Caracas Chronicles

On December 5^th, Nicolás Maduro addressed a crowd of supporters, military officers, party members and government officials on the actions he was taking to “materialize” the results of the December 3^rd referendum on the future of the Esequibo territory. That night, Maduro announced he was ordering the creation of a new military defense region for that area controlled by Guyana, as well as appointing its leaders and sending a new law to the National Assembly for approval.

That bill is formally known as the Organic Law for the Defense of the Guayana Esequiba, and it contains a few seriously worrying provisions. 

Anyone found to be making, publishing, or distributing the “wrong map” of Venezuela –one without the Esequibo, or that marks it as a zona in reclamación instead of a Venezuelan state– will be fined between one thousand and one hundred thousand times the equivalent of the highest-value currency being exchanged by the Central Bank. In practice this means that, if you publicly display one of these maps, you could be fined between $1,000 and $100,000. Yes, that’s US dollars.

As if that isn’t absurd enough, anyone found to “have publicly favored” the Guyanese position on the Esequibo will be barred from running for office. This provision also includes a bit of text at the end that says that anyone who has disrespected the nation’s symbols will also be barred from running for office. What does any of this mean? Are you barred from running for office if you said that Venezuela’s wrong about its claims? Will you be barred if you criticize the government’s policies around Venezuela’s claim? Is criticizing militaristic slogans enough to get barred from office? What about standing in front of the “wrong” flag at a campaign event?

This law is an egregious affront to what little freedom of speech was still left in Venezuela. Given the lack of a clear definition for any of these crimes, the text can mean whatever the government wants it to mean, whenever the government wants it to mean that. Any comment, criticism, complaint, tweet, press release or speech on the question of the Esequibo or Venezuela’s national symbols could be turned by the government into a crime that will erase your political rights, a clearly unconstitutional decision.

This is, effectively, a patriotism test, coming from a political movement that many years ago stated that only Chavistas are true Venezuelans. What, you’re not patriotic in the exact terms the government wants you to be? Banned… or worse.

The truth is these new crimes are just the continuing legacy of the government’s favorite crime: high treason.

Back in August of 2017, the National Constituent Assembly —a second legislative body created after Chavismo lost the parliamentary elections in 2015— declared a group of opposition politicians as “traitors to the Motherland” for engaging in “decidedly anti-Venezuelan acts”. As legal scholar Allan Brewer-Carías pointed out, the Constituent Assembly wasn’t calling for an investigation, they were making a proclamation. They had already decided their political rivals were “traitors”, trial be damned.

This law is an egregious affront to what little freedom of speech was still left in Venezuela. Given the lack of a clear definition for any of these crimes, the text can mean whatever the government wants it to mean, whenever the government wants it to mean that. Any comment, criticism, complaint, tweet, press release or speech on the question of the Esequibo or Venezuela’s national symbols could be turned by the government into a crime that will erase your political rights, a clearly unconstitutional decision.

The crime of treason carries a substantial prison sentence, between 20 and 30 years, and is ridiculously defined in the Criminal Code to all but ensure it is used as a political hammer to silence the undesirables.

Those who “…conspire against [Venezuela’s] republican institutions, or act in hostility against her…” will be subject to this punishment. Some people will think that’s fine, especially many nationalists who relish the strongman fantasy and find themselves riled up by the Esequibo circus, but that definition is incredibly vague. What does it mean to “conspire against republican institutions”? Is criticism of local authorities enough? Are complaints filed before international bodies going to be considered acts of treason? The truth is the definition is intentionally vague so that the ruling party can use the crime as a Go-To-Jail card and shield the act behind a thin veil of legal legitimacy.

Maduro’s regime recognizes the power of such a tool and they have wielded it liberally. In 2019, the government arrested 152 military personnel during an internal purge, accusing them of being traitors. In 2021, they brought down the hammer on activist Javier Tarazona and a few of his colleagues. Their crime? Their organization, Fundaredes, had denounced the dangerous situation along the Venezuelan-Colombian border, which was the flashpoint for firefights between local security forces and Colombian paramilitary organizations using the densely-forested border as safe havens. 

On December 6^th, Maduro dusted off his deck of Go-To-Jail cards, with his General Attorney announcing the Public Ministry was after 14 different politicians, activists, and former government allies for “conspiring in an international plot to boycott” the December 3^rd referendum. Among the wanted, we have a list of usual suspects like Yon Goicoechea, Juan Guaidó, David Smolansky and Julio Borges, who are now joined on the hit list by members of María Corina Machado’s campaign team like Pedro Urruchurtu, Claudia Macero and Henry Alviarez. The justification for this manhunt is completely ludicrous: they’re being arrested for telling people not to vote. How is that a crime in a country where voting isn’t mandatory, and the referendum isn’t even a binding vote?

The PSUV continues its tradition of arresting people for thought crimes, making up new rules to fine people for publishing a map they don’t like or barring them from office for saying the wrong things. Now, it seems even abstaining from a vote can get you labeled a traitor and locked away for up to three decades.

As Maduro’s popularity crisis has now been made blatantly clear for him well in advance of the 2024 election, he’ll probably continue down this road, using the Esequibo controversy to try and justify his authoritarianism as he tries to frighten his rivals out of the competition, bar them from office or jailing them if all else fails.