On the night of Tuesday, August 6, some 3,500 people witnessed how María Oropeza broadcast her arbitrary detention live. Through a live broadcast on her Instagram account, the young lawyer and coordinator of the Vente Venezuela party, the group of María Corina Machado, in the state of Portuguesa, showed how hooded police officers broke the gate of her house, entered and took her away. This is how “Operation tun tun” works.
According to the criteria of
The famous Venezuelan Christmas carol ‘Tun tun, who is it? People of peace’ was transformed into a terror operation by the Government of Nicolás Maduro in which Police, most of them hooded, search for opponents in their homes and forcibly remove them without a court order, as happened to Oropeza.
“They even go to take people out of their homes, to take away their phones to see what they have against the government. They went door to door knocking on doors (…) We are already afraid to make statements, we are afraid of being stopped in the street,” said a Venezuelan citizen in front of the National Police cells in Caracas while waiting for news of her brother after a sweep by the authorities.
Far from the famous Christmas carol, bodies such as the Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim) They post videos of arrests on their networks with horror music in the background and chants like ‘No matter where I go, Chucky will find me’.
The origin of the persecution operation in Venezuela
The so-called “Operation tun tun” has its origins in 2017. He was first appointed by Diosdado Cabello, a member of parliament and vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
In that year, as Lexys Rendón, coordinator of the NGO Peace Laboratory, recalls to EL TIEMPO, Cabello insisted that a ‘tun tun operation’ had to be carried out on those who were protesting and those who were committing “terrorist acts.”
Cabello also said that this strategy had to be applied, Rendón recalls, to people “who were working for imperialism and against the homeland.”
The NGO coordinator says that these control operations seek to generate “terror in the population,” but also explains that it is a mechanism that has turned residents of the communities into informers.
“Sometime, Nicolás Maduro himself said that they would be guaranteed telephone and smartphone equipment so that they could provide information, “They should follow up, take videos and have direct communication with the structure,” says the activist, referring to people who report their neighbors just for being opponents.
Something similar happened a few days ago in the Coche sector, where Edwin Ocariz, a human rights activist, was arrested. Some witnesses told this newspaper that Ocariz was betrayed by the head of the Local Supply and Production Committees (Clap). His relatives only said that he was transferred to the Yare prison.
“This is systematic. This is practically a state policy and it is a policy of indiscriminate repression aimed at achieving a very specific goal: to selectively neutralize those whom the government interprets as leading the protests,” said Gonzalo Himiob, coordinator of the NGO Foro Penal.
Anonymous reports on apps and phone calls
Amid the recent crackdown, The regime enabled a tab in the mobile application with which it manages social plans, VenApp, to report “guarimberos” (protesters blocking streets).
“Report him!” shouted a state television presenter in a video promoting this initiative: “Have you seen that you can report the fascist, the guarimbero, the terrorist?”
The app was blocked in the Google and Apple stores and later disabled. Maduro, however, assured that “more than 5,000 threats” reported through that channel were “attended to.”
The DGCIM also set up a telephone line for anonymous complaints. “Operation Tun Tun has just begun,” it warns on social media.
According to Maduro, 2,229 people have been arrested since protests broke out following the July 28 elections. in which citizens came out to reject Maduro’s questionable victory. The Penal Forum records 1,152 detainees and assures that the rest could not be verified.
Threats also extend to journalists. Just last Wednesday night, on his program with El Mazo Dando, Diosdado Cabello said that “if they get caught by force, they will be caught by force.”
Have you seen that you can report the fascist, the guarimbero, the terrorist?
This comes after the United States government announced the arrests of at least four journalists, who were also charged with the crime of terrorism.
According to Cabello, “they are not journalists, they are CIA agents working for them. They are CIA agents involved in the conspiracy. They were prepared (…). Take good care of your agents (journalists), do not send them out there alone, on the street. Because if you get hold of them by chance, they will be caught by chance.”
The truth is that the situation of fear in Venezuela is such that today hundreds of citizens are afraid to speak to the press when they are asked about the subject. Many others delete content from their cell phones or fear posting on social media for fear of being captured by the regime.
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