Maduro admits over 2,000 arrested in Venezuelan riots

Sunday, August 4th 2024 - 21:03 UTC

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“Maximum punishment! Justice!” Maduro promised those he dubbed as “guarimberos” (violent protesters)

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro admitted that over 2,000 had been arrested as a result of the riots following the announcement that he had been reelected for the 2025-2031 term amid allegations from opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia and his supporters that they had garnered around 67% of the vote.

“We have 2,000 prisoners captured and, from there, they go to the Tocorón and Tocuyito [prisons]. Maximum punishment! Justice! This time there will be no pardon, this time there will be no pardon, this time there will be Tocorón!” he told a group of his followers during a rally Saturday in Caracas.

Maduro insisted that what the detainees had done was very serious, for which there would be complete justice. The incumbent head of state blamed the protesters for the burning of the various electoral centers, as well as some regional headquarters of the National Electoral Council (CNE).

“They all confess -all of them- because there has been a strict legal process, led by the Attorney General's Office of the Republic, with full guarantees and they are all convicted and confessed,” Maduro also pointed out.

Last Thursday, Maduro ordered the two correctional facilities to be refurbished into maximum security detention centers for those opposing his regime. ”I am preparing two prisons, which I must have ready in 15 days, they were already being prepared (Tocorón and Tocuyito), and all the guarimberos (violent demonstrators) are going to“ there while stressing the coup d'état narrative.

Relatives of those detained and several NGOs have denounced that they had not been able to either visit or assist their loved ones with legal counseling. Stefania Migliorini of the NGO Foro Penal told EFE that some of those captured were being taken before ”terrorism courts“ without access to a defense.

On Sunday, Attorney General Tarek William Saab said there were no arrest warrants against opposition leaders González Urrutia and María Corina Machado. However, since ”people are burning public offices with people inside,“ any leader behind these ”acts of terrorism“ will be apprehended, Saab argued in an interview with Colombia's Radio Caracol. He also noted that there were ”no members of the security services involved“ in the violent acts that have left at least 20 people dead, which in Saab's view, were due to the ”violence“ involved in what the protesters did.

”Twenty deaths caused by the violence of the protesters themselves. They tried to burn the mayor's office of Puerto Veracruz, State of Anzoátegui and 10 people were there. They tried to burn the headquarters of the government party in El Tigre and there were 20 people inside,” he explained.

So far, over 40 countries have recognized Maduro's victory: Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Western Sahara, Zimbabwe, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Laos, North Korea, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Myanmar, Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Honduras, Nicaragua, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

On the other side, Argentina, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, and the United States have expressed their position that González Urrutia should be Venezuela's next president.