Yoya deals with insomnia and impunity
On February 15, 2018, Luis Alberto Rodríguez Justiniano was killed in an alleged confrontation with officials of the Special Actions Force of the Bolivarian National Police (FAES). A squad burst into the Las Cumbres neighborhood in Mamera to avenge the death of two members of that security force that had occurred that same day. "Resistance to authority" was the official version, which is refuted by the family of Rodríguez Justiniano with a simple argument: for five hours he was held handcuffed, and so he was taken from his residence. Alone, 67 years old and with a duel that does not let her sleep, Yoya, the mother, comes and goes from the Public Ministry so that the murder of her son does not go unpunished
Erick S. González Caldea
osa Ángela Justiniano, 67 years old, climbed 301 steps in less than five minutes. Everyone was on fire. "The police arrived!", "the police arrived!", the warning voice ran ...
She came panting to the Las Cumbres sector of the upper La Acequia neighborhood, which had been taken by a 20-strong contingent of the Special Actions Force of the Bolivarian National Police (FAES) officers with their faces covered with hoods and burst into the house of Luis Alberto Rodríguez Justiniano, one of his six children. She wanted to enter, but the police would not let her. When she insisted, one of the uniformed women pushed her towards a construction from where she could observe what was happening.
The door was open, the woman says, and he was inside the house kneeling with his hands tied behind his back. Adrianis Ollarves, Rodríguez Justiniano's wife, says she was trying to convince one of the uniformed man to let his 17 and 14-year-old children out of the residence, whom the policemen also kept subdued and kneeling.
The "operative" began at 9:00 am on February 15, 2018 and lasted more than five hours. At 2:30 p.m., FAES agents removed the 34-year-old man from his residence. They took him through the back of the house to the main street of Las Cumbres. Everyone present saw him: he was handcuffed and shirtless. Rosa Ángela and Adriani shouted: "Where are you taking him?!, Let him go!"
Minutes later several shots were heard. The mother and the wife were silent, the neighbors were silent. Rosa Ángela recalls that she felt a strong pressure in her chest, that she was short of breath and that she could barely stand up. Luis Alberto Rodríguez Justiniano had been murdered and, right there, immediately, the police informed them that he had used a firearm to shoot at them. "Resistance to authority", was the cause registered in the official version. In practice, the police review has operated as a single and unappealable sentence, such as a death sentence.
"My son was taken handcuffed and shirtless from his house, how was he going to shoot a gun if he was subjected and handcuffed for more than five hours. We saw him, they took him handcuffed and without a shirt" repeats Yoya, and that is her biggest evidence to ensure that they executed him.
II
For 47 years, Yoya has lived in the upper part of La Acequia neighborhood in Mamera, Caracas. 301 stairs separate her home from the streets of Antímano.
Every afternoon she waits in vain for her son murdered by the FAES to whistle from the street, as he used to do. As if it were possible to see him alive again, she looks out on the balcony of his house. But in the panorama they are only the hundreds of crowded houses that cover a hill where the green of the trees was devastated by the brick of the constructions. "He is not going to appear Rosa, they killed him", she reconsiders.
R
The religious syncretism remains intact in the home of Luis Alberto Rodríguez Justiniano, where their beliefs are still alive / Photo Mikel Ferreira
Three of her 6 sons have died. On August 23, 2000, a stray bullet killed Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Justiniano, 33, while he was with his family at home. Five years later, her eldest son, José Luis, 39, died of cancer. And on February 15, 2018 the FAES killed Luis Alberto. "They killed him badly," she repeats.
"You know? he was radioed and when they saw that he had a history of theft, they told John, Luis Alberto's second son, that they were going to kill his father" says Yoya.
In 2015, Luis Alberto Rodríguez Justiniano was detained for three months in a tent belonging to the Bolivarian National Guard, accused of stealing construction material from a work on Nueva Granada Avenue, where he worked. He was imputed by the Prosecutor's Office, but the 11th Court of Control of Caracas granted him conditional freedom; he had to report periodically before the court. On August 12, 2016, Judge Irma Carolina Vecchionacce issued an order for him to be discharged from the Comprehensive Police Information System (Sipol), where he appeared requested by the police authorities. The command was never executed.
Since the murder of her son, Yoya has had kidney problems, headaches and insomnia.
"I did not want to go into my house. I had the need to be on the street all day. I did not want to be there. I felt that I was listening to him through the window. It was difficult" she says.
“My son was taken handcuffed and shirtless from his house, how was he going to shoot a gun if he was subjected and handcuffed for more than five hours.”
Rosa Ángela Justiniano
Her hands have the signs of hard work. She raised her children working as a domestic. Yoya says that she would like to see again, face to face, the officials who would have executed her son. She is convinced that the murder corresponds to a perverse and unconfessable logic of the police forces: if a policeman is killed in a neighborhood, a raid occurs to find the culprit and there is a risk that innocents pay the price for others crimes. On that occasion, February 15, 2018, in La Acequia, two policemen were killed at 7:00 am. A few hours later, the FAES came to the neighborhood to take revenge, “to take someone by the horns, to anyone they found"; not to do justice, says Yoya.
