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Venezuela Opposition Leaders Taken to Prison Venezuela Moves to Stifle Dissent by ‘Any Means Necessary’
(about 11 hours later)
Masked Venezuelan government agents took two well-known opposition figures from their homes early Tuesday, according to family members, in a crackdown against government opponents after a contentious vote over the weekend to change the country’s Constitution. BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The government agents barged into the homes of two prominent former mayors, hauling them off to jail in the dark. They dragged one of them into the street in his blue pajamas as witnesses screamed that he was being kidnapped.
The two opposition leaders taken away were Leopoldo López, a former mayor of a wealthy Caracas district who in early July was transferred to house arrest from prison, where he had been serving a sentence of more than 13 years, and Antonio Ledezma, another former mayor under house arrest. The two men, both vocal members of the opposition, had been arrested before. But as the doors shut and the cars sped away early on Tuesday, many Venezuelans worried that it marked the start of a new dictatorship in South America.
In a grainy video posted to Mr. Ledezma’s Twitter account, uniformed men in black helmets can be seen dragging a man in pajamas out of a building and into a vehicle. President Nicolás Maduro and his leftist movement have seized control of the country, not through a coup, but through a contentious power grab that has gutted Venezuela’s democratic institutions and effectively eliminated any official political challenges.
“They are taking away Ledezma! Look we are recording it all here!” screams a woman in the background, as the man is forced into a car that speeds away. On Sunday, Mr. Maduro carried out an ambitious plan to consolidate power. He held a national vote, instructing Venezuelans to select from a list of trusted allies of the governing party — including his wife — who will rewrite the Constitution and rule Venezuela with virtually unlimited authority until they finish their work.
A second video, posted early Tuesday on the Twitter account of Mr. López’s wife, Lilian Tintori, shows another man being removed by officials. “The moment the dictatorship kidnapped Leopoldo in my house,” Ms. Tintori wrote in the post. It was a fait accompli. There was no option for voters to turn down the plan.
The two opposition leaders were taken to prison two days after a vote to install a new body in Venezuela, called a constituent assembly, with powers to rewrite the Constitution. The body gives virtually unlimited power to the country’s governing leftist party, and it has the power to dismiss or dismantle any branch of government while rewriting the country’s governing charter. Venezuela’s new governing body, known as the constituent assembly, will soon take charge as a ruling junta.
On Monday, President Nicolás Maduro signaled that he would crack down on his opponents, declaring that some of them “would end up in jail.” “It’s a country that has destroyed all of its institutions,” said Germán Ferrer, a former member of Mr. Maduro’s ruling party. “Any citizen who finds himself at odds with official politics now runs the risk of being attacked.”
A statement issued by the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that officials had received “information that revealed an escape plan” by Mr. Ledezma and Mr. López. It also said the two had violated the terms of their house arrest by making political statements. With resistance to his government growing, Mr. Maduro and his allies have steadily chipped away at Venezuela’s democracy in recent years. They have packed the courts with loyalists, blocked opposition lawmakers from taking their seats, overturned laws that the president opposed, suspended elections and even tried, unsuccessfully, to dissolve the legislature altogether.
The developments came just hours after the United States issued sanctions on Mr. Maduro, freezing any United States assets he owns, among other measures, for rights abuses and undermining democracy. Washington called on the Venezuelan president to release political prisoners from the opposition, and the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, called him a “dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people.” And for years, politicians like the two former mayors hauled away on Tuesday — Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma — have channeled opposition to the government into a political movement that won a majority of the country’s legislature less than two years ago.
The seizing of the two men represents an about-face for the government, particularly in the case of Mr. López, who was released from military prison and placed under house arrest after a surprise decision on July 8. Some speculated that the early-morning developments would reinvigorate the opposition’s push against Mr. Maduro. But now the new constituent assembly has the power to dismantle the legislature and dismiss any official deemed disloyal. Venezuela — a bitterly divided country rattled by months of antigovernment protests that have left more than 120 dead this year — faces a future in which political opposition within the structures of government may be impossible.
In late July, Mr. López released a short video from his home, urging the government to release political prisoners and accept humanitarian aid, and he called on his followers to join demonstrations and a national strike against the vote on the constituent assembly. However, he steered clear of more aggressive calls to action that he had been known for in the past. The constituent assembly could effectively liquidate any official channels of dissent, leaving opponents with few options beyond protesting in the street.
A lawyer for Mr. López, Jared Genser, confirmed his arrest but did not comment further. “Now the opposition must ask: Do we go home, or do we go for a more radicalized approach?” said Shannon O’Neil, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies Latin America. “It could be a more violent response.”
