VENEZUELA: Pro-Chavez Gunmen Cleared of Charges

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Sep 17 2003 (IPS) - A Venezuelan judge on Wednesday absolved four supporters of President Hugo Chávez who were accused of shooting at the crowds of people taking part in an opposition march on Apr. 11, 2002.

On that date, which unfolded in a short-lived coup d’état against Chávez, 19 people were shot dead.

The search for the truth about “the April events” dominated the country’s political debate until December, when other attempts to remove the president from power relegated it to a second tier.

In December 2002 a two-month strike began, and then the opposition movement started work on organising a referendum to revoke Chávez from office.

“Unfortunately, the issues of truth, justice and human rights are excluded from the current Venezuelan agenda. Impunity and the weakening of public institutions like the judiciary and ombudsman’s office are the greatest threat to our democracy,” Liliana Ortega, director of the human rights organisation COFAVIC, said in comments to IPS.

Henry Atencio, Rafael Cabrices, Richard Peñalver and Nicolás Rivera were indicted on charges of public intimidation and undue use of weapons, but judge Alfredo Batista ruled that there was insufficient evidence and dismissed the case.

The private television network Venevisión, run by members of the political opposition, recorded and broadcast images on Apr. 11, 2002 of Atencio, Cabrices and Peñalver firing pistols as the stood on the Llaguno bridge in central Caracas, near the government palace.

They were aiming in the direction of the avenue where hundreds of thousands of protesters were marching to demand Chávez’s resignation, and towards a group of metropolitan police, who were also firing their weapons.

Meanwhile, another massive crowd was gathered around the presidential palace in a show of support for the president.

Chávez was overthrown that night, and the video of “the gunmen of Llaguno”, as they came to be known in the opposition-run media (the majority in Venezuela), became the most widespread image – inside and outside the country – used in blaming the pro-Chávez movement for that day’s bloodbath.

Four protesters representing opposition groups and three unaffiliated individuals, including reporter Jorge Tortoza, died that day on the street visible from the Llaguno bridge. Near the bridge, four Chávez supporters were shot and killed, and other people were fired upon on surrounding streets.

Dozens of people were injured, and court cases were filed against various participants in the street chaos, including eight officers of the metropolitan police of Caracas, a force overseen by opposition mayor Alfredo Peña. The eight were accused of killing two people and wounding 35 others.

The original charges against the four “gunmen of Llaguno” included homicide, but it was ruled out because the opposition march took place more than 200 metres from the bridge, beyond the reach of the guns of the accused.

The court accepted the argument of the gunmen’s lawyers: the four were acting in defence and out of necessity because the metropolitan police were firing their weapons in the direction of the government palace as they led the opposition march in armoured vehicles.

Prosecuting attorney Danilo Anderson said he will appeal the ruling.

Hundreds of “Chavistas” were gathered outside the court Wednesday and applauded the judge’s decision. Peñalver announced that he would sue the media that “broadcast a lie to make us out as criminals.”

“We were defending the people (the Chávez supporters who had gathered around the government palace that Apr. 11), and without our actions Llaguno would have been a graveyard,” he said.

“Our absolution is a condemnation of the metropolitan police,” said fellow defendant Rivera.

Attorney Fabián Chacón, a Chávez backer, told IPS there will be lawsuits against the metropolitan police, “and civil suits against the media that contributed to the possibility of Chávez’s overthrow by distorting the truth and confusing the entire world.”

Manuel Cova, secretary general of the opposition Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, a leader of the December-January strike, condemned judge Batista’s decision, saying it is “additional proof of the impunity that abounds in Venezuela.”

Mohamed Mehri, father of one of the victims, said the decision “is a blow to justice,” and that the families of those who died during the protests will continue efforts so that the material and intellectual perpetrators of the killings will be brought to trial.

Several different reports coincide in that on the afternoon of Apr. 11 shots were fired by civilians and by people in uniform, including members of the National Guard, and by sharpshooters on rooftops near where the marches were taking place. Their identities remain a mystery.

In the melee, looting and police crackdowns Apr. 12 through 14, which ended with Chávez’s return to power, at least 60 more people were killed.

“We have a context of juridical insecurity in which the investigation teams are subordinate to an executive branch that issues opinions on cases after proceedings have begun in court,” said COFAVIC’s Ortega.

The famous video of Apr. 11 received the King of Spain’s journalism prize, but the Venezuelan court did not accept it as proof because it could not be determined whether the four men were firing their weapons on the civilians participating in the march or against the police, who had opened fire from their armoured vehicles.

Venezuelan journalist Luis Fernández, who received the award, acknowledged in court that he could not know who the accused were aiming at because he was not at the scene, but had recorded his report at the Venevisión studios, simulating that it was being broadcast from Llaguno bridge.