Police repression and abuse also makes victims out of the relatives of those killed / Photo Mikel Ferreira
“They came to look for him because they accused him of having participated, that same day, in the death of two police officers. They said that my son was part of a group of criminals. That day he was arriving from the hospital, about 7:00 am, because his stepdaughter was going to give birth. Luis Alberto did not kill anyone. They accused him of a crime he did not commit”, the mother insists. And follows: “He was cheerful and affectionate. He was not only aware of my food and my medicines, he made me laugh”.
Yoya says that Rodríguez Justiniano worked as a construction worker, but lately he unloaded food trucks at the Quinta Crespo local market and collected plastic and then sold it to recycling companies.“He just wanted to work and listen to vallenato”, the woman explained from her home, decorated with photos of her relatives.
“You know, he was radioed and when they saw that he had a history of theft, they told John, Luis Alberto's second son, that they were going to kill his father”
Rosa Ángela Justiniano
Rodríguez Justiniano was a couple of Adrianis and they had lived together for seven years. She has five children aged between 9 and 17 years old. He had a 16 year old daughter. After being imprisoned for three months, he had to bear the stigma of having a criminal record that made it difficult for him to find a permanent job. Adrianis remembers that every day, at 5:00 am, he said goodbye to her without the security of being able to return home with some food for the family.
“He was not a saint, but neither was he a criminal. My son did everything possible to avoid falling into bad steps. When they caught him prisoner, he paid for a crime that he did not commit and then they condemned him for that”, claims Yoya.
The image of her son inside a coffin torments her. With each start the question returns: “Why Lord, Why?”
At dawn, when she can not sleep, Yoya hand sews clothes for one of her 30 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren, but admits that her favorite is a 12-year-old girl whom she has raised since she was a baby. It took two months of therapy to get back to rest all night. But it only happened once, the insomnia persists.
Since the death of her son, she experiences a mixture of anger, sadness and helplessness.
Yoya would have preferred more support from her family, she feels lonely. In March, she had the company of her daughter Yuli and her daughter-in-law Adrianis to make the visits to the Public Ministry. In April, only her daughter-in-law accompanied her. Since May, she has been embroiled in her efforts to refute resistance to authority as a cause for the murder. Common sense tells her that it will not be easy to bring the alleged perpetrators to jail; simply because they are policemen, because they are the authority. And it is that, neither more nor less, it was the authority embodied in FAES officials that killed her son.
III
Adrianis feels guilty for the death of her husband. She believes that the police officers would have released him if she insisted. “My children were also in the house. When my husband was taken out, the officials also took my two 17- and 14-year-olds out. They were pointing guns at them. I begged them not to do anything to them. They wanted to take them, I do not know where. I had to choose and I chose to get my boys out. They listened to me. Luis died and my children were saved. Every day I think about it and that breaks my heart”, says.
“My children were also in the house. When my husband was taken out, the officials also took my two 17- and 14-year-olds out. They were pointing guns at them”.
Adrianis Ollarves
The house where the tragedy occurred is in the highest part of the Las Cumbres sector. It has three rooms; one for the couple, one for the adolescents and, in the third, Rodríguez Justiniano had an altar with many saints, the majority inherited from his older brother, who initiated him into spiritualism. Highlights an image of The Three Powers: María Lionza, Negro Primero and the Guaicaipuro native. Adrianis admits that she preferred not to enter the room of the saints:“those were Luis things”. The care of the altar is now in the hands of the older stepson. Another descendant of Rodríguez Justiniano abuses alcohol and that worries the whole family.
“Luis always practiced spiritualism to do good things. He helped people in the community, when they asked him”, explained Adrianis, who after the first month, gave up on continuing to talk with Proiuris and also left Yoya. She distanced herself from everything that linked her to the tragedy: Adrianis preferred to leave the neighborhood with her children, at least for a season.
IV
- Do you feel hate, Mrs. Yoya?
- And how not to feel it ?, the police killed me a son; they killed him badly.
On April 13, Yoya went to the Public Ministry to record the complaint. Alone, with a folder in her hand, she left the request to initiate an investigation, because, in general, the cases of
“resistance to the authority” are not investigated ex officio. In the following three months she has returned twice to the 132 ° Public Prosecutor's Office for Fundamental Rights. They asked her to provide names and addresses of witnesses of the alleged extrajudicial execution of Luis Alberto, and she has brought them. “But as far as I know, no one has been called to declare”, she says.
Despite the impunity and the weight of her 67 years of age, Yoya remains willing to overcome all the obstacles that emerge from the judicial bureaucracy, to go down and up the steps of the La Acequia neighborhood as many times as necessary, so that the policemen that killed her son ("badly", she insists) are imprisoned. She goes to the rhythm that her body and her desire for justice imposes on her, but she perseveres.
