On
February 22, 2014, Elvis Duran de la Rosa, 29, was driving his
motorcycle on a major public road in eastern Caracas at about 9pm when
he hit a barbed wire that was put across the road which he could not see
in time. These wires were placed by Venezuela's opposition groups
across numerous public roads in the evening hours as part of a series of
violent protests called "The Way Out", which were intended to force
venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from office. President Maduro was
elected by the majority of people just 10 months earlier. Elvis Duran
could not avoid the wire in the dark, and crashed into it, with dire
consequences: the young man died instantly, practically beheaded [1 ].
Duran was one of the 16 people killed in
Venezuela during recent protests, often led by violent opposition
groups. Of these deaths, at least three people (the young Duran, Mrs.
Delia Lobos [19 ], died Feb. 22 in Merida, and young Eduardo Anzola,
died Feb. 25 in Valencia [20]) were killed on their motorcycles which
could not evade these barbed wire barricades. These barricades were laid
by opposition groups in Venezuelan streets and highways as a way to
“defend” themselves from people who use motorcycles, whom they choose to
call in a derogatory manner "Chavista collectives."
For this reason, many Venezuelans were
perplexed, after Eduardo Arcos, a member of the well known ALT1040.com
technology blog, choose to illustrate the story "Free Software Community
in Venezuela starts petition in favor of net neutrality " [2 ] by
showing a barbed wire similar to that used to cause the death of these
three people.
We believe that their lack of sensitivity in
using that image denotes one of two possibilities: either a profound
ignorance of the reality in Venezuela; or to intentionally intimidate
and threaten those that may support President Nicolas Maduro. We
sincerely hope that the reason is the first, and not the second.
It seems rather likely that Mr. Arcos and
ALT1040 readers ignore that since February 12th, Venezuela has been
mired in a wave of protests led by right wing factions against the
government. Some of these opposition groups have engaged in organized
waves of violence, including destruction of public services (trains, at
least 40 metrobuses, six vehicles of the Venezuelan State telephone
company, etc.), beating metrobus drivers and subway workers [11] [12],
physical attacks against people who try to get through their barricades,
placing of barbed wire and spilling oil on the roads to cause accidents
[13], placing special nails on the roads (called "miguelitos" in
Venezuela) to bust tires, and destruction of facilities of the State
telecommunications company [8] [9] [10], which have most often injured
other citizens rather than the government.
A less well known consequence of these
protests is that about thirty people have died since February 12th due
to serious health problems while not being able to reach hospitals
because of blockages [18]. This includes Mrs. Luzmila Petit de Colina,
mother of journalist Jean Francis Colina [16], who works for Venezulea's
public television and is a well known friend of many members of
different FOSS communities in the country. Journalists from this TV
channel were besieged by opponents for 8 consecutive days [14],
including Ronald Muñoz, who suffered serious injuries on Feb. 25 while
on location in Tachira state [6]. Community TV stations such as “Montaña
TV” were also attacked. [17]
Concurrent with this violence there have
been cyber attacks on more than 160 web pages of Venezuelan public
authorities and institutions [15], including public media services
Telesur and “Venezolana de Televisión” which are the two main public TV
channels of the country. These are continuously complaining about being
blocked abroad.
International media constantly talk about
the deaths of 16 university students during the protests against the
government. A statement issued Feb. 26, and signed by numerous
recognized Venezuelan human rights defenders [23] lists the people
killed in the protests and the circumstances surrounding each death. It
has been determined that only 4 of the eleven cases examined were killed
due to actions of Venezuelan law enforcement forces: the rest involve
people who tried to pass or clear barricades and were actually attacked
by anti-government protesters, or shooting victims among civilians
(including opponents). Also unreported in the media are the actions of
the Venezuelan courts and police, which have already arrested 9 members
of the National Guard and police forces for their alleged role in the
death of those 4 protesters. [22]
That report does not include others who died
in the protests, such as motorcyclist Eduardo Anzola, who died February
25th hitting one of these barbed wire barricades [20], the motorcyclist
Antonio Valbuena, who was shot while trying to remove debris from a
road in Maracaibo [25], or young Jimmy Vargas whom, according to CNN,
died February 24th by accidentally falling from a rooftop [21].
