The ability of dominant elites to exploit crises and configure them in ways appropriate to their narrow interests is a capitalist staple. The economic crisis was articulated as a stock market crisis meriting a massive transfer of wealth to the financial class. Equally when the elites refer to the safety and security of a country what they really mean is safety and security for investors. Describing the humanitarian crisis in Palestine recently Barack Obama bemoaned the fact that Palestinians were unable ‘to create businesses and engage in trade’. With this in mind it is interesting to observe the current western elite media disquiet regarding crime in Venezuela.
In recent years there has been a torrent of articles, features and programmes on soaring levels of crime in the country. Venezuela is in a state of ‘‘societal breakdown in which impunity is widespread’ and violence is ‘rampant’. The reportage peaked in late 2008 after a study by Foreign Policy magazine hailed Caracas the murder capital of the world. Shortly afterwards Channel 4 broadcast a programme entitled ‘Venezuela: Cult of the Thugs’ exploring ‘a crime wave the police seem unable to contain’. Since then coverage has continued at a steady pace.
In contrast to the reporting on crime in the west, which tends to find explanation in either a delinquent culture or delinquent genes, the crime wave in Venezuela has been blamed on the Venezuelan government. The New York Times quickly latched on to the story of crime in Venezuela as a political scandal back in 2006 when they cited “crime analysts” who blamed the high rates of crime on the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s “politicization” of the police force—anyone thought to disagree with Chávez’s “militaristic attempt” to reconfigure society along “vague socialist ideals” is “marginalized”—they argued. More recently Reuters argued that the problem was not so much the criminals, but rather the “government’s inaction and lack of policies”.
Crime is high in Venezuela. According to the 2008 Latinobarometro report, Venezuelans saying they have been a victim of crime has veered between 43-53% of the population over the last 10 years. It is understandably therefore a major concern for Venezuelans. According to the same report 57% of respondents say that crime is the biggest problem the country faces. The Research Institute of Citizen Security and Coexistence (INCOSEC) estimates that the average murder rate (measured per 100,000 of the population) was 49 in 2009 (compared to an average of about 1.59 in England and Wales). However this, alone, tells us very little regarding the western media’s sudden interest in crime in Venezuela.
We have at least two sizable reasons to be suspicious of the media in this regard. To begin with the crime wave described in Venezuela is actually all over Latin America. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Latin America has the highest level of youth homicide of all regions in the world, with El Salvador and Puerto Rico singled out for special mention. Why isn’t there similar vituperation about these countries? In neighbouring Colombia an average of 12 people a day have been killed or disappeared in conflict related violence since 2002. Furthermore a significant proportion of these killings have been shared between the Colombian army and the paramilitary groups closely allied to them. The second reason to be suspicious is that while crime is high in Venezuela, it has been high for a very long time. Why the deluge of articles now? Why not ten, fifteen, twenty or even thirty years ago? Why aren’t the former presidencies of Rafael Caldera, Jaime Lusinchi or Luis Herrera Capins also tarnished by criminally high crime rates?
The media’s selectivity on this issue is partially explicable in the context of a much broader campaign to delegitimise Chávez. In the US in particular, media interest in Venezuela is commensurate with the level of importance of Venezuela to US elites. Not only is Venezuela situated in the US’s backyard, but it is also one of the world’s largest exporters of oil. However Chávez has been a thorn in the side of the US government ever since he openly criticised the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. When a country, particularly one of such strategic importance, forgets to read the script of its master, it can expect to be on the receiving end of some media mud-slinging. On this interpretation crime is simply another opportunity to slander the Venezuelan president along with charges of authoritarianism, incompetence and demagoguery.
The trouble with this analysis is that it mirrors the media’s preoccupation with Chávez. Another consideration to take into account is the degree to which western correspondents are reliant on Venezuelan elites (with whom they have close political, economic and cultural affinity) in order to gather stories, opinion and analysis. Recognising this encourages us to consider more substantial changes within Venezuelan society, which may have triggered a corresponding shift in the western media’s reporting of the country.
