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LATIN AMERICA |
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Venezuela Security Chief Robbed and Killed
By Jeremy Morgan
CARACAS – The murder of the chief of the
government's much-vaunted attempt to cut
violent crime in this capital – which
reputedly boasts one of the highest per
capita murder rates in the world – has
underlined the impunity of trigger happy
villains in this city and a society
seemingly inured to what at times looks like
non-stop slaughter on the streets.
National Guard Mayor Delio Amado Hernández
Da Costa, 36, was mowed down in a hail of
bullets last Saturday evening in Las Pastora,
a district of west Caracas that's long had a
grim reputation for gunslinging and gang
warfare. At the time, he was taking a a
break from supervising a crackdown on
criminals in Catia – a nearby district with,
if anything, an even more gruesome image
among local residents.
He is thought to have been ambushed by two
gunmen as he drove in a jeep after taking a
meal break in a local eatery. On being
stopped he was shot and mortally wounded.
The killers ran off with the vehicle and his
regulation firearm.
Two possible interpretations are being put
on the major's murder. One school of thought
has it that Hernández Da Costa was killed
because of who he was in an act of impunity
by local villains – a gesture of defiance in
the face of government claims to be getting
on top of the bad guys. The government's
continuing reluctance to issue regular crime
statistics does little to to back up those
claims.
Amid widespread skepticism and cynicism,
another hypothesis is also doing the rounds.
This is that he was no more than just
another victim of a crime wave with which
the government has yet even to start getting
to grips. This possible version of events is
deemed to gain weight from the theft of the
jeep, the fact that he was in uniform may
have persuaded the gunmen to shoot first and
ask questions afterwards.
The jeep was found in the early hours of
Sunday morning, way across town in the east
of Caracas, in another rough district called
La Urbina. By then, Hernández Da Costa had
expired in hospital.
On Monday, not far away from where the jeep
was found, bus drivers blocked traffic on a
highway at Palos Verdes in yet another
protest against the continuing violence.
Over 50 bus drivers have perished at the
hands of gunmen this year so far – making
their job not much less dangerous than being
a law enforcement officer.
The bus drivers demanded that Interior and
Justice Minister Tareck El Assaimi should
resign in the wake of the security chief's
death. Unofficial estimates suggest that the
murder rate in Caracas regularly tops 100
each weekend.
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