VENEZUELA: Smart Repeal of Intelligence Law

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Jun 10 2008 (IPS) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez repealed on Tuesday a controversial decree-law on intelligence and counterintelligence that he issued a few days ago, which ordered citizens to collaborate with military and police intelligence agencies.

“No one can be forced to snitch on anyone, that’s a total mess,” said Chávez, referring to article 16 of the decree, which drew an outcry.

Under the decree, public offices and their employees (with a special emphasis on the justice system), local and national companies, popular organisations, local communities and social networks, and ordinary citizens who refused to cooperate with the intelligence and counterintelligence services would have been subject to penalties, including jail terms.

One article of the decree stipulated that intelligence agencies could act without a warrant if they considered that a crime was about to be committed, and that the evidence gathered in such circumstances would be admissible in any resulting trial.

Since it was announced last week, the decree drew protests from non-governmental organisations defending civil rights, the media, opposition parties, the Catholic Church leadership and analysts.

By contrast, the heads of parliament, which is made up of virtually all pro-Chávez lawmakers as a result of an election boycott by the opposition, the public prosecutor’s office, the ombudman’s office and the Supreme Court kept mum on the new decree.

Chávez himself actually became the first public authority to criticise the decree-law over the weekend, before announcing Tuesday that he would scrap it. “The decision is to repeal the entire law and allow the National Assembly (parliament) to draft one that links together the various existing intelligence bodies,” he said.

The president was able to hand down the decree-law in the first place because in January 2007, parliament granted him the authority to legislate by decree in a dozen different areas, for 18 months.

Rocío San Miguel, with Citizen Control for Security, Defence and the Armed Forces, told IPS that the law “established a permanent state of exception in Venezuela. Citizens were left at the service of the state, rather than the state at the service of citizens. The intelligence agencies would have been allowed to meddle even in family life, in the name of such a vague concept like ‘national security’.”

Marino Alvarado, with the Provea human rights group, told IPS that under the decree-law, people “were obligated to collaborate with intelligence work, turning the country into what could have been considered a police state. It left actions against people or homes up to the discretion of the police on the basis of their suspicions, which is a very serious thing in a country where the police are used to human rights violations.”

Interior Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, a former naval intelligence officer, defended the law, saying that “in Venezuela, there has always been intelligence and counterintelligence work, only that it was not regulated, and the police bodies, in the past, acted against the people.”

Rodríguez Chacín also underscored “the president’s democratic consciousness, as demonstrated by his admission that he made a mistake and by his timely rectification.”

Liliana Ortega, with Cofavic, another local human rights, commented to IPS that the law “in practice abolished the professional secret for doctors, lawyers, priests and journalists, whose investigations would have been seriously restricted.”

Cardinal Jorge Urosa said in the name of the Catholic Church that the law “undermines the sacramental secret of the confessional.”

Opposition leaders were demanding that the decree-law be overturned, and jurist Hermann Escarrá brought legal action to that effect before the Supreme Court.

But what most likely convinced Chávez to do an about-face was the unpopularity of the measure, which was described by the media as a law that forced people to become snitches, or “toads” in Venezuelan slang.

Political cartoonists had a heyday with the idea of the “sapo” (toad): “This is a Get-sapo law,” wrote one. And “anti-sapo” graffiti began to show up on walls in Caracas.

José Avendaño, a medical equipment salesman, remarked to IPS that “Chávez doesn’t like (U.S. President George W.) Bush, but he tried to shove a patriot law down our throats.”

“This is a socialist government, a government of human rights, which does not and will not persecute anyone,” Chávez said Tuesday, announcing the repeal of the decree-law. “With a new decree I am overturning the law, the tirade is over, and I am freeing myself of a worry.”

Venezuela is at the doors of a new election campaign, for the regional and municipal elections in November, which Chávez considers crucial for seeking a constitutional amendment that would allow him to run for a fourth term in office in 2012.

The president told a rally of his supporters that “if the opposition wins an important number of governorships and mayorships (it currently only governs two of the country’s 24 regions), next year they could come for me” – that is, seek a way to cut short his current term.

“Chávez is well aware that unpopular decisions are very dangerous for him at this time in electoral terms, like kryptonite for Superman,” Luis León, head of the Datanálisis polling company, told IPS.

The backtracking on the decree-law was not the only shift made by Chávez in the last few days.

On Sunday he called on Colombia’s FARC guerrillas to unilaterally free all of the hostages they are holding with a view to swapping them for imprisoned insurgents, and to lay down their arms, saying guerrilla warfare is a thing of the past.

Chávez’s call to the FARC on his Sunday TV and radio show was not the first time he has urged them to release the hostages and stop fighting, but it was more vehement than in the past.

He told the rebel group that they had become “a perfect excuse for the ‘empire’ to threaten all of us, to threaten Venezuela.”