Soaring murder rates in Venezuela

[sabbat hunter]

From the July 19th issue of The Economist.

http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11750858&CFID=14704316&CFTOKEN=13894931

ONE of Hugo Chávez’s lesser-known feats since taking over as Venezuela’s leader in 1999 is to have presided over a tripling of the annual homicide rate—and that’s according to the official statistics. Last year more than 13,000 people were killed in a country of 27m, producing a murder rate of 48 per 100,000, the second highest in the world (after El Salvador).....



Many homicides never get into the official statistics. They include those killed while supposedly “resisting arrest”. Yet in exchanges of fire between police and alleged criminals, 39 suspects are killed for every policeman, suggesting not much “resistance” is taking place. Another large (and growing) group of suspicious deaths excluded from the official data are those that have not yet been categorised—and probably never will be—though most are likely to result from murder. And then there are the jail murders. Every year, two in every 100 prisoners (more than one a day) are killed, but they are left out of the statistics, too.

Caracas is currently the second most dangerous city in the Americas (after San Salvador). Even by the official figures, the murder rate is 130 per 100,000; Mr Cedeño says the true figure is a staggering 166. One reason, he argues, is impunity. On average, only three of every 100 murderers are actually sentenced, he points out. Another is a presidential discourse that emphasises class warfare and has sometimes excused crime as a response to social inequality.....

So much for the paradise of Venezuela. If things are so great there why are people killing each other at record rates? Why has the murder rate tripled since Chavez took over?

[comtec]

1. because the stats are being reported now?

just a thought, but maybe it's because the police are doing their job, and a more accurate picture is forming?

[sabbat hunter]

3. They have stats

going back before Chavez.

[LanternWaste]

We have stats on rape and assaults prior to 1964

We have stats on rape and assaults prior to 1964-- but the increase in both after '64 leads one to believe one of two things-- better record keeping and system more receptive to victims OR 1964 was a magical year in which rape and assaults simply increased by a large margin with no causative event.

[texasleo]

2. Chavez is garbage.

[burythehatchet]

15. Sometimes just a couple of words betray the completely moronic nature of a poster

[Greyhound]

23. Good point. n/t

[Pastiche423]

38. No

Great point!

[marmar]

4. Yeah, the murder rate is ALL Chavez's fault.....F**king please.

:eyes:

[sabbat hunter]

5. no it isn't all his fault

But a lot of it is, because the rate has consistently gone up since he took office he is doing something wrong and everything isn't all fine and dandy in Venezuela like people here think. Crime is rampant, murder rates skyrocketing. If everything was such a paradise there, these things would not be happening.

[Greyhound]

27. Nobody said it was a paradise, just getting better than it was.

The restructuring of their society that is taking place is bound to create conflicts. Don't forget that the ruling class has had their own "security" forces, to keep the rabble out, for decades. So, they have a situation where there are 3 major players all with differing agendas, the government, the people, and the ruling class, so it's no surprise that there is some measure of chaos.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Well, if it's all Hugo's fault, the people will probably vote him out.

They could take an example from Happyland where the people have elected a mass murderer twice and the legislators, though they have the power to do so, have refused to remove him from office.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

44. Only if they find out.

Which, given his control over the Venezuelan media, is unlikely.

[brook]

7. Statistics are interesting

frequently and easily manipulated to support an agenda.

In the early 60's, Venezuela was so dangerous that
our home was surrounded by walls with jagged glass embedded along the top as a deterrent. Every section of the interior of the house was locked off from the other- to slow down an intruder.Homicide, rape and kidnapping were common enough that our husbands and fathers manned armed patrols in our area at night. American companies offered "danger pay" as an incentive to work there.

Violence is not new there.

[wvbygod]

8. Nothing to see here

The goalpost will catch up with the politics soon.

[madokie]

9. I vote never will that goal post stop

If it is true then I would ask someone look into what our cia special ops is doing. Its them, not Chavaz I worry about.

[JNelson6563]

10. I wonder

If Chavez would get wiht the program, sell his country's natural resources out to corporate interests as well as all the other demands of the IMF, would this stuff stop?

Damn that asshole for not selling his people to eternal servitude to the corporate giants of the world. Because of that we have to keep coming up with new ways to stir up unrest and coup attempts. That bastard!

