Latin American Herald Tribune Tuesday March 9, 2010

CARACAS – The number of homicides in Venezuela rose last year to 16,047, compared with 14,589 in 2008, according to a report by the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, or OW, which names impunity and corruption as the chief causes.

The document entitled “A Decade of Impunity in Venezuela (1998-2009),” sent to Efe on Monday, shows a total of 123,091 homicides during that period and statistics that reflect a constant rise since the 4,550 murders reported in 1998.

Impunity, according to the report, is the chief cause of the growing number of homicides since 1998, and says that even as the number of homicides increased, the number of arrests declined.

The analysis by the OW, directed by sociologist Roberto Briceño-Leon, a professor at the Central University of Venezuela, found that no one was ever arrested for 91 percent of the homicides that occurred in the country in 2009.

In 2007, 2008 and 2009, only nine suspects were arrested for every 100 homicides, compared with 58 in 1998, the study says, citing police files as its source.

Contributing to the violence was the large number of firearms owned by Venezuela’s roughly 28 million residents, estimated to be between 9-15 million, according to figures provided by the Incosec think-tank.

The corruption at the heart of police forces is another of the main factors, something acknowledged by Interior Minister Tarek el Aissami, who said last year that police and the military are involved in 20 percent of homicides.

Caracas has just experienced another bloody week, which ended with 41 homicides, according to unofficial figures, among whose victims was a member of the new PNB police force recently created by the government to deal with the widespread insecurity.

President Hugo Chavez announced the creation of the PNB in December with the goal of combating insecurity, the problem that all surveys say is citizens’ biggest worry.

Generalized violence affects all sectors of Venezuelan society, as shown by last week’s kidnapping of Finance Minister Jorge Giordani’s secretary by Caracas city cops.

Jaklin Arcia was kidnapped when she was driving to work by four men who demanded 190,000 bolivares ($45,000) to set her free.

The national police was informed by Arcia’s family, and at the time the ransom was delivered, managed to nab one of the criminals, who turned out to be a member of the capital’s Metropolitan Police and who acted with another three agents that managed to escape.

Several days ago, the director of the opposition Caracas daily 2001, Israel Marquez, was gunned down by car thieves. EFE