Venezuela, Where Capitalists are Criminals

How do Chavez and his Justice Minister, Tareck El Aissami, conclude that capitalists and capitalism are at the core of Venezuela's crime problem? That's the real mystery.

However, there are problems. The population of the country is 27 million. According to the article, in the first 11 months of 2009 there were 12,257 murders. At that rate the total for the year will hit 13,370.

Consider the following. The US population is 307 million, and this year the US will probably record about 16,000 homicides. Thus the US has 11 times the population of Venezuela, but almost the same number of murders. Most Americans are capitalists. Or at least the believe capitalism is a good thing. However, those who commit murder in the US are rarely capitalists. If they have an economic philosophy -- like drug dealers -- it is a philosophy that suggests they are monopolists. Not competitive capitalists. But brutal monopolists who believe in overwhelming force rather than product quality.

Chavez and his loony supporters are going down the path of monopolism. State monopolies. As always, they are or will become fat slobbering bureaucracies that accomplish nothing while operations languish.

It appears the justice minister is a muslim. That's another indication that incompetence will expand its hold on the machinery of government.

At this point oil accounts for about a third of Venezuelan GDP, about 90% of export earnings and about 50% of government revenue. The nation's dependence on oil will be its undoing as its government oil bureaucracy becomes less and less effective and nothing else in the Venezuelan economy emerges to offset the loss of oil revenue.

Venezuela's Chavez launches new police force

Sun Dec 20, 7:44 pm ET

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez launched a federal police force on Sunday that he hopes will change the overwhelmingly negative image most Venezuelans have of their public security forces while reducing crime in one of Latin America's most violent countries.

"We are going to defeat crime," Chavez told uniformed cadets belonging to the newly formed National Bolivarian Police Force during his weekly television and radio show. "We are tackling one of our population's most sensitive problems: crime prevention."

Chavez greeted and shook hands with the officers before they began patrolling in Catia, one of the most dangerous districts of Caracas.

The 950-agent force will initially operate in the capital's most crime-ridden neighborhoods, but the government plans to boost the number of officers to 6,000 and extend its reach beyond Caracas by the end of next year.

Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said the nascent police force would seek to reduce crime through preventative rather than repressive measures and embrace the socialist ideals of Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," a political movement named after 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar.

"The National Police will impose a culture of peace in the barrios to eliminate the violence of the capitalist, bourgeois model that we've inherited," El Aissami said.

Armed robbery, kidnapping and murder are widespread in this poverty-stricken South American country, and polls consistently show that most Venezuelans view violent crime as the nation's most pressing problem.

Police figures released by the Justice Ministry show there were 12,257 homicides nationwide in the first 11 months of 2009 — more than eight times higher than in Texas, which has roughly the same population as Venezuela.

Venezuelans are generally distrustful of the country's police. Many citizens were not surprised when El Aissami revealed earlier this month that police are involved in 15 to 20 percent of all crimes, particularly kidnapping and murder.

In its annual report released this month, the local Provea human rights groups said police were responsible for more than 200 slayings over the last year, including 55 people who died of excessive force or torture.

"You can't trust them because you don't know if they're honest or not," said Gabriela Silva, a 34-year-old street vendor.

Silva repeated a joke that some Caracas residents tell visitors: "If you get robbed, don't shout. The police might come."