One reason why crime in Venezuela has not been reported widely before is that a large portion of the crimes have historically been carried out by the State. In the years preceding Chávez’s election, human rights organisations were reporting a “massive number of arbitrary detentions produced through raids and security operations”, as well as “the persistence of extra-judicial executions by the police forces.” The report was referring explicitly to the presidency of Rafael Caldera, but was by no means an exception. In the 1980s the infamous Cantaura and Yumare massacres (1982 and 1986 respectively) were ultimately eclipsed by the Caracazo in 1989 in which as many as 3000 people were killed after the army was sent in to crush a popular protest.
This period of extrajudicial killings, massacres and police violence is what “the dominant stream of scholarship”1 describes as a period of stability in which Venezuela “developed into a model democracy for the hemisphere”2. The scholarship is referring to a period, between 1958 to 1998, when “democracy” was safely contained within a power sharing arrangement between the two main political parties (Acción Democrática and COPEI) known as Puntofijismo. This arrangement represented a centre right consensus that systematically excluded third parties and independents. In particular there was no place in this arrangement for a party representing the broad interests of Venezuela’s poor majority. It was natural under these circumstances that the state would resort to violence and murder to maintain the status quo.
The era of Puntofijismo finally came to an end with the election of Chávez, as an independent, in 1998. Chávez’s arrival represented something far more significant however. It represented the birth of a genuinely democratic process, signaling the integration of Venezuela’s poor majority into the political realm. The response from the Venezuelan elite has been one of untrammelled panic. In just the first four years of Chávez’s presidency (1999-2003) over $35 billion (more than 5% of Venezuela’s GDP) left the Venezuelan economy in capital flight.3 The exception to this trend, the economist Javier Santiso notes, came in the days immediately following an attempted coup in April 2002 which saw Chávez briefly replaced with the leader of Venezuela’s business sector lobby group:
After the attempted coup d’etat the response of the markets approached euphoria. This coup was interpreted as an attempt to throw out a leader who was not very friendly to the market. Liquid stocks traded on the Caracas Exchange reached record levels, and the index grew by nearly 1,000 points in a single trading session when it appeared that Chávez had been deposed. When in the following days it became apparent that the coup had failed, the index fell again. The spreads, too, reflected this enthusiasm, dropping nearly 200 basis points, in order to adjust to the rise the market would experience as soon as Chavez return to power was made known.4
With this response, Santiso continues, “well off Venezuelans cast a no-confidence vote” of Venezuela’s democracy.5 It is only with the continued organisation and commitment of the Venezuelan poor—including the popular protests that returned him to power following the coup—that has enabled Chávez to last as long as he has.
The terms of Venezuela’s displaced governing pact should be perfectly familiar to us in the west. In the words of the respected conservative political commentator George Will “the question we settle in an election is not whether elites shall rule, but which elite shall rule.” Will was expressing a sentiment that goes as far back as Plato and was neatly summed up by Sir Henry Ireton when ‘democracy’ was first proposed in Britain during the Putney Debates in 1647. Arguing against the extension of the franchise, Ireton declared “no person has a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom, and in determining […] what laws we shall be ruled by […] that has not a permanent fixed interest [i.e. property].”6
Genuine ‘democratic politics’ such as has taken place in Venezuela ‘happens very little or rarely’ argues the political philosopher Jacques Rancière.7 Rancière uses the term ‘police’ to describe the apparatus by which elites maintain their rule and ward off the threat of democracy. By ‘police’ Rancière does not simply mean uniformed officers, but a whole array of institutional ‘procedures, organization of powers, distributions of places and roles, and the systems for legitimizing this distribution’.8 In short the ensemble of institutions and networks that ensure everyone knows their place and the system runs smoothly. Rancière’s rather idiosyncratic terminology at least serves to convey the message. ‘Democratic politics’ fundamentally disrupts the order. If people suddenly come to forget or refuse to accept their allotted place this would be perceived by powerful interests as a break down in the social order; a break down in law and order come to that. It is within this context that the reportage of crime in Venezuela needs to be interpreted. It is significant that Ireton did not justify his opposition to democracy in terms of his narrow material interests. What he feared was that democracy would quickly descend into “anarchy”. If the establishment of the ‘police’ represents the institutionalization of Ireton’s sentiments, then the elite media’s reaction to the unleashing of democratic forces in Venezuela represents the expression of Ireton’s fears writ large; and it doesn’t take a very close reading of media reports to demonstrate this.
