Special Action Forces

The Special Action Forces (Spanish: Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales de la Policía Nacional Bolivariana, FAES) is an elite command of the Venezuelan National Police created in April 2016.[1][2] By 2019, it had around 1,300 officers.[3] The FAES includes the Unidad de Operaciones Tácticas Especiales (UOTE) a police tactical unit.[4] The FAES have been accused of being a political instrument of Nicolás Maduro,[1] as well as being a death squad and of repressing the opposition.[5][6][7]

Not to be confused with Special Action Force.
FAES officials

History

The complaints by local NGOs and international organizations against the People's Liberation Operation forced Nicolás Maduro's administration to abandon the security policy, but kept the same dynamic in a different security force, the Special Armed Forces (FAES). According to Luis Izquiel, specialist in citizen security, the FAES resulted the "same or worse" in human rights violations.[8]

The FAES have been accused of being a political instrument of Nicolás Maduro,[1] as well as being a death squad and of repressing the opposition.[5][9][10][11][6][7]

Between May and November 2017, of the 403 that security forces participated in the Caracas Metropolitan Area, 124 (31%) were attributed to the FAES, which at the same time were responsible for 62% of the killings caused by the National Police.[12]

PROVEA, a Venezuelan human rights group, denounced the FAES of killing more than 100 people in low-income neighborhoods in the six months leading up to January 2019 during the protests in Venezuela.[3][13]

On 5 July 2019 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, released a report presenting evidence of the murder of at least 6,800 Venezuelans from January 2018 to May 2019 by various security forces including the FAES. The report included documentation of instances of torture, including waterboarding and electric shocks. The regime deemed it as "biased".[14][15] Bachelet included among her report's recommendations to disband the FAES and open an independent investigation of their actions. Few days after the report was published, Nicolás Maduro appeared publicly with FAES officers, praising them. Although Maduro's administration alleged that the report was plagued with "falsehoods", it has worked along Bachelet's Office. On a September 2020 update of the human rights situation of Venezuela, Bachelet stressed FAES' actions again and informed that according to the Public Ministry, seventy FAES officers had been indicted in several states.[16]

Equipment

The 2019 documentary Colateral, directed by Venezuelan journalist Lucrecia Cisneros, explores the consequences of extrajudicial executions in Venezuela by security forces, including by the FAES.[17][18]

References
  1. Maduro ordenó a la FANB crear este año Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales. Publicado el 26 de abril de 2016. Consultado el 13 de febrero de 2019.
  2. LR, Redacción (January 1, 2019). "FAES: 'grupo de exterminio' al servicio de Maduro que allanó casa de Juan Guaidó [FOTOS]". LaRepublica.pe (in Spanish). Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  3. "Venezuelan special police unit blamed for abuses, killings". Reuters. February 3, 2019. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  4. "Gradúan funcionarios del Faes de la PNB para combatir la delincuencia". La Patilla (in Spanish). 14 December 2017. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  5. "Elite police force spreads terror in the barrios of Venezuela". Reuters. 13 November 2019. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  6. Nick Cumming-Bruce (4 July 2019). "Venezuela Forces Killed Thousands, Then Covered It Up, U.N. Says". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  7. "UN report: Venezuela death squads kill young men, stage scenes". Al Jazeera. 4 July 2019. Retrieved October 8, 2023.
  8. Galaviz, Daisy (13 July 2020). "Las OLP cumplen cinco años tras una estela de violación de DD. HH". El Pitazo. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  9. FAES, de fuerza élite a “grupo de exterminio”. Publicado el 4 de marzo de 2018. Consultado el 13 de febrero de 2019.
  10. Faes, el brazo más oscuro de la represión del régimen de Maduro. Publicado el 3 de febrero de 2019. Consultado el 13 de febrero de 2019.
  11. Tom Miles (14 July 2019). "Venezuela death squads kill young men, stage scenes, U.N. report says". Reuters. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  12. "FAES, el grupo de exterminio de la Policía Nacional Bolivariana #MonitorDeVíctimas". Efecto Cocuyo. 2 January 2018. Archived from the original on 13 February 2019. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
  13. Team, The Caracas Chronicles (January 27, 2019). "Meet FAES: The Bolivarian Police Death Squads Leading Repression Against Protesters". CaracasChronicles.com. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
  14. "Venezuela's rulers accused by UN of death squads and policy of fear". BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  15. "A bloody stalemate: With tenacity and torture, Venezuela's awful regime is hanging on". The Economist (registration or subscription required for full article). 13 July 2019. pp. 32–33. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  16. García Marco, Daniel (12 January 2021). "Qué se sabe de la operación policial en Caracas que terminó en una "masacre"". BBC Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  17. Salgado, Diego (2019-12-06). "Cortometraje de estudiantes de la UCAB fue premiado por la Escuela Nacional del Cine". El Ucabista (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-05-03.
  18. Schenk, Pascal (2021-11-15). "Colateral". CineFrances.Net. Retrieved 2023-05-03.

Further reading
  • Galavís, Natalia Gan (2020). "Rule of law crisis, militarization of citizen security, and effectson human rights in Venezuela". European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. 109: 67–86. doi:10.32992/erlacs.10557.
  • Mijares, Victor M (2022). "Venezuela: A revolutionary petrostate under stress". In Wade, Christine J.; Kline, Harvey F. (eds.). Latin American Politics and Development (10th ed.). United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. pp. 223–246. doi:10.4324/9781003223351-16. ISBN 9781000620559.
  • Tremaria, Stiven (2022). "Policing and Autocratisation in Bolivarian Venezuela". Bulletin of Latin American Research. 41 (1): 159–174.
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