Julie--marveling at how many DUers swallow corporate media pap

[sabbat hunter]

11. I am not talking about him selling out his national interests

I am talking about him actually doing something that helps his people. Crime goes up when people are less well off, this holds true in a leftist or rightist state (look at El Salvador, a country ruled by a right wing party, where the poor are living in horrid conditions, they are the only country with a higher murder rate than Venezuela)


If the people in a country aren't doing well economically, they often turn to crime, including murder.


So this isn't a matter of Chavez selling out, it is a matter of if his policies are actually lifting people out of poverty. Crime statistics are a good indication that they aren't.

[EFerrari]

13. If you view those statistics in a vacuum.

But if you take into account that the United States continues its effort at destabilizing Venezuela both directly and by proxy via Colombia, the stats begin to make sense.

USAID has been funding student violence that, coincidentally, the opposition can then point to as evidence that Chavez is soft on crime. Sound familiar? (I think the same group has been or is being kicked out of Peru for pulling the same stuff there.) And of course there's the Colombian paramilitaries that were busted,iirc, in safehouses in Caracas.

Crime is a problem in Venezuela and the United States wants to make sure it stays that way. This piece in the Economist reads as if it were written by (or for) the oligarchs who oppose Chavez because it seems to have all their talking points without considering the reality on the ground at all. Interesting.

/typo

[sabbat hunter]

14. We aren't talking about

student violence, this crime originates in the slums of Caracas. Similar violence happens in San Salvador, a country that out current government backs to the fullest (it is a right wing government).


A commonality between the two is rampant poverty.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Crime sometimes increases after things get BETTER

For example, AFTER the Civil Rights bill passed in the U.S.or after the end of apartheid in South Africa.

There are two reasons for it: One is that the cops no longer feel free to conduct on-the-spot "executions." The other is that the listing of previous restrictions or privations gives people hope, but things don't change fast enough.

[sabbat hunter]

19. Chavez

has been in power since 1999. A fairly long time, yet murder rates are still thru the roof.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. And South Africa has been free of apartheid for longer than that

and murder rates are still thru the roof.

[sabbat hunter]

56. and poverty

in South Africa is still rampant.

[EFerrari]

17. There is no distinction in the stats, is there?

Now, El Salvador much more closely fits the picture you paint. There is no concern for the people there and the country's owners have to live in cages and go about with armed guards to protect themselves from the poor. El Salvador lags behind all the other countries in the region on the human development index (or did,, in 2005) whereas indicators for Venezuela like food security just steadity improve. There is no real comparison.

Food security, all by itself, is being threatened in Latin America just as it is here. The Andean aligned counties have gone to local strategies where El Salvador and Colombia are still taking a global strategy that dovetails with BushCo economics. Pobre El Salvador y Colombia.

Here, fyi, is a report that documents the lowering poverty rate in Venezuela along with a long list of misrepresentations in the American press. It's hosted at the Venezuela government site but was done by the Center for Economic Policy and Research.

http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/ceprpov.htm

[INDIA]

37. Pfew! THANK GOD you found a way to blame Evil Amerika!!

That was a close one huh? I mean really, is there anything bad happening in the world that isn't our fault? WE SUCK!!

[EFerrari]

39. Is it blame if it's true?

And, yes, we have sucked in Latin America and we still suck today. :hi:

[INDIA]

42. The United States is not responsible for Venezuela's murder rate. Nice try though. Really. n/t

[EFerrari]

43. You're refuting something I did not say. Nice try though, really!

:)

[INDIA]

46. Ummm...are we reading the same post #13? That's exactly what you said.

And it's patently absurd. You have a very twisted worldview.

[EFerrari]

48. And you seem to know very little either about your own government

or about Latin America.

And no, I pointed out an influence and a goal, not a cause. Venezuela does have a problem as I've said in other posts on this thread. :hi:

[JNelson6563]

31. There are other reasons for crime.

Just as there is more than one reason for uprisings.

Julie

[anonymous171]

12. It's all the capitalists' fault!

Chavez is too busy yelling at Bush to care about his people. Not that yelling at Bush isn't a good thing to do, but sometimes there are more important things to do (like improve the conditions in your own country.)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. Weird article.

