Testimony of the horror: a tortured person speaks in a military chavista

In the basement of the Military Counterintelligence Directorate General (DGCIM) In Caracas, the officers, considered to have increased political and military risk by the Nicolás Maduro government, were arrested and are still detained, with the exception of General-in-Chief (Ej) Raúl Isaías Baduel and the captain ( GNB) Juan Carlos Caguaripano. Infobae He spoke with an officer who stayed in those cells until a few months ago, when the colonel Rafael Antonio Franco Quintero was the director of research at DGCIM.

He had only 45 days in 2017, but during this period, he was arrested, this top official who rose from the first to the highest rank of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB), saw and experienced scary facts. We saved his name to protect him and his family.

"The boys I know of the Navy and who are imprisoned are exemplary officers, first of all, all members of the Marine Infantry, special operations," he says.

The cost for families is very high. "Only three hours of visits per week to the DGIM, for you to have an idea, for example in the prison of Ramo Verde, the regime is open, they have a canteen, kitchens, the visit can be received in the cell it they even have televisions and I think about two or three days of visiting from morning till night. "

-In the Dgcim, even families are tortured because they have to travel long distances, pay hotels, be transported for three hours, which in some cases cancels them without notice. I saw people coming from Margarita with their grandchildren or from the Andean region, very humble people and unable to visit a family member without being warned in advance. All this is very cruel, much more than the imagination itself can recreate.

– You were in Colonel Franco Quintero's time?

– Yes, this colonel, in my opinion, is a psychopath. I had never imagined that such a person could not only be part of the NBAF, but be considered humane. His pbadage through the Dgcim was terrible.

– Why him in particular?

-Because it is he who has changed the routine and the conditions of imprisonment in subhuman conditions.

-Describe me this place, when he was there.

-The cells are airtight, the doors are made of sheet iron, no bars. With a small window that also remains closed 24 hours; confinement is absolute, can not be seen outside the cell. They do not have a bathroom and the necessities, except when they allow it, are made in solid plastic bags and in plastic jars. He banned books, including Bibles, banned dietary supplements, anything but water, took the phone out of the hallway and created the three-minute rule once a day.

– Do you remember a cruel case?

– In one of the cells, there were four young Llanero prisoners who had been there for months without their families knowing if they were alive. Their living conditions were worse. They were not even allowed to take a bath, but every two or three weeks, with the same panties and the same underwear to have no family members to remove them. They used when they were allowed, toothpaste and toothbrushes that we gave them. The same thing happened with the toilet paper. They did not have any type of hygiene equipment and their appearance and behavior, given the harsh conditions, were like in war films, which do not lift their heads and do not mix. ; a degree of extreme submission caused by this kind of brutal white torture, I had never lived or seen anything like it.

-The parents describe them as if they were in concentration camps. It improved a bit when the colonel arrived Hanover Esteban Guerrero Mijares, but it seems he is now relentless.

– A sergeant, when he brought us the food, which was extremely reduced. For example, in the morning, a small arpa and two tablespoons of peas, these young llaneros, instead of giving them all four, they gave two. Unlike other prisons where food is allowed, it is prohibited. The isolation is absolute, no books, no phone and the only thing to ingest that we can receive is water.

-With the arrival of Colonel Guerrero Mijares, they began to allow relatives to bring them food, which allowed them to recover some weight, but they again prevented him. Will they like to apply torture?

-I do not know, but I tell you something. After my departure at liberty, at 45 days thanks to God, Minister Padrino López sent me to call his office. He personally apologized to me and accepted the fact that I had differences of opinion very nicely. However, he asked me if I had seen his interview with José Vicente the previous Sunday, which meant that he thought I had television in prison. What I did not know was that when they called me, I spent three days without bath or isolation, which I could not tell you at this meeting because my designated investigative body was my own penitentiary body, that is to say, while I had precautionary measures.

– When they were allowed to call, did they have privacy?

-No, it's ok. We lined up to call by phone and it was only three minutes since you started dialing the number, whether the call was dropped or not. When we were online, we could not talk to each other. In this famous hallway, there is a disciplinary cell of just over one square meter covered, floor and walls, rotten mattress, where the prisoner can sit only on the floor. The stench is so great that when you walk past this cell, the bad smell reaches the outside; there they placed the punished, sometimes up to two. The cell is not lit, it is dark 24 hours a day; they are usually placed in hoods and handcuffed, hands behind them; They ate plate like dogs. Some had the flexibility to move their arms under their legs and could do some of this barbarism. For fear of being punished, I tried to practice the pbadage of my arms forward into the cell and I never got there. I prayed to God not to fall, I would die, I think I would not resist that, I admit it.