In The New York Times article cited at the beginning of this piece, Chávez’s role in aggravating crime is explained by the opposition presidential candidate Manuel Rosales in more detail. “Chávez nourishes the anarchic forces that are tearing Venezuela apart with a discourse advocating aggression on all fronts”. The anarchic theme is repeated in another article from The New York Times. “This is what anarchy looks like” one Venezuelan onlooker is quoted as saying, “at least the type of anarchy where the family of Chávez accumulates wealth and power as the rest of us fear for our lives”. The Washington Post also quotes “prominent opposition politicians” who said that Chávez contributed to the problem with rhetoric that “accentuates class warfare”. The British press has been similarly damning. Sticking to the more liberal end of the political spectrum, The Guardian cited unnamed critics who claimed that Chávez’s “denunciations of inequality and ‘squealing oligarchs’ [have] encouraged youths to ease their poverty the fast way”. The South African daily, The Mail and Guardian, provided perhaps the most fitting summation of all. “Crime has long bedevilled Venezuelans [but] there’s a new element to the danger now—class tensions incited by Chávez himself.” Chávez “didn’t invent the class tension” the article continues “he just gave it a flag and made it a political movement.”
Whether Chávez made the political movement or the political movement made Chávez is beside the point. What is clear is that the western media dare not elaborate further on the political movement lest they give it any more exposure; far better to reduce it to the machinations of one man and then demonise both. The reality is that, since Chávez came to power, crimes aggravated by “class tensions” (i.e. robbery) far from spiralling out of control have actually marginally decreased. However what the robbery rates don’t take into account is the magnitude of the crime. The western media understands that the Venezuelan state is the property of the Venezuelan elites but that it has been stolen in the course of a democratic process. Crime is indeed a major problem in Venezuela, mainly for Venezuela’s poor who make up the vast majority of its victims. This has not stopped wealthy Venezuelans and their patrons in the western media championing their cause in a wider and separate strategy to take back a country that they regard as rightfully their own.
Samuel Grove is an editor of www.alborada.net, a website covering politics, media and culture in Latin America. He is the associate producer of the feature-length documentary ‘Inside the Revolution: A Journey Into the Heart of Venezuela’ (Alborada Films, 2009). He is also is one of the founders of Level Ground, an organisation that challenges elite opinion and showcases alternatives (see www.levelground.info). He has published articles on global politics for magazines such as ‘Red Pepper’ in the UK and websites such as ‘Monthly Review Online’ and ‘Upside Down World’. He is a PhD student at Nottingham University in the UK.
Notes:
1 Myers, David J., ‘Venezuelan Politics in the Chavez Era: Class, Polarization, and Conflict (review)’ Latin American Politics & Society, Volume 46, Number 2, Summer 2004, pp. 187-192.
2 McCoy, Jennifer. ‘Chavez and the End of "Partyarchy" in Venezuela’ Journal of Democracy, Volume 10, Number 3, July 1999, pp. 64-77.
3 Javier Santiso, Latin America’s Political Economy of the Possible: Beyond Good Revolutionaries and Free Marketeers, MIT Press 2006, p.196.
4 Ibid, 195
5 Ibid, p.197.
6 Foot, P. The Vote: How It was Won and How It was Undermined, Penguin Books 2005, p.29
7 Ranciere, J. Disagreement (tr. Julie Rose), University of Minnesota Press 1995, p.17.
8 Ibid, p.28
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30 Comments on "Crocodile Tears?"
By junny B, on 18 August 2010 - 02:37 |
A well written and coherent article on a subject usually devoid of good reporting. nice.
By Dev, on 19 August 2010 - 20:54 |
Very well argued, empirical and convincing…
Good one.
By talos, on 20 August 2010 - 15:32 |
Great article, very useful amidst the MSM streams of antichavez hype.
Le Monde Diplomatique has also an article by Maurice Lemoin, on the same subject, also with insight and detail. Lemoin suggests that the spike in crime is in large parts imported from nearby Colombia, and hints at the possibility that it is a strategic attempt to undermine the Bolivarian republlic, by the US and the Colombian government using the paramilitary squads and the drug lord armies…
By MDFS, on 20 August 2010 - 21:18 |
Dear Samuel:
I understand the motives of your article and I share with you the suspicion over the foreign media and its reports on Venezuela. I am Venezuelan and also Marxist, I’m studying at SOAS and I’ve been living in England for at least 5 years.
