What does the release of Iván Simonovis mean, the most symbolic «political prisoner» in Venezuela

Meanwhile, for almost the other half of the country, sympathetic to the opposition, the Simonovis case represents the «authoritarian», «repressive» and «corrupt» content that they see in the Chavista government.

And in this 2014 of economic crisis and massive protests against the government of Nicolás Maduro, the release of Simonovis, for which a humanitarian measure was requested given his serious state of health, has become one of the conditions of the opposition to that there be some kind of dialogue and cooperation between them and the government.

Ivan Simonovis was security commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Caracas (opposition) during the 2002 crisis that led to the brief overthrow of President Chávez and was considered responsible for the so-called Llaguno bridge massacre that occurred on April 11.

That day 19 people turned up when an unauthorized opposition march clashed with government supporters near the presidential palace. The event triggered a series of military pronouncements ignoring Chávez’s authority.

Two years later, in November 2004, Simonovis was arrested at the Maracaibo airport, Venezuela’s second largest city, at the door of the private plane in which he planned to travel abroad.

In 2006, the trial began along with other high-ranking chiefs and police officers.

After a process that defense lawyers criticized for exceeding the deadlines established by law, in 2009, Simonovis and the other defendants were sentenced for their responsibility for the Llaguno bridge events.

Simonovis, along with commissioners Henry Vivas and Lázaro Forero, was sentenced for «correspective complicity» to 30 years in prison for the death of two citizens, Erasmo Sánchez and Rudy Urbano Duque. No one has so far been prosecuted for the other 17 dead.

Forero and Vivas received the benefit of house by prison, the same that is granted to the ex-commissioner.

Simonovis’s lawyers warned before the trial began that his health was seriously deteriorating, and although the Prosecutor’s Office assured that his life was not in danger, the defense warned about the worsening of the ex-commissioner’s condition throughout his imprisonment .

Last year, the human rights organization Amnesty International advocated for the release of Simonovis, who, according to his doctors, suffers from 19 illnesses of varying severity.

This year the opposition put his release for humanitarian reasons in the first line of the conditions they discovered to sit down to talk with the government in the midst of protests that left 42 dead, 600 injured and more than 3,300 detainees, most of them already in prison. Liberty.

Of the 80 who remain behind bars according to the NGO Foro Penal, a group that monitors the cases, is the opposition politician Leopoldo López, who now becomes the great representative of what opponents call the «political prisoners of the regime.» .

Simonovis’ release comes when the country’s economy is in its worst condition in decades: inflation is over 60%, shortages are overflowing and the fiscal deficit is over 15%.

Although the dialogue table that was set up during the protests was suspended, comments that the government and some members of the opposition continue to negotiate «below the ropes» are becoming more frequent.

The dialogues in March were in the middle of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur).

And there are those who say that the recent visit to Caracas by the new secretary of the organization, the Colombian Ernesto Samper, was the reason for new meetings between the opposition and the government.

Faced with the economic crisis, the Maduro government has not made the adjustment that many say it should, such as raising the price of gasoline or devaluing the local currency.

But for Luis Vicente León, political analyst and president of the polling company Datanálisis, the humanitarian measure to Simonovis shows that there will be a «hidden change.»

«They raised the prices of some products without announcing a devaluation and have paid part of the debts to the private sector without making it public,» León told BBC Mundo.

«And now they release Simonovis without making a fuss, in the early hours of a Saturday,» he says.

«So, they are getting steam out of the pot without announcing it to avoid the reactions of the most radical,» he says, referring to the Chavistas who see the liberation and the definitions as concessions to the opposition and the private sector.

That is precisely the interpretation that the analyst Nicmer Evans gives to liberation.

«This shows that the proposals made at the dialogue tables have continued to be agenda items for the Maduro government,» the political scientist told BBC Mundo.

In recent months Maduro has suffered a sharp drop in the polls that measure his popularity.

«And that has caused him to give in,» says Evans.

«The victims of April 11, who argue in the name of the Constitution that crimes against humanity like this have no benefits, are the losers of this episode,» he says.

Evans recalls that Maduro said during the protests that the release of Simonovis «is not negotiable.»

And now this, says the analyst, «will cause the Chavista bases to demand more clarity.»