For all these reasons we are saddened that
ALT1040's statement, signed by many right wing colleagues in the free
software community, does not start with a firm, clear, and unequivocal
repudiation of violence wherever it comes from. We categorically reject
the use of violence and all violations of human rights: both protesters
killed by opposition gang violence and in police excesses, and of people
who wanted move along an avenue and were curtailed their right to free
transit, such as those who were killed by traps and barricades placed by
protesters, and those who died because they were prevented from
reaching a hospital in time. We reject the destruction of public
property including attacks on officials and service workers of the Metro
(subway), Metrobus and similar public services, the attack on the
Attorney General's Office on February 12, the vandalizing of traffic
lights and telecommunications facilities, as well as environmental
crimes including cutting trees for barricades and creating forest fires
as a form of "protest."
Regarding the alleged blocked websites
ALT1040
claims there is a "violation of the right of free access to information
recently evidenced by restricting access to the following web sites,"
citing among them twimg.com (hosting images of social network Twitter), pastebin.com, bit.ly,zello.com and
"various news portals nationwide" which are not identified. The
statement reports that there are "about 500" web sites being blocked at
this time, but concedes it did not have a reliable list supposedly
because the government is not sufficiently transparent.
Firstly, we reject these ambiguous and vague
reports about Internet censorship which are meant to influence people
outside the country to think that the sites and services mentioned may
not be accessed, and that there are hundreds of websites that are being
blocked in our country. This is completely false: there are thousands of
web sites with clearly opposing political tendencies that are available
and can be accessed at this time in Venezuela. There is not a single
person in Venezuela who is not aware of what is happening in the
country.
In particular, in respect to the alleged censoring of twimg.com,
which prevented users of this social network to view and upload images,
occurred only for a few hours between February 14 at night and February
15 in the morning, and affected only users of state public company
CANTV (Venezuela has numerous Internet providers, and others did not
block this service). No users reported having trouble tweeting or
reading tweets, and indeed complaints about the inability to see images
were made mainly through this social network. Some of those who signed
the ALT1040 statement, computer experts, conducted tests that day were
convinced that this blockage came from a computer on the internal
network of CANTV. However, the issue with images on Twitter was resolved
within hours and the CANTV issued a statement strongly rejecting
accusations of censoring Internet sites [24]. Some speculate that this
very limited outage occurred due to an internal network fault, or by
measures taken after a recent cyber attack. Twitter remains fully open
to all Venezuelans, as does bit.ly.
Why zello.com was blocked
While some of the proponents of this document feel blocking zello.com was
excessive and rather unhelpful, there are specific reasons why this
happened. Zello is a proprietary application that operates as a virtual
walkie talkie, which allows groups of people to communicate with each
other using voice messages in virtual channels, according to their
physical location or common interests. This use is entirely valid, but
at present Zello is being explicitly used by violent elements in the
Venezuelan opposition as a tool for planning, directing and coordinating
gang violence, even murder. These groups are using it to create an
atmosphere of chaos and terror to instill fear in the population with
the political goal to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro, much like the
attempted 2002 coup.
For example, Robert Alonso, a fugitive
blamed for concealing, in 2004, more than 100 paramilitaries in his
estate with intention to perform a terrorist attack against President
Hugo Chavez [29], is one of those using Zello's "Guarimbero Mayor"
channel to promote destabilizing activities against Venezuela. Through
this channel he and others have been encouraging protesters to destroy
public property, to damage traffic lights, directing blockades of
vehicles on the roads restricting the right of others to move, to throw
sulfuric acid on National Guard members and another actions which
clearly are felonies. His channel has more than 800 people connected.
While no official of the Bolivarian
government has publicly acknowledged that the Zello.com network is being
blocked, some of us are convinced, based on technical evidence, that
Zello is indeed being blocked by Venezuela. As Venezuelans, we are
naturally against censorship of social networking applications as a
matter of principle. However, we believe that the right to live trumps
the right to free information. Using Zello to share criminal strategies
for killing other Venezuelans just because they supported Chavez,
directing attacks on National Guard members with sulfuric acid, teaching
how to make petrol bombs with napalm to attack police, to destroy
public facilities, to direct the use of oil and sharp objects on the
road to cause car accidents, committing environmental crimes and even
talking of placing bombs, explosives, and to unleash a civil war, is a
clear violation of all our most basic laws and the dignity of our
people. This threatens public safety and peace of all our citizens and
endangers the lives of many innocent people. This is clearly terrorism,
and so should be declared as such and actively confronted.
To understand how Zello is being used, we attach three audios.
