Document #1196128
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
This Response to Information Request
updates information on Bandera Roja (Red Flag) provided in previous
Responses available through the Refinfo database. The following
information was provided in a 24 October 1995 DIRB telephone
interview with a researcher at the Programa Venezolano de
Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA), a
leading Venezuelan human rights organization recommended staff of
the Andean Commission of Jurists and Human Rights Watch.
Bandera Roja is not a clandestine group. In
1994 it requested to register as a political party at the Consejo
Supremo Electoral (Supreme Electoral Council). The request has not
yet been approved and is still being processed. Nevertheless, the
group is tacitly recognized by authorities as a formal and
legitimate political group. It is participating in the upcoming
December 1995 municipal and gubernatorial elections in alliance
with the Movimiento por la Democracia Popular (MDP), a legally
recognized political group that had previously served as Bandera
Roja's channel for public political participation. Bandera Roja
participated openly in student demonstrations as recently as early
October 1995, without negative consequences for its activists.
Bandera Roja used to have an armed wing,
the Frente Americo Silva, operating in the state of Anzuategui.
This armed wing handed over its weapons and publicly renounced
armed struggle in 1994.
In July 1994 and March 1995 some members of
Bandera Roja, as well as other social and political activists, were
arrested for a couple of days and then released. Arrests like these
have been common practice for many years; whenever major social
unrest takes place or is expected to take place, authorities
temporarily detain a wide range of social and political activists
to prevent them from organizing or participating in demonstrations
or other public unrest. These preventive detentions rarely last for
more than a few days.
This Response was prepared after
researching publicly accessible information currently available to
the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does
not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular
claim to refugee status or asylum.
Programa Venezolano de
Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA),
Caracas. 24 October 1995. Telephone interview with researcher.