Crime has
become a very severe problem in Venezuela.
Last July I showed
some statistics prepared by Human Rights organization Provea, using official
Government data which showed an almost three fold increase in crime since
Chavez took over nationwide. The same statistics showed that some progress was
made on this issue in the mid 90’s. There is no single reason for this dramatic
increase in crime, but the Chavez administration has never made this an
important issue and up to a month ago, the autocrat himself would not even
mention the topic. Of course, the deterioration and politization of the
Venezuelan police has contributed dramatically to the problem, as the cleansing
of police forces of those not loyal to the process has removed many of the best
trained professionals in those forces. This has led not only to an increase in
crime, but the obvious involvement of police forces in criminal acts, as in the
recent Faddoul case, but also to a huge increase of a factor of FIVE in the
number of deaths caused by policemen during the same years.
The results are obviously tragic as more than 70,000 civilians have died in
criminal acts in the last seven years. This affects mostly the poor and the young,
which led last Saturday to a protest organized by a group of university
students to “lay down for life”. The protest by well-covered with
lots of pictures by Daniel,
so I will not go over the details, but it was a huge success and addressed a
very important problem for all Venezuelans. I complain a lot about the lack of
involvement by people in what is happening in Venezuela,
but participation was not only quite a success, but the picture below, shamelessly
stolen from Daniel’s blog, shows the level of commitment by some to demand the
respect of human rights in Venezuela.
The Devil's Excrement 
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