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TalCual: Venezuela A Safe Nation? What we are seeing now in Venezuela already failed before and will again. Murders are not exclusive work from violent criminals, but from police-military forces, and even though the Attorney Generals Office does something about it, death has no remedy at all. By TalCual No mercy on criminals! was the motto from the first mayor of Caracas metropolitan area that, unfortunately, most Venezuelans feel identified with, those who believe crime can be put an end to through blood and firepower, no matter whether human rights are being violated. It is true that personal insecurity was already a serious issue before Hugo Chávez came in power, but the criminal underworld has become so much powerful over the past 14 years. The apathy and irresponsibility with which the Venezuelan government has handled the situation explains that criminal boom. It has carried out, or at least has announced, more than 20 public safety plans and the remedy seems worse than the disease judging by the outcome. When madurismo took office, the issue was brought back to the table as the Patria Segura public safety plan kicked off, involving the nations armed forces, despite warnings from experts on the subject that its members are not ready for such task. We are now suffering the consequences. Criminal rates are still at an all-time high. There is no way to change this reality, no matter if the minister of the interior tries to prove this wrong with some made-up statistics. But if we all were terrified at crime before, now people feel the same way when they have to go through a security checkpoint from the National Guard (GN), because some facts are demonstrating already that these officers could care less whether they shoot first and find out who they gunned down afterwards. The most emblematic case happened in Coro, in the northwestern state of Falcón, where a mother and one of her daughters were brutally slain by GN officers , who mistook the car in which they were traveling for one allegedly used by criminals. Rather than finding out who were riding the car, they decided to put about 50 bullet holes in it and murdered these two innocent people. If those who died in that incident had been people with a criminal background, a good part of the public opinion would have praised the move. People who reason like that do not realize that something like this could happen to them, too. Subsequent events confirm what we are assuring. On July 13, one young man was murdered in Petare (a slum in Caracas) for disregarding a stop warning at a GN checkpoint. One of the officers there was put under arrest due to that dramatic event. But these are not isolated cases. As reported by local newspaper El Universal, in two separate events from July 14-15, four young people were murdered in Caracas for not obeying a stop warning. In Las Adjuntas (another slum in Caracas), the responsible for these deaths were Policaracas (the capital police force) officers, while those who made the shots on Avenida Morán in the west side of the city were CICPC, Venezuelas scientific police. It takes serious plans to fighting against crime. Short, mid and long-term action plans. It takes police officers, judges and prosecutors who are honest and committed to justice. It takes prisons that are not universities of crime or places from which criminal activities can be run. Reducing insecurity does not depend on media operations attempting to deceive the unwitting and much less on actions that emulate the same methods that proved to have failed all these years. What we are seeing now in Venezuela already failed before and will again. Murders are not exclusive work from violent criminals, but from police-military forces, and even though the Attorney Generals Office does something about it, death has no remedy at all. |