Nevertheless, I have to disagree with your article. It is true that crime rates have been on the rise since the early 80s, we could blame the World Bank or the IMF for the shock therapy they applied and so on… The fact is that, according to my personal experience, Chavez introduced a new dynamic within the nation. Since most popular sectors are with him rather than against, there is an increasing sense that these sectors can do whatever they want, police has been tied up regarding the way the deal with crime in shanty towns, and there is an increasingly big tendency for criminals, drug dealers and criminals in general to be pro Chavez, to get involve in government rallies, and storm the city in motorbikes, screaming pro Chavez chants and robbing people at the same time. This has worsened the picture very, very bad.
I give an example. Before Chavez motorbikers weren’t allowed to use highways, that had a logical reason: first health and safety and second because with the biblical traffic jams that we had before (and now they are worse because the government authorised car loans that put another million of cars just in Caracas in two years) it was common sense that thieves would take advantage of that to steal everyone, while it was impossible to pursue them being stuck in a traffic jam. But the motorbikers lobby has grown in influence and has been perceived by the government as an important part of its political cadres, they simply lifted up all the major prohibitions that they have. Now they roar amongst our streets without helmets, in couples and in a very menacing way; threatening anyone who dares to say something against.
Another important point the government is finding increasingly difficult to cope with is the fact that poverty has been reduced substantially, but crime has gone up. So, from a left point of view, someone is lying; or the government hasn’t reduced poverty in such a numbers (so people remains in very alienating conditions in the shanty towns), or the opposition is exacerbating the numbers of death people. I am a graduated lawyer and I had to go to the morgue in Bello Monte because it was the HQ of the legal medicine department, so we have extended courses there and we were shown most of installations; that was in 2004-05. All the staff complained about three major things: 1) short staff, 2) lack of budget and 3) an overwhelming amount of bodies coming in after every single weekend. We are talking about an average of 40 every weekend by that time, unofficial statistics that were given to us as students, and bearing in mind that most of us were going to fill places in criminal courts and the like, in order to coordinate future efforts to bring to a halt this tragedy. Why official statistics are not produced to shut up the opposition regarding this theme? Well, probably because the government is the liar.
The other unavoidable thing is that kidnaps weren’t a modality 15 or 20 years ago, as you try to involve old governments in the comedy, this is very new, and has to do with the moving to Venezuela of criminal agents that don’t feel secure in Venezuela anymore. The Venezuelan government has an incredible openness towards Colombian citizens, regardless of their background or why they are coming to Venezuela. They have settled down and started profitable business in the country, in complicity with police and National Guards. The importation of new methods is therefore a consequence of this openness. I am not talking about guerrillas, but simply criminals that now can live in Venezuela without any fear of being deported or any kind of retaliation whatsoever.
This is different to say that Colombian paramilitary are being smuggle into the country as Talos says in his comment, this is bullocks.
If you want to have a first person experience of what is crime I can take you to Caracas and you will see with your own eyes what most of the left in Europe doesn’t want to see. Moreover, I bet that the day the official statistics are relief more than one will get stunt on the air completely shocked.
The government is highly inefficient and is about to be defeated soon or later in elections. Is a tragedy for the Latin American left and will thrown Venezuela on the jaws of the right. You can bet that.
Regards,
By Jamie, on 20 August 2010 - 21:49 |
Hi MDFS,
Sam (and others) can respond to your comment in more detail if they wish. I’ll just point out, though, that his piece is about the treatment of crime in Venezuela by the Western media. It doesn’t deny that crime is high in Venezuela - on the contrary, it explicitly acknowledges it - and even if everything in your comment were correct, I don’t think it would undermine the core of the piece (although it would, to be sure, undermine parts of it).
Another thing: it’s not really possible to deny that poverty rates have decreased dramatically under Chavez. Every serious observer recognises this, and it explains why - despite problems like high crime rates - the Chavez government has won so many popular referendums. For instance:
Finally: while I found your comment interesting, anecdotes are no substitute for data. If you have any documentation you could cite to support your claims, that would be very helpful.
