Venezuelans protest rampant violence, some liken bloodshed to ‘undeclared war’

Venezuelans protest against unchecked violence

CARACAS, Venezuela — Opponents of President Hugo Chavez marched through Caracas on Saturday to protest rampant violence that claims thousands of lives each year in Venezuela and has been worsening in the past decade.

Protesters beat on drums and held signs with images of skulls and crossbones and slogans such as “Enough” and “No more deaths.”

Journalists estimated the crowd that marched through scattered rains at roughly 1,500. A hearse rolled past with a sign saying, “You could be next.”

Nurse Gladys Perez said she is flabbergasted by the steady stream of people with gunshot wounds who are brought to the emergency room at the hospital where she works.

“We’ve had up to 60 wounded people in a weekend,” said Perez, 55, adding that in her three decades as a nurse she has never seen so much bloodshed.

“There’s an undeclared war here. I don’t know what to call it,” she said.

Venezuela has one of Latin America’s highest murder rates. The government has not released complete annual statistics recently, but last year authorities said there were more than 12,000 homicides nationwide in the first 11 months of 2009.

The Venezuelan Violence Observatory, an organization dedicated to crime research, has estimated more than 16,000 homicides last year in the country of 28 million people — up from less than 6,000 in 1999 when Chavez took office.

Those figures would give Venezuela a homicide rate of 56 per 100,000 people in 2009 — far higher than the 14 per 100,000 rate last year in Mexico, which is beset by rising drug violence. But it’s lower than the rate in El Salvador, which is home to ruthless street gangs and recorded 71 homicides per 100,000 people in 2009.

A government study obtained by local media suggests the violence could be even worse. The survey was based on more than 16,000 interviews last year and estimated more than 21,000 homicides in the previous 12 months, as well as more than 26,000 kidnappings.

National Statistics Institute president Elias Eljuri confirmed that the agency was involved in the survey. But he said the results described in the document were preliminary and it was being analyzed by other agencies.

“It is not a definitive document,” Eljuri told The Associated Press.

In any case, the bullet-ridden bodies of victims fill the morgue in Caracas on weekends, and the vast majority of murder cases go unsolved. Many at Saturday’s protest said Chavez has failed to take significant action on crime in his more than 11 years in office.

Chavez dismissed that criticism in a televised speech.

“They want to attribute the violence to me,” Chavez said. “Violence is one of the visible and terrible effects of social injustice, of capitalism, of the model the bourgeoisie imposed on us.”

He said for one thing, violent TV shows, video games and toys have a damaging effect on children.

“That’s capitalism,” said Chavez, who says he aims to lead Venezuela toward socialism.

Chavez has accused opponents of playing politics with violence. In the past year, he has established a new national police force.

Some opposition candidates running for the National Assembly in Sept. 26 elections joined the protesters, marching behind trucks with music blaring from speakers and saying they back measures to crack down on gun violence.

Several protesters said they are particularly incensed about one of the latest victims: a 5-year-old girl slain by a stray bullet. Her family said she died during a shootout Thursday between criminals and National Guard troops, and her killing ran atop front pages of newspapers.

Perez said she has seven grandchildren, and “I worry about their future.”