This
first was taken yesterday from Zello audio channel "Venezuela SOS" and
corresponds to user “Tío Policarpio”. He literally says: "Me and my
group burned the Tourism Corporation here in San Cristobal. Burn the
ground floors of buildings so they can't access them. Shoot guards with
marbles from the buildings using slingshots, mix caustic soda with
chlorine bleach in malt bottles, and throw them petrol bombs with
Styrofoam! Occupy Metro stations, hijack the main car and take away the
main operating controls, hijacked the subway! How is it that in
Charallave and Cua, Miranda state they are celebrating carnivals? Block
the roads to beaches, La Guaira, bring down the traffic lights, let's
make “guarimbas” (blockages near a person's home), enough of this
regime, and if we have to kill, let's go out and kill!"
The second
(partial) audio explains how to make chemical weapons, in this case
napalm (a mixture of gasoline and other additives that make it more
dangerous, sticky and difficult to extinguish) for use in petrol bombs
to be used against the National Guard. They also explain how to properly
throw the bomb to cause maximum damage.
and
The third is a selection of audio from
Zello channels "The Way Out" and "Guarimbero Mayor" recorded between
February 25 and 26, 2014. In this audio you can listen to different
participants promoting the use of Molotov cocktails against the National
Guard, destroying traffic lights and trees for barriers on public
roads, building barricades using cars and debris to injure
motorcyclists, pouring sulfuric acid on the barricades so that nobody
can remove them, and many other similar felonies.
Did these facts motivate our colleagues to issue a statement defending
the supposed freedom of information and demanding the unblocking of
Zello?
Freedom of information can not be above the right to live.
In any case, we want to remind the owners of
the business known as Zello.com that Venezuela is a sovereign and
independent nation, and just as they are obliged to work with law
enforcement agencies in the US when their network is used by someone to
commit crimes, they should work together with the Venezuelan government
to block the network of terrorists issuing messages that encourage
violence and endanger the lives of Venezuelan citizens.
Why should Venezuela allow any foreign
company to break our laws and promote terrorism with impunity,
especially at a time that are actively destabilizing our political and
economic system? What would you do if a known terrorist who lives
outside the United States used the network to promote aggression against
the lives of public officials and promote terrorist attacks in your
country? What would the US government do, or any other country do, if a
group of people used a Venezuelan company to encourage US citizens to
make weapons to attack and kill others, and try to destabilize and
overthrow their government?
We must remember that the Declaration of
Principles of the World Summit on the Information Society, organized by
the International Telecommunication Union (UN agency specialized in
Telecommunications) in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2003, clearly states that
"The management of the Internet encompasses both technical and public
policy issues (...). In this respect, it is recognized that the
authority of policy on Internet-related public policy is a right of
sovereign nations. It also states that "all actors in the Information
Society should take appropriate actions and preventive measures, as
determined by law, against abusive uses of ICTs, such as illegal and
other acts motivated by racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and
related intolerance, hatred, violence, all forms of child abuse." [3]
We are defenders of freedom of expression
and free information, but we insist: above that right is the right to
live. If the company Zello, or any other national or foreign company,
will not help to preserve this right, we will support the Venezuelan
government actions to prevent that company from operating in Venezuela.
We also reaffirm our confidence in the
democratically elected Bolivarian government headed by Nicolas Maduro,
particularly at this moment, preluding a coup. We demand that the will
of 7,587,532 people (50.61 % of the voters) who last April 14, 2013
voted Maduro for President in free and fair elections, as confirmed by
numerous international agencies, be fully respected, and urge those who
do not agree with this government to respect the time frame established
in our national Constitution: If they wish so, in 2016 they can attempt a
recall referendum, or wait until 2019 for the next general election.
However, we also urge the government of
President Maduro to be very careful when choosing to block websites,
even at this difficult time. Such actions, in our opinion, should be as
temporary and minimally invasive as possible, should be discussed by a
multidisciplinary team and with other legal institutions as needed, and
should be done primarily when people's lives are clearly at stake. Each
block serves to reinforce the false narrative offered by the
international media that Venezuela is restricting freedom of expression
and information. As all computer professionals have the tools to
determine where a website is being blocked, we also urge that where it
is necessary to restrict a website, for transparency, the government
should also issue a statement clearly explaining the reasons for doing
so and the duration, and to also communicate directly with the foreign
company responsible for the web site where it is prudent and necessary,
to notify them of the actions being taken and what they can do to have
access restored.
The Pastebin case
Pastebin.com
was apparently apparently blocked because it was being used to
distribute instructions for creating a "webhive" (an instrument to
perform a denial of service attack), and this one was being used against
more than 160 web pages of the Venezuelan State. We believe that the
company should be willing to discuss with the Venezuelan government
about removing these kinds of instructions, as they also actively do for
the US government.
