The Special Action Forces ( es, Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales de la Policía Nacional Bolivariana, FAES) is an elite command of the

Venezuelan National Police The Policía Nacional Bolivariana ( es, Bolivarian National Police, PNB) is Venezuela's national police force, created in 2009. Law enforcement in Venezuela has historically been highly fragmented, and the creation of a national police force was ...

created in April 2016.Maduro ordenó a la FANB crear este año Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales.
Publicado el 26 de abril de 2016. Consultado el 13 de febrero de 2019. By 2019, it had around 1,300 officers. The FAES includes the Unidad de Operaciones Tácticas Especiales (UOTE) a

police tactical unit A police tactical unit (PTU) is a specialized police unit trained to handle situations that are beyond the capabilities of ordinary law enforcement units because of the level of violence (or risk of violence) involved. A police tactical unit's tas ...

. The FAES have been accused of being a political instrument of Nicolás Maduro, as well as being a death squad and of repressing the opposition.

History

The complaints by local NGOs and international organizations against the People's Liberation Operation forced

Nicolás Maduro Nicolás Maduro Moros (; born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and president of Venezuela since 2013, with his presidency under dispute since 2019. Beginning his working life as a bus driver, Maduro rose to become a trade unio ...

's administration to abandon the security policy, but kept the same dynamic in a different security force, the Special Armed Forces (FAES). According to Luis Izquiel, specialist in citizen security, the FAES resulted the "same or worse" in human rights violations. The FAES have been accused of being a political instrument of Nicolás Maduro, as well as being a death squad and of repressing the opposition.FAES, de fuerza élite a “grupo de exterminio”.
Publicado el 4 de marzo de 2018. Consultado el 13 de febrero de 2019.Faes, el brazo más oscuro de la represión del régimen de Maduro.
Publicado el 3 de febrero de 2019. Consultado el 13 de febrero de 2019. Between May and November 2017, of the 403 that security forces participated in the Caracas Metropolitan Area, 124 (31%) were attributed to the FAES, which at the same time were responsible for 62% of the killings caused by the National Police. The group has been accused by

PROVEA The ''Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights'' or PROVEA ( es, Programa Venezolano de Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos) is one of the most prominent Venezuelan human rights organizations. According to the United Nations Human R ...

, a Venezuelan human rights group, of having killed more than 100 people in low-income neighborhoods in the six months leading up to January 2019 during the

protests in Venezuela Various protests occurred against governments in Venezuela in the twentieth century. History Juan Vicente Gómez dictatorship After the surrender of the German Empire, the Caracas population celebrated in the streets the end of World War I on ...

. On 5 July 2019 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, released a report presenting evidence of the murder of at least 6,800 Venezuelans from January 2018 to May 2019 by various security forces including the FAES. The report included documentation of instances of torture, including waterboarding and electric shocks. The regime deemed it as "biased". Bachelet included among her report's recommendations to disband the FAES and open an independent investigation of their actions. Few days after the report was published, Nicolás Maduro appeared publicly with FAES officers, praising them. Although Maduro's administration alleged that the report was plagued with "falsehoods", it has worked along Bachelet's Office. On a September 2020 update of the human rights situation of Venezuela, Bachelet stressed FAES' actions again and informed that according to the Public Ministry, seventy FAES officers had been indicted in several states.

Equipment

* Beretta Px4 *

Beretta M92 The Beretta 92 (also Beretta 96 and Beretta 98) is a series of semi-automatic pistols designed and manufactured by Beretta of Italy. The Beretta 92 was designed in 1975, and production began in 1976. Many variants in several different calibers c ...

* Glock 17 * Heckler & Koch MP5 * AK-103 * AR-15 * M4 Carbine

References

{{reflist Crisis in Venezuela Police tactical units Political repression in Venezuela Secret police