– What's going on at night?

– At nine o'clock in the evening, they turn off the lights centrally and the dark, being a basement, is absolute. You open and close your eyes and there is no difference. It was therefore necessary to balance the position of the bag for the needs, the pot to urinate, the paper, the water to drink, etc., in learned positions, because the light was again placed at the moment breakfast. The bed was concrete with a carpet on it. There are no chairs, shelves or anything else in the cell. Some colleagues, who had some kind of prescription, stayed there on the basis of sleeping pills. Paradoxically, I can say that I thank God for this experience.

– You are a senior official who has been working for decades in an armed institution. What hit you the most in what you saw in the Dgcim?

– I have seen young people recently captured during the protests, usually the most important ones. They kept them in the lobby for weeks, holding them black hood in their heads and handcuffing them 24 hours a day, with the exception of food or hygiene. And I say that I felt great admiration for these young people who did not give in to all these cruel treatments and all these pressures. For a strange reason, Colonel (Franco Quintero) only allowed me half of my stay (maybe a concession ordered by a superior who knew me) to take three books and my wife took me my favorite books: The Bible, the Count of Montecristo and Don Quixote.

-Are you able to describe the region?

-The area is completely closed in the basement with two doors to enter the hall. There, an old air conditioner captures the air from the bathroom and routes it to the cells through pipes, in an eternal closed circuit without outside air intake. You can imagine the effect of stale air, combined with unpleasant smells and the need to breathe in a closed cell, in secret and unable to talk to anyone day-to-day. On some occasions, they gave us permission to go out into the room and we could talk and suddenly we went back to the previous situation. It was planned, once a week, to get up half an hour to sunbathe, which for 45 days was done only once. The visits are only for two people who have to sit apart from other families and can not talk or say hello between families.

– A reason for that?

-They do not say it. At the end of the visit, we were undressed one by one in the bathroom, forced to bend our legs in a squatting position to check that we had nothing in the anus. Missing about 15 days for my freedom and that I only knew the day I left when they sent me to take a bath, they put a lieutenant in my cell and for you to have an idea, I sometimes had to rebadure him and tell him to breathe little by little for the moment. effect of stale air. Their isolation is an extra form of torture.

-Imagine how it will happen, that I told my wife that I prefer to be alone, because it's terrible to see how the days go by and that you can only think or pray.

– How did your detention go?

-They stopped telling me at home that it was an interview. And the agreement was not only inhumane, but they even installed me in a small two-by-two office with a broken chair, no ventilation, four powerful lamps and brown painted walls and ceilings . Already there the torture begins. I went there from five o'clock in the afternoon to one in the morning, without eating, without drinking water and without explanations. At one o'clock in the morning, when the arrest warrant arrived, they transferred me to the cell, of course without water and without having eaten. And again, I can confess that I consider myself lucky.

Yes He had two months ago a general, a stick, just to be a friend of General Baduel and to be 10 years older than me, small and lean, had dropped 20 kilos and was not allowed so humanitarian that his family take him. a supplement. These people have given me the strength to resist and in the solitude of the cell, pray. I can not imagine that anyone who does not believe in God can survive in such a place. In order for some of his companions to be distracted, he wrote to them on bits of the Bible paper of those who lift their spirits and pbad them, when they could, under the door.

-I know that there is not the minimum consideration for medical attention. This has been demonstrated with the case of Nelson Martínez, Minister and President of PDVSA.

– You can not have pills or medicines in the cell. If you have a headache or other problem, you will only receive the medicine if the custodian's custodian allows you to do so and take your belongings stored elsewhere. When closing the cells at night, no one enters until the other day. There is no way to be badisted in case of emergency, fire or other.

– How were the guards?

– The majority of them are trained in Cuba, according to their own comments. When they open the door to feed, they do not open it completely, just enough to let through the plastic that contains the food, while an official records it with a camera to record what's going on. He ate. There, he is eaten with plastic cutlery that we clean with a towel when we finished and we put them in a small bag with our name. When they forgot the cutlery, instead of returning the 20 meters where they are deposited, they simply fed us with their hands. When they close the door that has two large hinges, they do it with force, I did not understand why and then I realized that even this insignificance was part of all this white torture.

– Did you feel that?

– Yes, the psychological effect of seeing the door close until the next meal or until the day after a powerful blow is brutal. Not knowing whether it is day or night, not knowing what time it is because they do not allow clocks; listen only to the sound of the air coming out sometimes and the suffocation increased. I am not vindictive but I really tell you that these people have done a lot of harm.