Sort of suggesting not enough cops are being killed.

[EFerrari]

21. Hit piece. They also don't mention all the stuff that has been tried

like gun control and aerial patrolling of the cities and even putting armed guys on public transportation. Venezuela does have a problem but this article doesn't seem very interested in drilling down to what it might be.

[sabbat hunter]

24. Venezuela

is actually one of the leaders in gun control, but apparently the murders are not gun related. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita


They are not among the top 31 countries with murders by guns (south africa followed by Columbia). Which means the people committing murder are using other weapons.

The high rates in crime and murder in other countries once again points to a continuing issue with poverty.

[EFerrari]

26. There is still work to be done in relieving poverty, no question there.

[benEzra]

28. The fact that they have draconian gun control doesn't mean the murderers aren't using guns.

It just means it is difficult or impossible to *legally* own a gun there. The criminals probably have all the guns they want.

We have very, very strict cannabis and heroin control in the USA, but pot and heroin are still easier to get than prescription foot powder. Alcohol was very easy to get during alcohol prohibition here, too.

[sabbat hunter]

32. no but the fact that

they are not in the top 30 countries in murders per capita by guns does mean that the murders aren't using guns.

[benEzra]

33. Only if the authorities report homicide data by type of weapon to the relevant international

keepers of such statistics.

Otherwise, they are just unclassified homicides, but would not be included in gun death stats because the numbers reflecting gun involvement would be indeterminate.

I'm not saying that's definitely the case, merely pointing out that your position is an argument from silence. It is also possible that the increases in murder are too recent to be included in most international statistical compilations, as these often lag several years behind real time.

[devilgrrl]

20. That settles it. We need to invade and kill them all!!!!!

[iamthebandfanman]

25. lol

and steal all their oil! muwahaha!!!

15 cent gas here we come! youll be up to 4$ in no time!

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

29. I think we should pay MORE attention to the mounting problems we have here in the USA.

Then, when and IF we get our own house in order, we may actually be able to offer PRODUCTIVE assistance to others.

However, we have so damn much house cleaning to do, HERE, that it's going to be decades before we can offer any wisdom to smaller DEMOCRATIC nations around this great globe.

[roody]

30. How about a DU meetup in Venezuela?

Thanksgiving or Cmas works for me.

[Redstone]

34. Oh, you're in Big Trouble, posting something negative about Saint Hugo.

Redstone

[sabbat hunter]

35. Yes I know

How dare I do anything of the sort!

[EFerrari]

40. The same post could be made about Gavin Newsom

because we have a horrible homicide rate.

Except neither Chavez nor Newsom can individually, magicially change that homicide rate.

[killbotfactory]

36. The murder rate has been high for years now

the problem kind of predates Hugo.

[sabbat hunter]

51. The murder rate

Has tripled under Hugo. Which means an already high murder rate, exploded.

[Marr]

41. The Economist? Are you kidding me?

Are you seriously posting an article from a fucking big business magazine to bolster your argument against Chavez?

That's like arguing against evolution with an article from Fundamentalist Nut-job Monthly.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

45. No, The Economist is a reputable publication.

I don't like its editorial slant, but its journalistic standards are relatively high. It can be relied on to put a negative slant on articles about Chavez, but it almost certainly won't just make things up.

Its data presentation sucks, but that's another matter...

[Marr]

47. They're not reputable on this subject, I'm sorry.

I must disagree.

[sabbat hunter]

52. Proof or links

That the article is wrong?

[Marr]

54. I don't bother anymore.

I just assume things like this are the usual bullshit astroturf. I know that's something of a cop-out, but it's just where I ended up after researching and countering about 40 similar anti-Chavez stories, only to see them re-posted by the same people one week later.

[sabbat hunter]

55. So in other words

no you don't have any proof that the article is wrong.

[sabbat hunter]

50. The economist

Is not a "big business" magazine. It is quite fair in its reporting, its editorial board which does slant to the right, leaves its writers alone, which is the way it should be.

[UTUSN]

49. "My dear O.P." (to appropriate from a great DUer), you are one brave, BRAVE soul!1 n/t

[sabbat hunter]

53. Thank you! :) n/t