A/HRC/45/CRP.11 State.1796 The Plan said that “fomenting of criminality and insecurity” was part of the “destabilization strategy by anti-Government actors”.1797 1017. At the same time, there have been increasingly tough security tactics resulting in a range of human rights violations, in particular high numbers of extrajudicial executions. Beginning in July 2015, the OLP/OLHP were initially vaunted by high-level Government officials as a proactive crime-tackling measure. Following public outcry over violations during these operations, later acknowledged by the Government, and a Public Prosecutor’s Office investigation, there was a policy shift in mid-2017 away from the large-scale operations. Security forces continued to carry out more targeted killings of criminals or people perceived to be criminals. 1018. The Mission’s investigations suggest there are various motives behind the hard-line security tactics. These include the following: • Demonstrating that the Government is responsive to the social problem of insecurity by being tough on crime. High-level Government officials have publicized deaths following security operations, during press conferences, on official websites and/or on social media, presenting the deaths as an indicator of the results of the operation. Indeed, there is a certain level of public support for a heavy-handed security approach. According to a 2020 study by the Venezuelan Observatory on Violence, based on a face-to-face survey of 1,200 people, over 30 per cent of those interviewed stated that they “strongly agree” (12.9 per cent) or “agree” (19.4 per cent) that the “Government has a right to kill criminals”.1798 • Generating fear and reinforcing power for social control purposes. This is potentially to reduce the possibility of political uprisings, especially in poorer urban neighbourhoods (areas that were previous Chavist strongholds) where support for the Government has eroded as the economic crisis has deepened and protests against the State have increased. The network of community informants and “cooperating patriots” (RAAS, Communal Councils, UBCh, UPDI, discussed above), also play a role in this regard by carrying out surveillance at the local level and identifying and reporting on suspects to police.1799 Presidential Decree No. 2323 of 13 May 2016 authorized these groups,1800 together with military and police armed forces, to carry out “vigilance” to “maintain public order and guarantee security and sovereignty in the country.1801 • Maintaining or assuming domination over local economic and criminal markets. The Mission gathered credible insider information that police engage in various illicit activities, including control over petrol, moving and selling of contraband and extortions (referred to as “vacunas” or “vaccines”) in exchange for “security and protection of commercial premises”. 1802 In cases investigated by the Mission, witnesses have indicated that the police and military operations themselves provide economic incentives for committing violations, given that security forces routinely took money, food and valuables during raids of homes of people they killed or detained. In the context of the OLPs, these were referred to as the “spoils of war”. 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800 1801 1802 200 Comando Estratégico Operacional, Fuerzas Armadas Nacionales Bolivarianas, CEOFANB “Plan Estratégico Operacional Zamora”, Caracas, D.C, p. 5. Ibid., p. 14. See Roberto Briceño-León and Alberto Camardiel, Technical Report to the National Survey on Police Violence and Lethality (2020), p. 23 (¿Qué tan de acuerdo o en desacuerdo está usted con que la policía tiene derecho a matar a los delincuentes?). See for example, Acta policial (Irvin Beomon), Annex 3, p. 1, on file with the Mission. The decree referred specifically to the Comités Locales de Abastecimiento y Distribución (CLAP) and the Consejos Comunales y demás organizaciones de base del Poder Popular (art. 9). Presidential Decree No. 2323, published in Official Gazette No. 6227, 13 May 2016, art. 2.9, available at: https://pandectasdigital.blogspot.com/2016/05/decreto-n-2323-de-fecha-13-de-mayode.html. Mission Interview C1HH01 in June 2020.