Since the coup d'état against Hugo Chavez in 2002, at least 320 Venezuelans have died in protests against the regime

Venezuela has recorded at least 320 deaths in protests since the coup d'état of April 11, 2002 - 20 years ago - against the then president, Hugo Chávez, a “lethality” that “increased exponentially” since 2014, with Nicolás Maduro in power, according to data from the NGO Provea.

“The Bolivarian project - which discursively claimed the right to peaceful demonstration - not only refined the legal mechanisms to restrict its exercise; also - in its most recent stage -, it dramatically increased the lethality exercised against those who express their discontent in the streets,” the NGO said in a note released to through their website.

It also noted that a total of 9,138 people were injured in the context of demonstrations between 2002 and 2020.

“The excessive use of force against demonstrators, coupled with the absence of a comprehensive policy of reparation for victims (...), keeps almost all cases in impunity and subjects hundreds of people to physical and mental suffering who still suffer the consequences of the damage inflicted without attention some by the Venezuelan State,” he said.

According to Provea, on April 11, a “prolonged process of criminalization and obstruction to the exercise of the rights to peaceful association, assembly and demonstration began.”

“The creation of exclusion zones to hinder the exercise of the right of peaceful assembly and association is today one of the most negative legacies of Hugo Chávez's administration, now continued by Nicolás Maduro,” he said.

After the events of April 2002, Provea continued, “a wall began to be erected to prevent mobilizations called by sectors of the Venezuelan opposition from going to the headquarters of government institutions such as the Miraflores Palace, the National Assembly and other spaces.”

In the last 20 years, according to Provea, Chavismo has strengthened laws to obstruct the exercise of protest, prevent assemblies in public companies and state institutions, street closures or the right to strike by state-owned companies.

In addition, since then, “the presence of armed civilians has become more and more frequent to attack demonstrations,” he said.

He added that, since 2014, Maduro's administration “stepped on the accelerator to quickly consolidate the anti-protest scaffolding”, and recalled the anti-government demonstrations in 2017, when there were “143 killed, more than 3,000 injured, 5,000 arrested, use of military justice to prosecute civilians, break-ins and mass attacks against residential areas”.

In Venezuela there were 6,560 protests in 2021, an average of 18 daily, which represents a decrease of 32% compared to 2020, according to data released this Tuesday by the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflictivity (OVCS).

“It is a significant decrease compared to 2020,” the NGO's general coordinator, Marco Antonio Ponce, told Efe over the telephone. In 2020, the OVCS documented 9,633 protests, with an average of 26 daily.

Of the 6,560 protests recorded in 2021, 4,853 were related to claims for economic, social, cultural and environmental rights; and 1,707 related to civil and political rights.

Ponce explained that one of the causes of the decline in protests is “the progressive repression and criminalization that the government of (Nicolás) Maduro has exercised on the demonstrations.”

The organization documented 2,066 protests with demands for basic services, of which 980 were for access to drinking water and 587 in rejection of “constant and prolonged” power outages.

(With information from EFE)

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