Freedom in the World 2004 - Venezuela

Political Rights: 3
Civil Liberties: 4
Status: Partly Free
Population: 25,700,000
GNI/Capita: $4,760
Life Expectancy: 73
Religious Groups: Roman Catholic (96 percent), Protestant (2 percent), other (2 percent)
Ethnic Groups: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Arab, German, African, indigenous people
Capital: Caracas

Overview

During 2003, President Hugo Chavez appeared on a collision course with a political opposition that seemed determined to force his resignation before the end of his elected term. However, the opposition also faced questions about its own democratic commitment given a 2002 failed coup attempt and its promotion of an unsuccessful general strike in February 2003, as well as more practical concerns about its own cohesion and effectiveness.

The Republic of Venezuela was established in 1830, nine years after independence from Spain. Long periods of instability and military rule ended with the establishment in 1961 of civilian rule and the approval of a constitution. Until 1993, the social democratic Democratic Action Party (AD) and the Social Christian Party (COPEI) dominated politics. Former president Carlos Andres Perez (1989-1993) of the AD was nearly overthrown by Chavez and other nationalist military officers in two 1992 coup attempts in which dozens were killed. In 1993, Perez was charged with corruption and removed from office by congress. Rafael Caldera, a former president (1969-1974) of the COPEI and a populist, was elected president in late 1993 as head of the 16-party National Convergence, which included Communists, other leftists, and rightwing groups. With crime soaring, public corruption unabated, oil wealth drying up, and the country in its worst economic crisis in 50 years, popular disillusionment with politics deepened.

In 1998, Chavez, a twice unsuccessful military coup leader, made his antiestablishment, anticorruption populist message a referendum on the long-ruling political elite – famous for its interlocking system of privilege and graft, but also for its consensual approach to politics – in that year's presidential contest. As the country's long-ruling political parties teetered at the edge of collapse, last-minute efforts to find a consensus candidate to oppose Chavez were unsuccessful, and he won with 57 percent of the vote, taking the reins of the world's fifth-largest oil-producing country in February 1999.

A constituent assembly dominated by Chavez followers drafted a new constitution that strengthened the presidency and allowed Chavez to retain power until 2013. After Venezuelans approved the new constitution in a national referendum on December 15, 2000, congress and the Supreme Court were dismissed. Although he was reelected as president, new national elections held in July 2000 marked a resurgence of a political opposition that had been hamstrung in its efforts to contest Chavez's stripping of congress and the judiciary of their independence and power. Opposition parties won most of the country's governorships, about half the mayoralties, and a significant share of power in the new congress. That November, Chavez's congressional allies granted him special fast-track powers that allowed him to decree a wide range of laws without parliamentary debate.

Chavez was deposed by dissident military officers working with major opposition groups in April 2002, after 19 people died in a massive protest against his government. However, he was reinstated two days later when loyalist troops and supporters gained the upper hand in the streets and in barracks around the country. Opponents cited Article 350 of the 1999 constitution, which permits citizens not to recognize a government that infringes on human and democratic rights – an article that was included by Chavez to justify his own 1992 coup attempt. However, throughout the year, the country was wracked by protests by a broad spectrum of civil society and saw unprecedented discontent among military officers. In August, charges against four alleged military coup leaders were dismissed on the grounds of insufficient evidence. In October, an estimated one million Venezuelans marched in Caracas demanding that Chavez call either early elections or a referendum on his rule – and threatening a general strike if he did not accede.

In early February 2003, a devastating 62-day national strike against Chavez was ended after it failed to force him from office. Organized by the opposition umbrella group, Coordinadora Democratica, as well as the major business association and the country's largest federal trade union, the protest crippled Venezuela's oil industry and created serious hardships around the country. The post-strike situation was painted starkly by The New York Times: "More than 5,000 industrial companies failed last year, nearly 20 percent of the population is unemployed, inflation is soaring and 56 percent of Venezuelans work in the informal economy, many of them selling trinkets and fruit on the streets."