By MDFS, on 20 August 2010 - 21:49 |
I meant in the fourth paragraph “they don’t feel secure in colombia anymore”
Also I am subscriber of Le Monde Diplomatique, So I am sparing Talos since is a thesis of Le Monde. Needless to say it doesn’t convince me their article…
By MDFS, on 20 August 2010 - 22:21 |
Dear Jamie:
Thank you very much for you comment. You touch a very sentitive point; it has been mainstream knowledge that while poverty is decreasing, crime should be going down as well. I particularly agree with Samuel in many things, mostly on the way that crime has been portrayed as an exclusive creation of Chavez government the last ten years, but as a Venezuelan I cannot be blind and not see what I have to face when I travel to the country (which I do twice a year). In the sense that you can have people having subsidies and new services, but the conditions of deprivation are so huge that if you go to a shanty town in Caracas (I am coming from the biggest one: Petare) you will not see big differences with what we have in 1994 (when I used to live in Petare).
I regret not being able to give you credible data; from where my dear Jamie? If there is no official data? I have either to cite Le monde, or the mainstream media inside and outside the country…
Also we are forgeting the alineation that the political scenario have caused in Venezuelan households. The country is deepluy divided between two irreconciliable political tendencies. What it used to be a bad joke in the queu to bet in the horse races have become a political crime; and you can be just shoot for expressing your political anxieties…
The last time I was in Venezuela in January this year, I had the feeling that after 10PM, there is an unofficial curfew on the streets; noone is out after 9PM, highways are empty in a city with almost three million of cars; and if you see a motorbike you speed up like mad…
Regards,
By Jamie, on 20 August 2010 - 23:15 |
Thanks MDFS. I’m not knowledgeable enough to comment further on the possible reasons for Venezuela’s high murder rate - if anyone reading is, feel free to jump in. This article seems quite useful, however - it points out that crime rates are high, and have been rising, across Latin America, not just in Venezuela, and also explores the gap between decreasing robbery rates (which are presumably related to decreasing poverty) and increasing murder rates. It also cites evidence that crimes rates as a whole have decreased in the Chavez era - while murder, hired murder and kidnapping have increased.
But when you say, for example, that “you will not see big differences” in Caracas slums now compared to the pre-Chavez era, implying that the situation for the poor hasn’t really improved, I must again refer to the data, such as that cited by CEPR, which suggests, for example, that under Chavez “malnutrition-related deaths have fallen by more than 50 percent”; “secondary [school] enrollment has risen ... from one-fifth to over one-third of the population”; “infant mortality has decreased by over one-third”; “[t]he percentage of households in extreme poverty fell by ... 72 percent decline”; and so on. That’s not to deny that extreme deprivation remains a problem, clearly. But whatever the explanation for increased murder rates is, it plainly isn’t increased poverty, since under Chavez poverty has been drastically reduced (which, as I say, is why the Venezuelan poor keep voting for him).
By MDFS, on 20 August 2010 - 23:27 |
Dear Jamie:
The only possible solution to this kind of controversies is more and more research; in situ when possible, to find out what is going on.
As you I live in England, so after five years out one can barely keep apace with developments. But this ans other issues should be encouraging enough to develop further research and get through this highly sensitive issues with reasons on our side…
Nevertheless the political situation have worsened beyond what I could expected 8 years ago (on the eve of the Coup and the oil strike).
That is why mainstream media have focused on chavez failures, because the mistakes made by oppositionist have been worse than anything else. But this pay a lip service to the general population. And the government lacks of critics, and the few they accept are strongly siding with them. In the sense that there is no real opposition and the few is not even looked at by the government. It’s very difficult to govern without the other version of the fairy tail…
Thanks for your comments, and I’m looking forward for more.
By Mark Crory, on 22 August 2010 - 08:26 |
Very well argued , mature and to the point.
By Samuel Grove, on 22 August 2010 - 12:23 |
Guys Im so sorry. When the article was originally published I was checking the site regularly for comments, but from the weekend, including Friday I work and have little time to check my internet. Unfortunately i also have to work today so have limited time to respond. However i wanted to get a response out as quickly as I could considering the delay so far. Fortunately Jamie has been doing a worthy job in my absence. Thanks for that mate. It does however make me a little confused about how I should approach a discussion half way through so to speak. I think it best to begin with Jamie’s clarification about what the piece was trying to do…
“Sam (and others) can respond to your comment in more detail if they wish. I’ll just point out, though, that his piece is about the treatment of crime in Venezuela by the Western media. It doesn’t deny that crime is high in Venezuela - on the contrary, it explicitly acknowledges it - and even if everything in your comment were correct, I don’t think it would undermine the core of the piece (although it would, to be sure, undermine parts of it).”