Tachira state
The
ALT1040 statement refers to a "generalized cut of Internet access to a
region of the country by the national telephone company of Venezuela
(CANTV), from Wednesday February 19, 2014 to Friday February 21, 2014,
as evidenced by multiple citizen reporting in Tachira state." We regret
that the statement has not given any context or provided information of
the serious events occurring in the area at the time. Tachira, which
borders Colombia, has been one of the most affected by the violence and
assaults on public facilities, including health facilities, residences
and public utilities, and attacks on the infrastructure of CANTV and
other State agencies.
President Nicolas Maduro has condemned the
presence of paramilitary groups hired by those interested in promoting
separatist actions in this important Venezuelan border state, in open
violation of articles 11, 13, and 15 of the Constitution relating to the
territory, integrity, defense and the sovereignty of the nation.
On the subject of Internet blackouts, or
what the international press denounces as "generalized cuts of internet
access to a region of the country", on February 21 Manuel Fernández,
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, denied any government
involvement and reported that "in some cases fiber optic cut accidents
do occur, and some were deliberate acts of vandalism (sabotage), but we
always proceed to splice them to restore service as soon as is possible.
This time we had problems in northern Táchira, and in San Cristobal
because of the many fires in the city" [26] [27]. The governor of
Tachira, José Vielma Mora, confirmed the fiber optic cuts in a recent
interview, noting that even his office did not have Internet either
[35].
Note that, although there were twitter
reports of problems with broadband Internet access in some sectors of
the city of San Cristóbal, there were other cases of tweeters who at the
time reported not to have suffered these problems [28]. This is
consistent with vandalism and fire damage in specific switching offices,
while attacks on state workers also made it difficult to reach these
places where there were outages to solve them. All indications are that
there was no intention to block the Internet in Tachira by the State or
by CANTV. The drafters of the statement released by ALT1040 lie by accusing the government of leaving part of the country without Internet for political reasons.
On net neutrality and censorship
Furthermore,
the statement issued by this right-wing subset of the free software
software community speaks of "repeated violations of net neutrality, the
principle embodied in our Telecommunications Law (…) and the
prohibition of prior censorship". No evidence or examples of any such
violations are actually provided. On the contrary, many of those who
signed the statement issued from ALT1040 are already recognized
political opponents of the Venezuelan government despite working in
public institutions or have been granted contracts with the State, and
they do so knowing their Twitter accounts, Facebook and other social
networks are known and entirely unrestricted. Their freedom of speech
has already been shown and demonstrated. We do not see where or how any
"prior restraint" was experienced by them.
About CESSPA
The
statement written by members of the right-wing subset of the free
software community also speaks of "the violation of the privacy of
citizens as evidenced by the installation of a Center for Strategic
Security and Protection of the Motherland (CESPPA), whose activities,
outlined in Presidential Decree 458, published in the Official Gazette
40,266 (...) include the continuous monitoring of information flows."
This statement ignores the fact that the
decree was re-printed in the Official Gazette 40,279 [34] amending
sections 3 and 10, which originally required private companies to
provide information for use of the intelligence agencies. Such
references were removed, indicating that CESSPA should only "request,
organize, integrate and evaluate information relevant to the strategic
level regarding national security, from all law enforcement and
intelligence agencies of the State, as required by the President of the
Republic." This revision also removed the requirement in Article 10 for
private institutions to "provide all required information" by CESPPA in
the exercise of their functions. Different NGOs, such as “Espacio
Público”, have recognized that CESPPA is simply "a body that coordinates
the intelligence" of the different entities of the Bolivarian
government. [7]
In the current global context, all nations
must develop the means to ensure their continued sovereignty,
independence, security and defense. In our case, these principles are
constitutionally enshrined in Articles 326 and 327. CESPPA is the
institution that the Venezuelan government has been forced to establish
to protect itself against internal and external attacks, consistent with
the fundamental right of the people to self-determination of their own
form of government, and to pursue their economic, social and cultural
development freely as they choose, without external interference.
Against the lies about Venezuela
Today,,
February 27, 2014, we issue this statement as we remember the 25th
anniversary of the tragedy known as the "Caracazo", when thousands of
people took to the streets to protest the measures taken by the
government at the time, instigated by the International Monetary Fund
and other agencies, to raise the prices of food, gas and utilities, and
to start a wave of privatizations as part of a series of measures that
affected the population terribly, similar to extremely abusive austerity
measures taken in European countries as part of their present crisis.
The Venezuelan people took to the streets, and were violently suppressed
by the government of the time, using lethal weapons, according even to
official figures leaving more than 500 dead, but more than 3,000
according to other sources. We are proud that the present government,
made up of people who worked with Hugo Chavez, is the guarantor of human
rights for all our citizens, starting with the right to live, as well
as recognizing the freedom of expression and free access to information,
of all our citizens equally.
