Six thousand executed in Venezuela
By Teodoro Petkoff* | Tal Cual
02.09.05 | * Translated by Miguel Octavio | I try not to translate Petkoff’s Editorials two days in a row, but today’s is about a topic that I have brought up in my blog and it continues to horrify me. Sometimes, I am surprised that posts like this one, receive few comments. This is the reality of the poor in Venezuela today. This is the reality of the law in Venezuela today. While we can argue about theoretical concepts day in and day out, it is the higher responsibility of a Government to stop things like these from happening. But little or nothing is being done about it, to the point that you have to wonder whether it is a State policy. In fact, in an earlier article I showed how this has increased since Chávez got to power. Why?
Six thousand executed
by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual
Six thousand one hundred and twenty seven Venezuelans (6.127) have been executed in “strange circumstances”, in the well known confrontations, in the hands of the police corps in the last five years. The information comes from an official source: The Directorship of fundamental rights of the Public Ministry, a position in charge of Alis Boscan, who gave out the numbers in a press release.
Nobody is saved in that report. State polices lead in this ranking of violations of life, followed by the CICPC (like FBI), municipal polices, National Guard, Intelligence police and even, institutions not identified. By location, the metropolitan area, leads with 1,466 cases under investigation. The period covered by the official communiqué goes from January 2000 to July 31 2005. Days, weeks, months and years of the “process”, when the best Constitution of the world which guarantees “the irrevocable, indivisible, interdependent enjoyment and exercise of human rights”.
The Prosecutor’s office determined that six thousand cops were involved in the five thousand plus cases denounced. Of that total 1,315 were charged, 517 accused and only 88 sentenced. A disproportionate balance in relation to the number of victims and the number of cops linked to them. It is not in the official statistics the recent case of Barrio Kennedy, where more than twenty police officers are being singled out for the death in cold blood of the young students from Santa Maria University.
These data is horrifying and shivering.
In a reasonable serious country this revelation by the Prosecutor’s office would produce a political crisis, removal of authorities (Ministers and Directors of Police Forces) and an intervention by public powers that like the National Assembly should not be subject to the demands of the Miraflores Palace.
For example, instead of having an extraordinary session to listen to Reverend Jackson, they should declare themselves in a permanent emergency session to request, demand would be the correct word, the appearance of those responsible so that they explain to the country and to the Deputies, what are they doing for the security of the “sovereign people”.
Instead, they prepared that show of anti imperialistic trial, to judge and sentence , on the same day, with apparent efficiency, an inexistent prisoner like George W. Bush.
They govern with their back towards reality, against common sense, manipulating popular interests.
Of those six thousand plus victims, it is almost guaranteed that they are largely from the “people”, from the populous barrios that are in fact being denied justice.
Only 88 cops have been sentenced of more than six thousand charged.
They have nobody to blame in this case. These are five years perfectly documented that give a balance of what the security policies of the process have been. Jesse Chacon, who wore a bullet proof vest to patrol, should realize the scandalous failure of his plans. The report of the Prosecutors office, on the contrary, appears to point out that the biggest cause of insecurity is generated within the police forces, of all types and in all of the states of the country.
Homeland, yes, and lots of death! (A play on the revolutionary slogan: Patria o muerte!, Homeland or death!)
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