As Jamie points out, I wasn’t arguing that there isn’t a crisis of crime in Venezuela. There is. It is a longterm crisis which began long before Chavez and extends way beyond the Venezuelan frontiers.
What I wanted to concentrate on was the particularly narrow and partial ways in which this crisis was being framed in the press. I began the piece by introducing the way elites in a broad sense can reconfigure crises in their own interests. Essentially I was arguing that when they refer to Venezuela being out of control what they really mean is that it is out of their control
This can manifest itself in quite concrete ways. For example I think the elites were less bothered by crime when they had access to certain means of control and violence (state crime essentially) at their disposal. I mentioned the Cantaura, Yumare and Caracazo massacres as examples—but in fact the police going into shanty towns and shooting the place up was not uncommon. With this in mind let us turn to your first substantive point
”The fact is that, according to my personal experience, Chavez introduced a new dynamic within the nation. Since most popular sectors are with him rather than against, there is an increasing sense that these sectors can do whatever they want, police has been tied up regarding the way the deal with crime in shanty towns”
Tied up is certainly one way of putting it. No longer allowed to commit mass state sanctioned murder—is another. How concerned the elites were, both within Venezuela and abroad, can be estimated with one of Chomsky’s historical experiments. It is estimated that as many as 3000 people died during the Caracazo. Approximately the same number as Tiananmen Square. One is a world famous event that drew the ire from the world’s media and statesmen, the other is barely known about—including (I can say anecdotally) among Venezuelans.
The rest of your points I believe, though certainly relevant, did not concern the central argument, but rather quibbles or disagreements with particular facts or emphases. So i will turn to these now:
“[T]here is an increasingly big tendency for criminals, drug dealers and criminals in general to be pro Chavez, to get involve in government rallies, and storm the city in motorbikes, screaming pro Chavez chants and robbing people at the same time.”
I cannot speak about this particular type of robbery, but I refer you back to the evidence in the main article that shows that robbery rates have fallen [albeit marginally]
You neatly fastened on to your disagreement regarding crime, the other bone of contention in the article: poverty reduction…
“Another important point the government is finding increasingly difficult to cope with is the fact that poverty has been reduced substantially, but crime has gone up. So, from a left point of view, someone is lying; or the government hasn’t reduced poverty in such a numbers (so people remains in very alienating conditions in the shanty towns), or the opposition is exacerbating the numbers of death people.”
I won’t repeat the links that Jamie provided. I would add tho that data from the CEPR is respectable and reliable. When you write that “the conditions of deprivation are so huge that if you go to a shanty town in Caracas you will not see big differences” you can appreciate the difficulty of how to interpret this. That apart from the data that suggests the opposite—what do you mean by “big differences”? There is a tendency in the West to measure development in the so called 2nd and 3rd world through making crazy comparisons with advanced industrial societies. Caracas will not transform into Monte Carlo over night (would it want to?). What we have seen are important and tangible advancements for Venezuela’s poor.
I do think you are wrong to assert a linear relation between crime and poverty. Life is not that simple. A lot of the crime is unfortunately rooted in the communities in criminal gangs etc. I don’t subscribe to the “culture of criminality” argument, crime is closely related to socio-economic circumstances, but there is at the very least some drag in the transformative effects of socio-economic conditions. Therefore there is no evidence of government lying in my opinion. However you repeat the charge of prevarication here…
“We are talking about an average of 40 every weekend by that time, unofficial statistics that were given to us as students, and bearing in mind that most of us were going to fill places in criminal courts and the like, in order to coordinate future efforts to bring to a halt this tragedy. Why official statistics are not produced to shut up the opposition regarding this theme? Well, probably because the government is the liar.”
Equally I don’t think the government’s non responsiveness to unofficial statistics is evidence that the government is lying. It isn’t even evidence that the ”unofficial” data is true.
