By Lois Parshley
Capitán Juan Carlos Caguaripano Scott, crisp in a military
dress shirt, a clean white undershirt peeking through at his throat, sat
square-shouldered in front of a Venezuelan flag and a plaque of the
country’s war hero, Simón Bolívar. The captain of the Venezuelan
National Guard placed both hands on the table and leaned forward toward
the video camera. “I’ve been called to reflect, and I have been
convinced of my duty as a humble Venezuelan. As a national guard member
who loves this country and is worried about our future and our
children,” he said, “there are sufficient reasons to break the silence.”
In the
12-minute video that went viral on social media soon after Scott posted it to
YouTube (GOOG)
on Apr. 29, he continued, “There are sufficient reasons to demand the
resignation of the president, to free the political prisoners.” He
accused the government of conducting “fratricidal war” and made a plea
to the country’s generals. “Señores generales,” Scott said, “reflect,
ask for forgiveness. We are in time to save the country. Tomorrow you
yourselves could be victims.”
A military tribunal ordered Scott’s arrest on Thursday for his
participation in a coup against President Nicolás Maduro, joining three
generals from the air force and another captain of the national guard
already accused of plotting against the state last month. The tribunal
declared that Scott “operated in a clandestine plan” with the generals
already arrested, as well as an individual operating under the pseudonym
“El Llanero,” to “impede the army and disrupt the country’s peace.”
Last week the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ruled that the right to
peaceful protest under the Venezuelan constitution isn’t absolute,
effectively making the ongoing demonstrations illegal and justifying the
use of violence by military forces. As protests—legal or not—haven’t
stopped, government efforts to control the streets are provoking
increasingly negative public reaction. Soldiers have purportedly fired
shotguns loaded with rubber bullets at point-blank range, causing severe
injuries, in addition to robbing, raping, and detaining protesters, who
for their part have been using Molotov cocktails. The cases of alleged
torture are mounting. When a 12-year-old was shot and severely wounded
by the national guard on April 26, fresh riots broke out around the
country.
As the civilian death toll during the weeks of civil
unrest rises to 41, Maduro’s control of the country’s armed forces has
become more crucial than ever. But in the past few weeks, more than 30
military officials have been detained and denounced as plotters against
the government, although few have been as outspoken as Scott in his call
to arms. General Ángel Vivas, the former head of the Defense Ministry
who has been defying arrest since early February, has continued to speak
out against Maduro’s regime. An active user of social media, Vivas has
taken to using Zello, a smartphone radio app, to broadcast his opinions
on the state of the country.
But defiance in Venezuela comes with its own risks. Eliécer Otaiza, the
ex-chief of intelligence, was found on Thursday shot dead in his truck
and left in a wooded area outside Caracas. The former head of security
for Chávez, he was involved in the failed military coup in 1992. The
authorities have officially declared it a robbery—and in a country with
25,000 homicides last year, it may very well have been random violence.
But Maduro himself said during a ceremony for Otaiza that in the context
of the protests, there was “no such thing as casual coincidences.”
Following General Vivas’s example, Scott’s outspoken defection may be a
harbinger of wider military discontent, a dawning realization in the
ranks of the military that even their privileged status is tenuous in
the face of public discontent, signaling a reluctance to continue
escalating the civilian violence. As higher-level military officials
continue to be brought before tribunals, the question remains: How long
can President Maduro preserve his hold on power?
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