Pérez took his second office as president of an economically and socially unstable country undergoing popular discontent against the decadent representative democracy. The Venezuelan people had suffered from the policies of Pérez’s government and the ones preceding it.
The crisis developed in the country was evident in the economic indicators of the late 80’s. In the years 1987 and 1988, the traditional, one-digit inflation soared to 28% and 29.8% respectively. Between 1984 and 1988, extreme poverty grew from 11% to 14%, and overall poverty from 36% to 46%. By 1989, extreme poverty rose from 14% to 30%.
On February 16, 1989, Pérez announced an economic program known as “the economic package,” which would establish the rise in prices of all products with the exception of some basic foodstuffs. In addition, the price of gasoline increased by 100%, the interest rates of assets and liabilities in the financial system were freed, the public transportation fares went up and utility prices also gradually escalated.
These neoliberal measures were applied by following the International Monetary Fund’s suggestions. Pérez’s government endorsed a Letter of Intention with this multilateral financial organization and promised to undertake such economic adjustments. The IMF agreed on loaning US $ 4.5 billion.
Faced with a crisis, on February 28, Carlos Andrés Pérez and his Cabinet ordered the Venezuelan National Guard and Army to suppress riots. Likewise, he decreed a state of emergency as provided for by the Constitution of 1961.
This measure included the suspension of some constitutional guarantees for 10 days and a real massacre took place.
The report presented by the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez pointed out that there were 277 casualties. After 19 years, people talk about thousands casualties.
Repression Sharpened
Edgar Pérez has been a social fighter in communities for a long time. He lives in Las Casitas of the barrio La Vega, Caracas’ west. On February 27, 1989, he lost his son and experienced the disappearance of some of his neighbors.
“I remember the dead and how the people were slaughtered,” he told with a faltering voice. “Everything started in Guarenas (located in Caracas’ outskirts) early in the morning. The people were on their way to work and found that transportation fares were increased and bus drivers were not allowing student preferential fares.”
Edgar thinks that the increase of transportation fares was just an excuse to protest since discontent had been progressively growing. “People started demonstrating against hunger, the privatization of health and education, miserable wages, the increase of food prices and all neoliberal measures.”
He sums up his experience: “I lost my son and some of my friends, who were shot by snipers as they tried to leave La Vega. Others disappeared when the Army laid siege to the San Miguel barrio. They were found dead in the Guaire and Tuy Rivers. It was a terrifying experience to the Venezuelan people, not only on February 27, but in the first weeks of March 1989, when constitutional guarantees were suspended.”
Austerity to the people and squandering on TV
José Roberto Duque is a social fighter and historian. He admits that in 1989 “he was an irresponsible guy with no political criteria.” On February 27 he witnessed the first lootings in Caracas as he was in his way to work. He joined them on the next day. “We went to some supermarkets in La Candelaria (Caracas’ downtown) and saw how the Metropolitan Police (PM) and the National Guard (GN) were organizing the looting. They arranged the people in lines, but then the same police stopped them and took their bags.”
He also mentioned the machine guns’ bursts against the buildings of 23 de Enero (a Caracas’ barrio with a long history of militant struggle) by the Metropolitan Police and the National Guard. “On February 28 in the afternoon I tried to access the street I live on and I saw the GN and the PM shooting to the buildings.”
José explains the causes of this social uprising. “The effects of the neoliberal policies became immediately evident in the increase of prices, but beyond that, the contradictions of the system became sharper because while the people were urged to make sacrifices, you could see squandering in the streets and on TV.”
Likewise, he assured that the decomposition of a political system was another trigger for popular discontent. “The putrefaction of the political system was such that a congressman (Hermócrates Castillo) was arrested in Valencia and they found some kilos of drug in his car. These were symptoms that there was a political class enjoying the country’s wealth and taking advantage of a poor people that did not benefit from its wealth and participate in the decision-making process.”
Duque recalls that the first person who fell in that uprising was the student leader Yulimar Reyes. “She was killed in front of Parque Central (housing complex in Caracas’ downtown). It was a painful death because she was one of those persons who wins the love and sympathy of others without seeking them,” he stressed.
Tears flow when memories are reawakened
“On February 27, we were in the streets fighting. We had concerns about extreme poverty, violations to union collective contracts and the shortage of some basic foodstuffs. Prior to February 27, lootings took place in some areas,” recalls the community leader Alí Verenzuela, who was 37 in 1989.
The words and the facts did not match. “During the electoral campaign, Pérez made many promises, but when he negotiated with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the man got down on his knees and endorsed the Letter of Intention.”
As Alí Verenzuela told us about, he became so indignant that he shed some tears. Today, he is still fighting in the streets and claims he can not be quiet when faced with impunity.
“Nobody will be able to indemnify us for our pain”
Yarabid Gómez is also a popular leader in El Valle, a neighborhood located in Caracas’s southwest. On February 27 1989, he was 20 years old. He tells that “I remember those days with sadness. When I remember this day, it brings a lump to my throat because I lost many friends.”
Yarabit is part of kind of a committee comprised by the Venezuelan people during the February 27, 1989 social uprising which kept an eye on the numbers of dead people, who they were and where they were. “I could access the Bello Monte morgue and saw a pile of dead people. I can say that the figures provided by the government regarding the number of dead people are not real.”
“I saw how my friends fell one by one, and they laid dead in the streets for hours because the curfew imposed by Carlos Andrés Pérez prevented us from picking them up,” Gómez explained.
We received orders to open fire
Fernando Albornoz was 19 years old and was in the military service. “We were sent to the streets in order to defend an economic project in which the people did not believe. There were many abuses because the right to life was not respected.”
“We hold a captain in high esteem because of his morale, ways and behavior in the troops. He gave us the order to shoot anything that moved. It was terrible to us.”
Albornoz’s group was responsible for looking after the stores and markets on the Urdaneta Avenue in Caracas’ downtown. The order was to not let anybody in. “The people asked us to let them in, but we received different orders. We came to an agreement and when our superiors left we let them grab something and go quickly.”
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