“That is why mainstream media have focused on chavez failures, because the mistakes made by oppositionist have been worse than anything else. But this pay a lip service to the general population. And the government lacks of critics, and the few they accept are strongly siding with them. In the sense that there is no real opposition and the few is not even looked at by the government. It’s very difficult to govern without the other version of the fairy tail”
I didn’t write about the Venezuelan press. However the idea that the media in Venezuela is bombarding the population with a “fairy tale” narrative, is i think extremely difficult to maintain. There is a broader issue here which is to do with the democratisation of the Venezuelan media, which I do not have time to discuss now.
I am sorry about the rushed nature of the comments. I am already late now. Talos—I will respond to your comments as soon as I can.
By Samuel Grove, on 23 August 2010 - 10:40 |
@Talos
very interesting article. i have no idea whether the allegations are true, but the evidence is suggestive and it is certainly not unplausible. thanks for sending it.
By Samuel Grove, on 23 August 2010 - 10:42 |
implausible jeez…...
By mdfs, on 23 August 2010 - 13:44 |
@ Samuel
I have no time to write in depth now; I will try to comment later on on some of your points. Nevertheless, it seems superficial for me you argument that ‘government’s non responsiveness to unofficial statistics is evidence that the government is lying. It isn’t even evidence that the ”unofficial” data is true’.
I would like to see what would you have to say if Scotalnd Yard or the Metropolitan police would not release concise data on crime for one year; and whether you would argue that isn’t a way for the governemt to ‘cover up’ something.
There is no official data since 2002 at least, they don’t even let the journalist to go to count the bodies that every single weekend make the coroner’s office collapse. Recently two daily newspapers have been penalised for showing shocking pictures of the morgue in the frontpages.
You other argument about extra-judicial killings by police being something of the past; well, it’s going on ‘as usual’ my friend, so when you say that now government doesn’t allow things like that to happen, this can be in Oliver’s movies or in proChavez documentaries; a different tale is going on on the streets. You can check for the students of the USM (Universidad Santa Maria) massacred in a shanty town 6 years ago, and just now sentenced…
Another of your poor arguments is about better conditions and so on… Yes they have a GP now in the shanty town, with a Cuban medic; now, go to a hospital (don’t mention the Military Hospital); they are as collapsed as 15 years ago. No medics, no medicines and people rotting on the floors waiting to be attended, while the government invests millions in the GPs, hospitals are falling apart. So if you don’t have anything that bad, yes, you can go to your Cuban GP, but if you need surgery good luck my friend; well they will send you to Cuba if you are lucky enough to contact the president by twitter… Ah! I almost forgot, they now have cable cars in San Agustin, so they don’t need to climb the stairs up anymore…
But I don’t disagree with you in everything, I side with you on the disregard the elite could have before for crime, since they were protected by the security state organs, something they don’t have anymore, so they live now the same tragedy the rest of us have lived for more than 25 years…
By Jamie, on 23 August 2010 - 16:02 |
MDFS: just to repeat, your comments would be far more useful if you cited some evidence to support them. This might not easy re: crime stats, but it should be possible to at least try and substantiate the other claims you’re making.
For instance, again in this comment you dismiss the advances made in the past decade in public healthcare. This just isn’t credible. Again, from the CEPR paper: over the past 10 years “infant mortality has decreased by over one-third”; “child mortality has fallen by over one-third”; and “postneonatal mortality has been cut by more than half”. Moreover there has been “a large expansion in access to medical care”:
If you want to criticise Chavez policies credibly, then you have to be able to acknowledge the remarkable successes that have been achieved, and not dismiss them as if they hardly amount to anything. And again, where possible please substantiate your claims - otherwise the discussion degenerates into competing assertions.
By mdfs, on 23 August 2010 - 17:14 |
Dear Jamie:
I am not arguing here whether there have been improvements on health, or whether social expenditure has double during Chavez administration. But the report you are citing does not contradict my previous comment. All the aforementioned services is what I have just shortlisted as GPs; your report does not mention any improvement on medical care beyond the preventive sector. So my comment about hospitals pass you test.
The fact is that one thing is to say there is an increasing security crisis in the country and the government is not doing enough, and another one much different is to say that there is a crisis but government is not guilty since is improving health care and social expenditure.
I am not an oppositionist as most people would think; moreover I’m coming from a radical left background; but unfortunately the process in Venezuela is stuck and is degenerating in stratification.
