1/23/2015
By TalCual
TalCual: Venezuela’s Insecure Security
The bloodshed as a result of criminal actions does not cease in Venezuela. This year kicked off with the same violence registered at the closing of 2014. While this all happens, the current Minister of the Interior and Justice seems to be absent. She doesn’t even bother to mimic her predecessors and announces some new citizen security plan. Total silence, while bullets continue to wreak havoc.
The number of security plans implemented by the Venezuelan "revolution" over the past 15 years, whose results have proven a resounding failure, already exceeds two dozen. The latest, launched by former interior minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres, was about the country being divided in perimeters dubbed "quadrants" so law enforcement officers could act much more quickly, but all this didn’t do any good.
During the first 20 days of 2015, two massacres have been recorded. One at the Turmero cemetery in Aragua state, when a man with an extensive criminal record was being buried and two rival gangs happened to be in the place and started shooting at each other. This rivalry was settled with seven people dead.
The second affected the members of a criminal gang led by a man known as "Picure," who "enforces the law" in south Aragua and the north of Guárico and has more power than the governors of both states. The eight friends of "Picure" were shot dead by members of the scientific police force, or Cicpc.
According to the NGO Foundation for the Due Process, 338 police officers were killed in 2014, or 18% more than the previous year. As we wrote this editorial, 12 police officers have been killed so far this year in the so-called Greater Caracas area alone.
The morgue of the capital city had received 258 corpses until January 18, with the vast majority of them having been victims of the bullets of criminals. These figures corroborate once more that personal insecurity remains a major problem for the country, although its importance was diminished in the latest polls. Supply shortages are on top of the list now.
Perhaps this decline is the reason why Carmen Meléndez, the Minister of the Interior and Justice, has virtually disappeared. We haven’t heard much from her lately. All she did these days was announcing that consumers will be asked for their ID cards by the time they go buy some food, besides saying that all the people queuing up outside food and drug retailers were doing it because they felt like it.
She has given her view on the stability of the Government, but hasn’t said a word about the personal safety of the majority of Venezuelans. No plans or anything at all. Not even for pretending she is working on it. She doesn’t even make mention of the quadrants of Rodríguez Torres. It is possible that Meléndez will show up at the funeral service of the bodyguard of the Minister of Education, Héctor Rodriguez, who was murdered on Wednesday.
One being optimistic might think that the Minister doesn’t want to talk about the subject, though she is working on it, but the data being collected by the media refutes such optimism. The murders are joined by kidnappings, many of them not reported, as well as theft of different kinds.
The Presidential Commissioner for the Restructuring of the Police Forces, Freddy Bernal, announced the intervention of some police bodies and the arrest of several of their members for committing crimes, but it seems that he has no initiative to curb criminal actions.
In sum, what happens here is the result of the lack of interest from chavismo in tackling this problem as usual. At first, its members justified that criminal actions were caused by the extreme poverty in the country. They say they have significantly reduced the number of poor people, but insecurity becomes worse every single day. Meanwhile, crime continues to rule in Venezuela.
source
By TalCual
TalCual: Venezuela’s Insecure Security
The bloodshed as a result of criminal actions does not cease in Venezuela. This year kicked off with the same violence registered at the closing of 2014. While this all happens, the current Minister of the Interior and Justice seems to be absent. She doesn’t even bother to mimic her predecessors and announces some new citizen security plan. Total silence, while bullets continue to wreak havoc.
The number of security plans implemented by the Venezuelan "revolution" over the past 15 years, whose results have proven a resounding failure, already exceeds two dozen. The latest, launched by former interior minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres, was about the country being divided in perimeters dubbed "quadrants" so law enforcement officers could act much more quickly, but all this didn’t do any good.
During the first 20 days of 2015, two massacres have been recorded. One at the Turmero cemetery in Aragua state, when a man with an extensive criminal record was being buried and two rival gangs happened to be in the place and started shooting at each other. This rivalry was settled with seven people dead.The second affected the members of a criminal gang led by a man known as "Picure," who "enforces the law" in south Aragua and the north of Guárico and has more power than the governors of both states. The eight friends of "Picure" were shot dead by members of the scientific police force, or Cicpc.
According to the NGO Foundation for the Due Process, 338 police officers were killed in 2014, or 18% more than the previous year. As we wrote this editorial, 12 police officers have been killed so far this year in the so-called Greater Caracas area alone.
The morgue of the capital city had received 258 corpses until January 18, with the vast majority of them having been victims of the bullets of criminals. These figures corroborate once more that personal insecurity remains a major problem for the country, although its importance was diminished in the latest polls. Supply shortages are on top of the list now.
Perhaps this decline is the reason why Carmen Meléndez, the Minister of the Interior and Justice, has virtually disappeared. We haven’t heard much from her lately. All she did these days was announcing that consumers will be asked for their ID cards by the time they go buy some food, besides saying that all the people queuing up outside food and drug retailers were doing it because they felt like it.
She has given her view on the stability of the Government, but hasn’t said a word about the personal safety of the majority of Venezuelans. No plans or anything at all. Not even for pretending she is working on it. She doesn’t even make mention of the quadrants of Rodríguez Torres. It is possible that Meléndez will show up at the funeral service of the bodyguard of the Minister of Education, Héctor Rodriguez, who was murdered on Wednesday.
One being optimistic might think that the Minister doesn’t want to talk about the subject, though she is working on it, but the data being collected by the media refutes such optimism. The murders are joined by kidnappings, many of them not reported, as well as theft of different kinds.
The Presidential Commissioner for the Restructuring of the Police Forces, Freddy Bernal, announced the intervention of some police bodies and the arrest of several of their members for committing crimes, but it seems that he has no initiative to curb criminal actions.
In sum, what happens here is the result of the lack of interest from chavismo in tackling this problem as usual. At first, its members justified that criminal actions were caused by the extreme poverty in the country. They say they have significantly reduced the number of poor people, but insecurity becomes worse every single day. Meanwhile, crime continues to rule in Venezuela.
source
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