Early Tuesday, Mr. Ledezma’s daughter Oriette Ledezma posted a video on Twitter in which she criticized the government for her father’s arrest. Even the Socialist-inspired movement founded by Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, has been shaken.
“He was kidnapped once again, they took him from his house in the middle of the night,” she said. “We don’t know his location. A group of people came with their faces covered, in camouflage and they took him away.” Gabriela Ramírez, a former top human rights official under both Mr. Chávez and Mr. Maduro, said the constituent assembly had betrayed the movement’s legacy by “imposing just one vision” on all of Venezuela and using “the coercive power of the state to create a police state.”
Mr. Maduro has made it clear that he will accept no dissent from his own party, with veiled threats on Monday to throw his attorney general, Luisa Ortega, into a mental institution after she said the vote on Sunday was illegal.
Mr. Chávez’s movement often repeated the notion that its critics were most readily defeated at the ballot box. But with the new constituent assembly likely to replace the legislature, even the populist underpinnings of the movement seem in question.
“More than supporting the people, there’s a determination to stay in power by any means necessary,” said Mark L. Schneider, an adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research group.
On Tuesday, Venezuelan legislators met at the National Assembly building to continue working despite fears that the new constituent assembly might soon unseat them. In a show of international support, the politicians were joined by ambassadors from Spain, Mexico, France and Britain.
At least 20 countries have rejected the creation of the constituent assembly, and on Monday the United States issued sanctions against Mr. Maduro, calling him “a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people.” Mr. Maduro is now one of only four heads of state to be sanctioned this way, along with Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
But the sanctions, dismissed by Venezuelan officials as evidence of American imperialism, may have little effect on the country’s opposition. Its power was based not on foreign support, but on having a place in a political system that is increasingly dominated by Mr. Maduro’s security forces.
“The opposition has limited ability to challenge the government physically,” Mr. Schneider said. “But I suspect you’ll soon see the range of weapons that exist around the country, and outbreaks of violence at local levels.”
Indeed, in the capital, Caracas, some neighborhoods that have aligned with the opposition are being governed by a sense of mob rule.
Impromptu checkpoints were scattered across a five-mile stretch of the capital on the Friday before the vote, as residents set up makeshift barriers made of trees, garbage, old tires and other debris found on the street.
At one such barrier in the Baruta neighborhood, at least 60 masked men and women gathered around the checkpoint. One woman, armed with a scythe, sharpened her blade in the center divider of the road. The people there said they had come to block the entry of colectivos, or government-aligned militias.
“Why haven’t we burned the electoral centers?” one masked woman asked.
By late Tuesday, no one had heard from the two mayors who were taken into custody. Both had been on house arrest before being whisked away in the early hours.
But one of the former mayors, Mr. López, seemed to know that the clock was ticking even before the security forces came.
He had been released into house arrest on July 8 after being sentenced to more than 13 years for causing incitement, among other charges, during protests in 2014.
Before being taken away this time, Mr. López issued a last message to his supporters, telling of the conditions of his imprisonment, urging his followers to continue their resistance and clutching his wife’s stomach, saying she would soon give birth to a child.
“If you are watching this video, it’s because this is exactly what happened: They came and they made me prisoner again,” he said in the message, which was released on Tuesday after his arrest.
On Monday, Mr. Ledezma, the other mayor sent to jail, issued a message of his own, with a strikingly different tone. Standing behind a Venezuelan flag, he offered a damning assessment of the opposition.
He blamed the political parties for being outwitted by Mr. Maduro at every turn. First, the opposition allowed the Supreme Court and electoral council to be stacked by the president’s loyalists, he said. Then it stood by as Mr. Maduro ruled by decree. And when a growing effort to recall the unpopular president was swept aside by friendly courts, the opposition did little to challenge it, Mr. Ledezma said.
“They made a joke of the Parliament,” he said, looking into the camera. “And we have run afoul of the people. And the people deserve answers.”
Yet even the criticism of Mr. Ledezma’s own party appeared too much for Venezuela’s government to tolerate.
After the video was released, the Supreme Court issued a ruling saying that Mr. Ledezma had violated the terms of his house arrest by making “statements in any medium.”
It also said that he and Mr. López were making plans to escape.
In a grainy video posted to Mr. Ledezma’s Twitter account, uniformed men in black helmets can be seen pushing a man in his pajamas out of a building and into a vehicle.
“They are taking away Ledezma! Look we are recording it all here!” a woman screams in the background.