VENEZUELA:
Not Even Funerals Safe
from Flying Bullets
By
Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, (IPS) -
At the wake of Yeison
Mendoza, a 25-year-old
construction worker shot
dead in Petare, a poor
neighbourhood on the
eastside of the
Venezuelan capital,
prayers, tears and
flowers set the
atmosphere until hooded
gunmen on motorcycles
fired a hail of bullets
into the Zambrano
funeral parlour, killing
three people and
wounding another five.
Yeison’s friends had
sworn to avenge him, but
their rivals in the "Los
Picachú" gang beat them
to it that Sunday. "Both
gangs are responsible
for their own victims,"
Antonio Zambrano,
director of the funeral
home, told IPS. He
regretted that violence
should intrude on "this
space of meditation,
mourning and family
togetherness."
Sometimes, gang members
"hijack" the funeral
cars en route to the
cemetery, to take the
deceased to visit places
they had frequented
together, such as their
favourite gaming salon,
bar or brothel. "We have
to deal with this every
day," Carlos Estévez, at
the El Cristo funeral
home in Catia, in the
west of Caracas, told
IPS.
"Because of the lack of
safety, we close at 10
p.m., and we come to an
arrangement with the
mourners’ friends when
they want to make
detours en route, in
order to reach the
cemetery in time for the
burial," he said.
One day, Erick was
passing a bakery on the
central Albañales street
when he saw Manuel "Carlitos"
Díaz inside, whom he
blamed for his brother’s
murder two years
earlier. He fetched his
friend "El Nani" and,
from a motorbike, they
fired at the shop,
killing Díaz, an elderly
woman and a teenage
girl.
"The number of drive-by
shootings has increased
so far this year. If
there are accounts to
settle with someone, the
criminals turn up at the
party, the bakery, the
street or the funeral
parlour where the wanted
person happens to be,
and fire
indiscriminately on
everyone present,"
security analyst Marcos
Tarre told IPS.
Another day in August,
three security vans
transporting valuables
were attacked on the
highway at Maracaibo, a
city in the northwest,
at El Vigía, to the
southwest, and at
Charavalle, east of
Caracas. In Charavalle,
the attackers killed two
members of the National
Guard who were escorting
the van on motorcycle.
"We find that crime is
evenly spread throughout
society. It extends from
the boldest criminals
who are at the top of
the pyramid, who rob
banks and armoured vans
with long-barrelled
weapons and acetylene
torches, to those who
engage in petty theft or
‘express’ kidnappings,"
Tarre said.
On Aug. 27, in the Ribas
de Petare district, four
burglars, one of whom
was a woman, beat Ana
Leal to death in her
humble home. Aged 77,
and a devout Catholic
who prayed constantly
against violence in the
neighbourhood, she had
already had items like a
blender and a length of
pipe stolen in previous
robberies.
"There’s been an
increase in needless,
furious violence, like
an explosion of hatred
and rage. Two months ago
a young man was riddled
with 62 bullets, and a
taxi driver was killed
with 40 shots," Tarre
said. "This indicates
how easy it is to obtain
weapons and ammunition.
Murders committed with
revolvers and one or two
bullets are a thing of
the past."
A record 12,257 murders
were committed last year
in Venezuela, which has
a population of 27.5
million, compared to
9,964 in 2005 and less
than 5,000 a decade ago,
according to police
statistics. But there
were also 1,192 deaths
of suspects who
allegedly "resisted
authority" and a further
4,165 deaths in police
custody that are under
investigation, making a
grand total of 17,614
lives lost to violence
in 2006.
Taking into account the
12,257 murders so
classified by the
police, the homicide
rate in 2006 was 45 per
100,000 population, but
when the other violent
deaths are included it
rises to 65 per 100,000
-- much higher than the
rates in war-torn
Colombia (38 per
100,000) and Brazil (22
per 100,000), and one of
the highest per capita
murder rates in the
world.
Tarre also remarked that
teenagers and very young
people are caught up in
the spiral of violence,
either as victims or
perpetrators.
Although it is not a new
phenomenon, criminal
violence has replaced
unemployment as
Venezuelans’ most
pressing concern, as the
economy has improved,
according to public
opinion polls. The small
but numerous social
protests that take place
every day, usually
involving road blocks,
are mainly against
insecurity and the
housing shortage.
These expressions of
discontent transcend the
sharp political
polarisation that has
divided Venezuelan
society for the last
decade. On Aug. 17,
residents of 27 sectors
of Los Jardines del
Valle, in southwest
Caracas, barricaded the
Pan-American highway for
more than three hours to
protest against
insecurity, led by
Evelyn Uzcanga, the
spokeswoman for the
neighbourhood mothers’
committee.
In a red beret and shirt
with the initials PSUV
(for the United
Socialist Party of
Venezuela which
President Hugo Chávez is
in the process of
creating), Uzcanga told
IPS that "what we are
demanding is the right
to life, because
criminal elements from
this and other
neighbourhoods hold up,
kidnap, and kill people,
and steal from them when
they go out to work."
Interior Minister Pedro
Carreño said that 176
people had been
kidnapped between
January and July 2007,
and hired killers have
murdered dozens of trade
unionists in the
construction industry,
where rival factions
fight to control the
allocation of jobs on
public and private
building sites.
A study commissioned by
Leopoldo López, the
mayor of Chacao, one of
the five subdivisions of
Caracas, found that
barely seven percent of
murders lead to
conviction and
sentencing of those
responsible. The rest go
unpunished.
Meanwhile, 30 severely
overcrowded prisons
house 19,500 inmates, 57
percent of whom are on
remand pending trial.
Violence is the way of
life here, too, and more
than 400 prisoners a
year are killed.
"The prisons reflect a
society which lacks the
political will to
eradicate violence,"
Humberto Prado, head of
the non-governmental
Venezuelan Prison
Observatory (OVP), told
IPS. |