Following Chavez's successful quashing of the politically motivated strike, opponents quickly mobilized behind a recall referendum, which is allowed under the 1999 constitution promoted by the president and his supporters. Because he is at the end of the third year of his six-year term, Chavez will be obligated to hold the vote if 20 percent of the electorate calls for such a move. A first attempt to collect the necessary signatures succeeded in gathering 2.8 million at a time when polls show 65 percent of Venezuelans would vote to oust Chavez, but was declared invalid by the National Elections Council (CNE). Opponents quickly mobilized to collect new signatures, but hope for a vote in 2003 appeared to fade, as the CNE has 30 days to validate a petition and then set a date for voting within 60 days.

A leading human rights group, Cofavic, warned that Venezuela's lax justice system was creating a climate of growing political violence. Noting that in the 12-month period ending April 2003, fifty-seven people were killed and more than 300 wounded by gunfire "in a context of political violence," it described an atmosphere of "total impunity" where aggressors are rarely brought to justice. In September, a judge upheld rebellion charges, punishable by a maximum 24-year prison sentence, against 13 civilians accused of participating in the 2002 military coup. The last half of 2003 was marked by a series of government social services initiatives, including urban health care and literacy programs supported by the Cuban government, that appeared to give Chavez a lift in popularity in the face of the potential presidential-recall referendum. The increase in political violence in the country came as a ferocious wave of common crimes continued unabated.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Citizens can change their government democratically, although supporters of President Hugo Chavez appear at times on the verge of mob rule, particularly as constitutional checks and balances have been removed. The July 2000 elections were considered by international observers to be free and fair. Under the constitution approved in 1961, the president and a bicameral congress are elected for five years. The Senate has at least two members from each of the 21 states and the federal district of Caracas. The Chamber of Deputies has 189 seats. A constitution adopted in 1999 strengthened the presidency and allowed Chavez to retain power until 2013.

On the national level, there are no independent government institutions. The military high command is loyal to a single person – the president – rather than to the constitution and the law. Chavez's party controls the National Assembly (though narrowly), as well as the Supreme Justice Tribunal (TSJ), whose members are elected by the National Assembly to a single 12-year term. It also controls the Citizen Power branch of government created to fight corruption by the 1999 constitution. This branch is made up of the offices of the ombudsman (responsible for compelling the government to adhere to the constitution and laws), the comptroller general (who controls the revenues and expenses incurred by the government and serves as the watchdog for the national patrimony), and the public prosecutor (who provides opinions to the courts on the prosecution of criminal cases and brings to the attention of the proper authorities cases of public employee misconduct and violations of the constitutional rights of prisoners or accused persons).

The Chavez government has done little to free the government from excessive bureaucratic regulations, registration requirements, and/or other forms of control that increase opportunities for corruption, relying instead on attacking persons and social sectors it considers to be corrupt and selectively enforcing good government laws and regulations against its opponents. In the past two years, the opposition has sued Chavez on charges that include misusing government stabilization funds to refusing to declare campaign funds from foreign sources. At the same time, Chavez's Plan Bolivar 2000 social programs were authorized to carry out their business in hard-to-audit cash transactions.

A 2003 study by the World Bank found that Venezuela has one of the most regulated economies in the world. New regulations and controls over the economy have ensured that public officials have retained the ample opportunities for personal enrichment enjoyed under the previous governments.

On a positive note, on April 7, 2003, the Law Against Corruption was put into effect. It establishes a citizen's right to know and sets out the state's obligations to give Venezuelans a thrice-yearly rendition of public goods and expenses, except those security and national defense expenditures as exempted by law. The law also requires most public employees to present a sworn declaration of personal assets within 30 days of assuming a post, as well as 30 days after leaving it; allows for the extradition of corrupt officials and their prohibition from holding office in the future; and includes a prohibition on officials having secret foreign bank accounts.

Venezuela's constitution provides for freedom of the press, and there are few blatant legal restrictions on media freedom. Both the print and broadcast media operated without restriction in 2003, and there are no journalists in prison as a result of their professional work. However, a climate of permanent intimidation and hostility against the press has been established in the past few years, in large part as a result of strong anti-media rhetoric by the government and a significant anti-Chavez slant on the part of media owners. The state allocates broadcast licenses in a biased fashion and engages in favoritism in the distribution of government advertising revenues.

