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Venezuela 1989
The Caracazo Protests
Mike Lanchin:
Hello and thank you for downloading Witness with me Mike
Lanchin, and today we take you back to February of 1989 when Venezuela was hit
by days of protests and rioting sparked by government austerity measures. In the
crackdown that followed security forces killed more than 300 people; many of
them innocent bystanders. I’ve been speaking to one woman inadvertently caught
up in the violence.
[Shouting, screaming and the sounds of smashing windows and
violence]
Its early evening on February the 27th 1989,
protestors and looters are out on the streets of the Venezuelan capital
Caracas. It’s the first day of a wave of disturbances that have spread across
the country. Ordinary Venezuelans many of them residents of the poorest
neighbourhoods that surround the capital are venting their anger at a raft of
new government economic measures.
[Archive report]
Reports speak of a frenzy of rioting and plunder. The position
in the capital Caracas and major cities is bad enough for the US and Britain to
have advised their nationals to visit the country.
Mike Lanchin:
Venezuela’s populist president Carlos Andres Perez had only
just been re-elected for a second term. But now he faced a perfect storm of
economic woes.
[Archive report]
Venezuela has foreign debts of around £18 billion, and its
petroleum dominated economy has been hit by falling oil prices. In response
President Peres has put up petrol prices, bus fares and the cost of basic
foods.
Yris Medina:
People were really angry, shouting at the shopkeepers “you’ve
got sugar stored in there, why don’t you sell it to me?”
Mike Lanchin:
19-year old Yris Medina was on her way home when she first
came across the looters.
Yris Medina:
I saw lots of people carrying food and bags of meat on their
backs, but also, they were carrying freezers, washing machines and furniture. I
think that after they’d finished looting the food shops they moved onto the
furniture stores.
Mike Lanchin:
And what did you think when you saw this happening?
Yris Medina:
Well I’m quite scared when it comes to seeing violence on
the streets. And also, was quite young at the time and had my baby girl with
me. So, all I wanted to do was get home safely.
Mike Lanchin:
And could you recognise any of the people who were doing the
looting?
Yris Medina:
Yes, yes, I recognised many neighbours. But I didn’t get
involved with them, I understand that some people needed to do it, but for me
that’s not justifiable. It’s just vandalism and I don’t support it.
Mike Lanchin:
In those first hours of protests which became known as the Caracazo.
Hundreds of shops and businesses were stripped, causing tens of thousands of
dollars in damage. The country teetered on the brink of a total breakdown in
law and order. The authorities seemed at first taken by surprise.
But on Febraury 28th President Carlos Peres Andrez
decreed a nationwide state of emergency and a night curfew. And he sent tanks and
soldiers onto the streets.
[Archive report]
Police and troops have cracked down hard on the rioters and
the looters. Civil liberties have been suspended, Venezuelans who have had 30
years of democracy in one of Latin America’s most stable countries, now have lost
for the time being anyway the right of assembly and freedom of speech.
Mike Lanchin:
The army set about crushing any sign of protest.
[Gunfire]
Yris Medina:
That first night we hardly slept, we were very worried,
there was lots and lots of shooting outside it felt like a war. My husband said
we should sleep on the floor upstairs. I’m afraid he said that a stray bullet
could come in.
Mike Lanchin:
For the next 48 hours, Yris and her husband Wolfgang and their
baby girl didn’t dare venture out of the house. Food was running low.
Yris Medina:
On March 2nd we eventually went out because we needed
things, milk, some cereals for the baby, but all the shops nearest to us had
been looted and so were totally empty. So, we had to go to another larger market
further away across town. The soldiers were there making everyone queue up. And
they told us “do your shopping quickly, you must get home before the curfew begins
at six”.
Mike Lanchin:
And so, they hurried home in good time. Later that same
evening as the curfew began Yris was upstairs doing some housework when
Wolfgang joined her with the baby in his arms.
Yris Medina:
We were both standing there by the window and moved away just
for a minute, turning around to go out of the room and that’s when I heard the shot.
It was like an explosion and I turned around and asked him “what
was that?” and all he could say was “I”. I looked at the baby she was covered
in blood but she wasn’t hurt. He turned and started to go down the stairs, but
as he went down, he fell bleeding.
Mike Lanchin:
A single bullet fired by a soldier from the street had hit
Wolfgang, gone through him and lodged itself in the wall.
Yris Medina:
I tried to stop the bleeding but it was like a tap had been
opened, and I couldn’t close it and I said to him “try to hold on, try to hold
on!” he was going unconscious, bleeding.
It was so hard because I wanted- I was getting so desperate,
I couldn’t do anything.
Mike Lanchin:
By the time Yris and her brother-in-law managed Wolfgang to
the nearest hospital he was dead. He was just 20 years old. They then made
their way through the empty streets to the city morgue; the curfew was still in
force.
Yris Medina:
A group of soldiers aggressively stopped us and demanded to
know what we were doing. They said they had orders to shoot anyone outside. We told
them we were taking the body of my husband to the morgue and they said to us “you
can’t do that” and so they took his body from us and told us to go home.
Mike Lanchin:
That must have been so difficult for you.
Yris Medina:
When I got home, I just sat down outside on the pavement. I don’t
know I said I was waiting for someone. Not wanting to go inside, my mind just
went blank and all I could do was sit down and think what is going to happen to
us now?
We were so young; we were just starting a family. We had
lots of dreams, and now a bullet had finished all that. I still haven’t come to
terms with all that, its been so hard to get over the terrible tragedy.
Mike Lanchin:
Yris’s husband was one of more than 300 people killed by
soldiers during and after the protests. Many were innocent bystanders. Some say
the final death toll was much higher since many of the victims were buried in
unmarked mass graves.
Yris who did get her husbands body back to bury later formed
a campaigning group with other relatives of victims. And in 2004 the Venezuelan
government awarded them compensation. But no one has ever been convicted of the
killings.
Yris Medina:
For me the truth and an explanation why, that’s what counts
for me. That would mean justice for me, how is it possible that after 27 years I’ve
still not been given an explanation about the death of Wolfgang.
Mike Lanchin:
The events of February and March of 1989 marked a dramatic
change, not just in the lives of ordinary people like Yris Medina. Three years
later an army officer called Hugo Chavez staged two coups in Venezuela setting
in motion decades of instability. From which some say Venezuela has never
recovered.
Yris Medina still lives in Caracas with her daughter whose
now 27 years old.
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