Heinrich Himmler once said, “The best political weapon is the weapon of terror.” As one of history’s most notorious war criminals and commander of the Nazi SS, he was intimately familiar with one of the most powerful weapons of war a nation could wield against its enemies.
Still used widely around the world today by anti-democratic forces, the weapon of terror is no stranger to Chavista Venezuela. It has been applied as a tactical weapon by the most feared regimes in history, from Hitler’s Germany to Stalin’s Russia. Even McCarthyism threatened certain liberties in the United States when the fear of communism was at its highest.
Terror is a powerful weapon used in the same form as armies or intelligence, though it is often best suited for domestic use. It is employed by groups inside and outside the government to create fear, either against the government itself or some outside force, and can drive the crippling feeling into the hearts of an electorate or a governed citizenry.
The ultimate goal of terror as a weapon is to bring a country into submission. When fear chases away all the academics, the business owners, the creative thinkers, the middle class, and anyone who can buy a plane ticket to a neighboring country, there are only two types of people left: those who cannot escape and must be forced to submit, and those who have been drinking the Kool Aid from the start.
The oldest form of weaponized terror in Venezuela has been government-funded propaganda. In 2014, the majority of funding that went to the government’s Ministry of Popular Power for Communications and Information (MINCI) was earmarked for state-funded propaganda, far exceeding budgets set for things like law enforcement and health.
A major theme in Chavista propaganda has been the perpetuation of the “us vs. them”, a clever way to paint anyone that resides outside circles of government and Chavista support as an anti-democratic, non-Venezuelan outsider. Government slogans like “With Chavez, the People are the Government” convey the impression that, without Chavez, the popular will would not be exercised and those who voted for Chavez would continue to be ignored without him.
Chavez’s Bolivarian-centered rhetoric – adding “Bolivarian” to the country’s official name and likening himself to the Liberator himself – were pedestals on which to prop up his legitimacy and rob opponents of their own image. This isolating tactic is even more effective when the rhetoric is coupled with vitriolic messages that accuse the opposition of being traitors to the homeland in cahoots with “Yankee imperialists” who have a devil for a leader.
While some consider long lines for basic goods like foods, toilet paper, and gasoline a byproduct of 17-year-old socialist mismanagement, they are also potent weapons the Chavista’s terror campaign constantly takes advantage of. The 2016 Living Conditions Survey found that as many as 32.5% of Venezuelans eat less than twice a day, a figure which has tripled in 12 years.
The constant worry of whether your family has enough food to survive or if the money you made working today will be worth the same amount tomorrow forces people to live in a survivalist mode that casts longer-term ideas like political activism to the side at a time they grow ever more important.
Furthermore, fear of shortages is exacerbated when “natural” alternatives like homegrown fruits and vegetables yield deadly repercussions, like bitter yucca, a deadly root often mistaken for its edible relative which has killed off entire families with deadly doses of cyanide poisoning.
Lines also keep people constantly on edge because no person wants to be out on the streets of Caracas or other major cities too long, especially once night begins to emerge, and with it the criminal underworld. Venezuela has been consistently ranked for the last few years as one of the most dangerous countries around the globe, taking the title of second most violent nation in the world outside of open war in 2016.
When it was still a possibility that I might travel to Venezuela as a journalist for nine months, a friend of mine joked that I would at least be assaulted. Crime is so rampant in Venezuela, most government officials are believed to always be involved and as a result, the police is never called to a scene for fear of reprisals.
One incident told by one family member involved his coworker traveling to Caracas and being asked to open his suitcase at the airport. While opening the case, the inspecting airport officer caught sight of his laptop, leading to the coworker to change the laptop’s location because of his knowledge of how things operate. After leaving the airport, armed thugs stopped his car and demanded he forfeit all his personal items. When the laptop wasn’t among the items, they turned back to him and put a gun to his head ordering he give them his laptop.
Think about that: a tourist was targeted from the moment he arrived to the airport by a complex network of corrupt criminals and thugs. The fear of what may happen to you, or any of your friends or loved ones, is a powerful and terrifying tool frequently used by government and paramilitary forces to keep troublemakers silent and submissive.
Notorious short-term abductions called express kidnappings are a distinct manner of achieving the same objective. As opposed to the traditional, long-term kidnapping with ransom, these crimes target victims of all classes that are held while criminals drive them around the city and force them to empty their bank accounts at local ATMs. Though they only last about an hour, they still carry very real threats of violence and have become so popular that a movie was made which centered on a nightlong express kidnapping in Caracas.
The most overt and powerful weapon of terror within the Chavista government’s armory are the colectivos: state-sponsored community organizations meant to protect and defend the Bolivarian Revolution. On paper these organizations provide services like educational programs and drug rehabilitation, yet in reality they are widely known as extrajudicial forces who operate outside the limits of legality, taking the law into their own hands.
The colectivos of Venezuela are inspired by similar organizations from Cuba, Panama, and Iran, and have been called “the armed wing of the Bolivarian revolution.” Although common criminals and thugs always draw fear, these groups inspire genuine terror. They are known to target government opponents and have laid siege to news stations, assassinated opposition figures, and ride in massive swaths of motorcycle gangs, leaving chaos and panic in their wake.
Fear is a powerful tool, because once instilled, it can rob the mind of reason, leaving behind a submissive shell of a human being. When psychological warfare invades a person’s private thoughts and feelings to the point that they can no longer conduct themselves in their usual manner, that is when terror has been wielded successfully as a weapon.
Used effectively, it can silence dissent, muffle protestors, control any opposition, and prolong the life of an oppressive regime. Since 2014, the world has seen the Maduro government call on these tools to neutralize waves of protests and keep Chavismo alive.
Many look to the present as the most important fight in Venezuela’s quest for freedom and democracy, but it may take many more years for Venezuelans to free themselves from the grip of terror years in the making by the Chavista regime.