In 2003, Chavez's government proposed several measures to tighten its control over opposition newspapers and television and radio stations, which would allow for a "selective censorship" of opposition media as the country moves toward a referendum on Chavez's presidency. These include a ban on the transmission of "violent" images and sounds from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M., a restriction that media owners say would force them to delay broadcasting news of street riots or terrorist attacks. The government does not restrict Internet access.

Freedom of religion, which the constitution guarantees on the condition that its practice not violate public morality, decency, or the public order, is generally respected by the government. Academic freedom traditionally is generally respected. However, government funding was withheld from the country's universities, and the rectors of those institutions charged that the government did so to punish them; all of the major public university rectors were elected on anti-government platforms.

Although professional and academic associations generally operate without official interference, the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that NGOs that receive funding from foreign governments or whose leaders are not Venezuelan are not part of "civil society." As a result, they may not represent citizens in court or bring their own legal actions. However, the government has not moved to implement the court's decision. The president and his supporters have sought to break what they term a "stranglehold" of corrupt labor leaders on the job market, a move that labor activists say tramples on the rights of private organizations. Opposition and traditional labor leaders say that challenges by insurgent workers' organizations mask Chavez's intent to create government-controlled unions; the president's supporters maintain that the old labor regime amounted to little more than employer-controlled workers' organizations. Security forces frequently break up strikes and arrest trade unionists, allegedly under the guidance of Cuban security officials.

Until Chavez took power, the judicial system was headed by a nominally independent Supreme Court that was nevertheless highly politicized, undermined by the chronic corruption (including the growing influence of narcotics traffickers) that permeates the entire political system, and unresponsive to charges of rights abuses. An unwieldy new judicial code, which has helped to reduce the number of people jailed while awaiting arraignment, has hampered some law enforcement efforts, resulting in low rates of conviction and shorter jail terms even for convicted murderers. Police salaries are woefully inadequate.

Widespread arbitrary detention and torture of suspects, as well as dozens of extrajudicial killings by the often-corrupt military security forces and the police, have increased as crime continues to soar. Since the 1992 coup attempts, weakened civilian governments have had less authority over the military and the police, and overall rights abuses are committed with impunity.

Since Chavez's election, Venezuela's military, which is largely unaccountable to civilian rule, has become an active participant in the country's social development and delivery of public services. The 1999 constitution assigns the armed forces a significant role in the state but does not provide for civilian control over the military's budget, procurement practices, or related institutional checks. A separate system of armed forces courts retains jurisdiction over members of the military accused of rights violations and common criminal crimes, and decisions cannot be appealed in civilian court.

Venezuela's indigenous peoples number approximately 316,000 people belonging to 27 ethnic groups. The formal rights of Venezuela's Native Americans have improved under Chavez, although those rights, specifically the groups' ability to make decisions affecting their lands, cultures, traditions, and allocation of natural resources, are seldom enforced, as local political authorities rarely take their interests into account. Indigenous communities typically face deforestation and water pollution. Few Indians hold title to their land; many say that they do not want to, as they reject market concepts of individual property, preferring instead that the government recognize those lands traditionally held by them as native territories. At the same time, indigenous communities trying to defend their legal land rights are subject to abuses, including murder, by gold miners and corrupt rural police. The constitution creates three seats in the National Assembly for indigenous people and also provides for "the protection of indigenous communities and their progressive incorporation into the life of the nation." In the July 2000 national elections, in addition to the three indigenous candidates elected to the National Assembly, eight were Country Reports 627 elected to regional legislative congresses and four Indians won mayoralties. The lack of effective legal rights, however, has created an unprecedented migration by Indians to poverty-stricken urban areas.

Women are more active in politics than in many other Latin American countries and comprise the backbone of Venezuela's sophisticated grassroots network of nongovernmental organizations.

Trend Arrow

Venezuela received a downward trend arrow due to growing political violence, an unabated wave of common crime, and credible reports of the increasing participation of Cuban nationals in the country's security and intelligence services.