old Ricardo Sanchez, an international studies major, was kidnapped by agents as he left an opposition youth protest in Caracas on Wednesday.
Sanchez was blindfolded, beaten and burned with an object before agents released him early Thursday in a Caracas slum, Gianetto said.
Sanchez was under the protective custody of university attorneys who were filing a complaint with the attorney general's office.
"This kind of vile and cowardly torture hasn't been seen in this country for a long time," said Gianetto. "Not even youths can use their constitutional rights to go out and protest peacefully."
"There wasn't any detention of any student," the Interior Ministry official said in a telephone interview.
To members of the International Media*** 12) Signs of the use of indiscriminate force against the opposition. During the April 11 civilian opposition march, which drew more than 500,000 people in Caracas alone, a reporter caught footage of armed men (who were members of Bernal's "Bolivarian Circles") firing their semi-automatic handguns upon protesting civilians. This resulted in the confirmed death of 15 people and a hundred of injured more. In addition, the National Guard recently physically and psychologically tortured crew members of the Ship "Pilin Leon", a gasoline cargo vessel that joined the oil strike.***
Horror in Venezuela Jesus Soriano and the price of dissent in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela*** That hot afternoon, Soriano kicked the futbolito across the divide at the members of the opposition. They kicked it back. The magical realism of the event is evident in the extraordinary television footage of what occurred next. By the end of the match the anti-Chavez protestors and pro-Chavez partisans were hugging and chanting "Peace! Unity! We are Venezuela! Politicians go away! We are the real Venezuela!" In one particularly moving part of the footage, Soriano and a member of the opposing team trade a baseball hat for a Chavez-party red beret.
In one hour this sharply divided group of strangers accomplished more than the high-level negotiation team that seeks to defuse a potential civil war. Chavez was reportedly furious with the televised soccer match and even angrier that the reconciliation was a product of the efforts of one of his supporters. Soriano was declared an enemy of the revolution.
Last week Soriano organized another soccer match. On Wednesday he visited the Universidad Central de Venezuela, the main university in the capital, to attend a meeting of the student government. Violent clashes erupted as members of the Circulos Bolivarianos, an armed militia sworn to protect the revolution, began throwing rocks and tear gas grenades at the students. The militia identified Soriano and captured him. They then tied his hands and feet, lifted him up, and paraded him through the street like a sacrificial lamb chanting "Judas! Judas!" The entire spectacle was recorded by a cameraman who works for the official government television entity. Soriano was beaten so severely that he was left at the hospital emergency room. At the hospital he was detained by the DISIP, Chavez's secret police, and taken to their headquarters for questioning.
During his interrogation, fingernails in his left hand were torn out. After being further tortured and injected with drugs, the secret police took him into the bowels of the building and placed him in a cell. His cellmate: Joao de Gouveia.
Gouveia has the keys to the cell and comes in and out of the secret police headquarters at will. His only restriction is that he must sleep in the precinct, lest Chavez's police are revealed as allowing a confessed killer to roam free. Soriano's mother (who is also a Chavez supporter) tearfully claimed that Gouveia sodomized Soriano and beat him with such force that Soriano cannot open his eyes.***
Venezuela is shaping up as `elected dictatorship' - Chávez may use focus on Iraq to crack down on private media - *** While the world is looking at Iraq, an ominous phenomenon is taking place closer to home: An elected president is hijacking Venezuela's democracy, and is openly announcing his intentions to move the country toward a totalitarian state. ''Nobody in the world should be surprised if in Venezuela, within a short time, we start closing down television stations,'' Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez told a roaring crowd at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on Jan. 26. ``No freedom is unlimited.'' Arguing that there is a ''media tyranny'' in Venezuela, Chávez is moving against Venezuela's independent media on five fronts, in an effort to dismantle the last major challenge to his avowed intentions to stay in power until the year 2021. His five-pronged strategy:***
The former DISIP official called on the Armed Forces to issue a statement about their view of the Chávez government's alleged support for the Colombian guerrillas. Egui Bastidas also made a number of revelations about DISIP activities in recent months. He said the Venezuelan security service had collected personal information about all serving military officers and had also tried to smear opposition figures, such as Alberto Pena, the mayor of Metropolitan Caracas.
The official said he was also concerned at the growing role of Russian and Cuban security advisers in Venezuela. Egui Bastidas said he had experienced "the direct participation and the attempts at indoctrination by the Russian and Cuban intelligence services, who have direct and virtually unlimited access within the Helicoide (DISIP's headquarters building)." The official's lawyer, former DISIP Secretary-General Joaquin Chaffardet, said around 100 members of the Cuban intelligence services are currently operating in Venezuela. The new allegations would, if proven, further strain the already difficult relationship between the United States and Venezuela. ***
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