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LATIN AMERICA |
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No Signs of
Slowdown in Venezuela Murder Rate
By Jeremy Morgan
CARACAS -- Violent crime shows no signs of
abating in Venezuela's capital and may even
be getting worse, for all the government's
claims to be getting on top of thugs and
villains -- statements which it declines to
back up with official statistics on how
things are.
In the absence of statistics, unofficial
estimates have it that 65 people met violent
deaths here last weekend. That was more or
less par for the body count in recent times,
and in at least one instance it was a case
of a young innocent getting in the way in
the wrong place at the wrong time.
The child, whose name hasn't been disclosed,
perished in the middle of a shoot-out
between rival gangs in San Blas, a
brutalized area of Petare, a poor distrcit
in east Caracas long reknowned as unsafe
even in broad daylight. Residents gathered
to protest Monday but by then it was too
late.
Much the same could be said for Jairo Jose
Gil, although he managed to make it to 20
before he ran into a bunch of bandits as he
made his way home in his jeep last Saturday
night. Witnesses say three guys jumped into
the vehicle and demanded the BsF300 he was
carrying -- how they knew about that isn't
clear -- and when he denied them they shot
him three times in the face.
He and the child were just two of the 305
people who've ended up at the city morgue as
a result of violent means this month so far.
Already, there's speculation about whether
the figure for the full month is going to
hit 500.
A grandmother is giving grace and thanks to
He whom she calls the All Powerfull for
saving her grandson, not once but twice, in
his two short years. Six months ago, baby
Lunier Rodriguez, with the curiosity and
innocence of his age, took a swig out of a
bottle of detergent. He just about survived
that, but his throat was badly damaged and
he has to be fed through a pipe.
Last week, he was walking in La Florida, a
comfortable middle class district, with his
father (also called Lunier) when somebody or
other opened fire. Lunier Senior was slain
on the spot, his wife emerged unscathed, but
a bullet hit little Lunier Junior near the
eye.
The grandmother says that the doctor who
looked after the wee one told her that some
bones in his face had been broken by the
bullet. However, there was comfort to be had
from the doctor's advice that since Lunier
was still in the early stages of
development, the bones would reform and he'd
be OK.
Two young men were a lot less lucky. They
were ambushed two Saturdays ago and went
missing. One of them was the son of a
Metropolitan Police sergeant, who reported
the case to the Missing Persons bureau at
the scientific and investigative police,
CICPC. Evidently, he thought progress wasn't
swift enough and mobilized his colleagues to
carry out a search.
Eventually, they found the two lads, very
dead from bullet wounds, in a woodland off a
lonely track. The reckoning is that they
were killed on the same day they were
snatched, and that this may have been a case
of venegeance, which still doesn't really
explain why they were slaughtered.
The cops were in the firing line, too, and
not always in the defense of the state but
rather themselves. An officer from CICPC was
shot by a gang who were out to steal his
car. In Bolivar state, a municipal police
officer was attacked and killed by a gang
intent on stealing his gun.
Four people have been arrested in connection
with this case, and the chief suspect for
the actual killing is said to be a young
woman.
The cops, as ever, are under suspicion. An
officer from CICPC is being investigated by
his own colleagues to establish whether
there's a connection between him and the
killing of a young man who was shot dead in
his tracks as he left a discotheque with his
girlfriend. The officer is question is said
to be nicknamed Thor after the pagan god of
thunder, and detectives are also trying to
work out whether there was any connection
between him and the youth's girlfriend.
Buses also remain a favorite target of
attack. In Maracay, capital of Aragua state,
a 30-year-old student unwisely refused to
hand over his cellular telephone to a gang
who'd gotten on to the bus with the
objective of robbing everybody. Luis Avila
Barrios, 30, won't be making any more calls
after being buried with a large hole in his
chest.
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