We repudiate the negative mainstreaming
efforts underway by international media against Venezuela, and we exhort
them to better inform themselves about the facts. We exhort the free
software, hardware, knowledge and culture community around the world to
research what's really happening in our country and urgently ask the end
of violent attacks by Venezuelan right wing factions, pushed and
promoted by the US government.
We denounce ALT1040's involvement in
Venezuela's political affairs for the last months, through some of its
contributors, rallying against the supporters of Nicolás Maduro's
administration and delivering half-truths and unverified facts and
misinformation [32]. We exhort ALT1040 to cover equally both sides of
the conflict, and to publish this and other manifestos put forward by
groups within the free software community that support the Venezuelan
government.
In Venezuela, free technologies are very
prevalent: Having a population of nearly 30 million, it's one of the few
countries in the world where almost 3 million computers have been
given at no cost to grade school children and high
school students through a program named “Canaima Educativo”. Each and
every computer running free software; and almost unknown fact to those
living outside Venezuela, and a fact never commented by portals such as
ALT1040. The eGovernment Law, passed last year by the National Assembly
[31] was created to complement Presidential Decree 3,390 signed by late
President Hugo Chávez in 2004, with the purpose of the adoption of free
platforms and open standards by the State, with the ultimate aim of
providing our population the maximum possible happiness. Likewise, it's a
noteworthy fact that the Venezuelan State has made the greatest efforts
to enhance the population's access to the Internet, reaching a
penetration of 12,990,000 users [33], nearly 43% of the population, with
emphasis on the poor.
We are convinced that free technologies,
free knowledge and culture are vital to a society where poverty is to be
eradicated, inefficiency and corruption are eliminated, and society's
gravest problems are solved. Technology should not be and instrument to
enslave people to fashion and consumerism. Thusly, we hereby ask free
technologies, knowledge and culture sympathizers around the world to
support Venezuela and help break the media blackout by sharing what's
really happening in our country.
Translated by David Sugar.
SOURCES (in Spanish):
1 Motorcyclist dies on Rómulo Gallegos avenue, beheaded by wire placed by opposition protesters (+Video)
2 Venezuelan Free Software Community starts petition for net neutrality
3 Information Society World Summit, UIT 2004 - Declaration of Principles
6 Journalist Ronald Muñoz hurt while covering events in San Cristóbal
7 CESPPA's decree is reformed
8 Attack on CANTV's Barquisimeto's Morán Central
9 5 CANTV vehicles and Morán's Central in Barquisimeto are set on fire
10 CANTV's losses amount to more than Bs. 7,5M
11 Maduro shows surveillance videos of opposition's aggression to Metrobús' units, workers and users
12 36 Metro de Caracas' workers hurt due to violence
13 Oil poured on Chacao's streets in attempt to block motorcycles from joining rally
14 Pictures and videos of the siege on Venezolana de Televisión, Venezuela's public television
http://albaciudad.org/wp/index.php/2014/02/en-video-grupos-violentos-asediaron-sede-de-venezolana-de-television-por-segundo-dia-consecutivo/ http://albaciudad.org/wp/index.php/2014/02/fotos-acoso-vtv-disturbios/
15 Manuel Fernández: 163 public web sites attacked in 12 days
16 Zurda Konducta's hostess blames fascist groups for mother's death
17 Community broadcaster Montaña TV is attacked
18 30 people die for lack of treatment due to blockades
19 Government detains 3 armed Colombian paramilitaries in El Vigía
20 Motorcyclist dies after hitting barricade on Michelena avenue
21 Video shows accidental death of Jimmy Vargas after falling from rooftop
22 Prosecutor: 9 law enforcement agents detained. Breakthrougs in Bassil Dacosta and Juan Montoya's cases (+Video)
23 Human Rights status in Venezuela: An alternative look
24 CANTV denies blocking Twitter images
25 Taxi-biker killed while removing barricade in Maracaibo
26 CANTV restores Internet service in Táchira
27 Objections to the statement
28 CANTV's broadband user in San Cristóbal denies cut on 20 feb.
29 55 paramilitaries detained in Robert Alonso's estate, 80 escape
30 Journalist Ronald Muñoz hurt while covering events in San Cristóbal
31 eGovernment Law is published
32 Venezuela's government's great technological horrors
33 CONTAEL's IV quarter's report - 2013.
34 Presidential Decree n. 458, 24 oct. 2013
35 José Vielma Mora's interview in Onda La Superestación
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