Caracas Murder Rate Hits 60 in One Weekend

[Bacchus4.0]

http://laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=339255


CARACAS – Unofficial estimates suggest that an already worryingly high crime rate in this capital lurched upwards last weekend, with the bodies of 60 or more murder victims turning up at the city morgue. The norm, for want of a better word, in more recent times has been about 40.

The unofficial body count is by no means a definitive means of measuring the kill rate in what is reckoned in per capital terms to be one of the most murderous cities on the planet. The government stopped issuing regular statistics several years ago – when, if anything, things were even worse – and Interior and Justice Minister Tarek El Assaimi is proving no less reticent than many of his predecessors.

Morgue officials are officially under instruction not to talk to the media, but the details keep on trickling out anyway. The gag order does little or nothing to stop the media going on about wrongdoing, as is their wont right around the world. And, in any case, there’s not exactly any shortage of fuel for the feeding frenzy here.

In what was an atypically public remark about violent crime from an official from President Hugo Chávez’s government, Public Defender Gabriela Ramírez on Monday described the problem as “disproportionate” – although whether or not that was a reference to conduct of the media wasn’t entirely clear.

[COLGATE4]

1. Well, you have to

destroy a country in order to save it.