There is a brutal economic crisis going on and what the government says is that we are not that bad because inflation is under 24% (!!!). Have you ever thought about living in a country which inflation rate is above 20%? It doesn’t matter how much you raise the salaries, and that include all the people working in missions for the government, the inflation is felt strongly by the poor regardless of GPs and MERCALs… In any case I know the article is not about the economic situation and I acknowledge this last comment as purely illustrative.
There should be an acknowledgment that the lack of official statistics is suspicious to say the less, rather than saying that just because un-official statistics of crime are coming from the private media they are not credible whatsoever…
Samuel says there is a tendency in the west to measure development in the so called 2nd and 3rd world through making crazy comparisons with advance industrial societies. Well I study development and one thing is to measure ‘happiness’ and another one is material economic growth. And also I’m not from London, but from Petare Caracas Venezuela, so I’m not part of crazy western comparisons…
But in any case if criticism of the article makes the blog a bit soaring for some I would kindly say sorry and go back to the real world…
Regards,
By John Sullivan, on 23 August 2010 - 17:41 |
This article is a nice counter to some of the frankly delirious anti-Chavez/democracy stuff that’s floating around these days.
There is yet more cobblers in the NYT today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/americas/23venez.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
By mdfs, on 23 August 2010 - 17:56 |
Another thing:
I just have gone through the CICPC web page (criminal police), you can find Las Lineas de Chavez (for those that don’t know what is that, is the weekly article written by the president, and ultimately the only information you can find everywhere in the government web pages) and also an advertisement to save energy. But as I said there is no even mention to the word statistics!!!
here the link:
http://www.cicpc.gov.ve/
Now check the webpage of the London Metropolitan police and see what is the fthird thing you will see on the banner of the left hand side:
http://www.met.police.uk/
Obviously, a crazy comparison between the developed world and the developing one; doesn’t it Samuel?
By Jamie, on 23 August 2010 - 19:07 |
mdfs: “All the aforementioned services is what I have just shortlisted as GPs”
Emergency rooms are usually located in hospitals, not GP surgeries, to my knowledge.In any case, I’ve already cited evidence of the massive health impacts Chavez’s policies have had - a more than halving of postneonatal mortality, etc. That’s a massive, remarkable improvement, whether or not it was achieved by improving hospitals (though I doubt it would have been possible without doing so, which rather undermines your assertions).
“So my comment about hospitals pass you test.”
No, it doesn’t, because you still haven’t bothered to provide evidence to substantiate your claims. This is quickly becoming tedious.
The rest of your comment isn’t really relevant to mine, so I’ll let others answer it if they wish. I’ll just note that you again make claims without offering any evidence to support them, e.g. “Venezuela is stuck and is degenerating in stratification” (if by this you mean that class inequalities are increasing, the opposite is true - see the CEPR paper), and “inflation is felt strongly by the poor” (no doubt, and the CEPR report identifies inflation a serious - albeit resolveable - threat to sustainable development, but it’s important, surely, to note that consumption has increased).
“if criticism of the article makes the blog a bit soaring for some I would kindly say sorry and go back to the real world”
No need to apologise - criticism is not only permissable but welcomed. I would only request, again, that where possible you cite evidence to support your claims. That allows for a more productive debate to take place.
By MDFS, on 23 August 2010 - 20:19 |
Dear Jamie:
Please find in this link the only possible evidence available regarding criminality in Venezuela; the report has been done by the Centre for Peace and Human Rights of the UCV (Universidad Central de Venezuela).
Please comment about whether you trust the source and what your impressions are regarding what it shows (it is in spanish though, but since they are mostly tables I don´t think they would represent serious difficulties for anyone in the blog).
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCoQFjAC&url=http://www.accesoalajusticia.org/documentos/getbindata.php?dcfid=137&ei=GdRyTNb7Ccq6jAeggeX6CA&usg=AFQjCNHtajwC7OPfapVLVtzxr-BwyF2_qA&sig2=EM5sf2Ky3sXAz0GjCjyKJg
By Samuel Grove, on 23 August 2010 - 21:14 |
Dear mdfs
there seems to be some confusion
my very general criticism of “crazy comparisons with the west” did not concern the publication of statistics on government websites. It concerned the issue of poverty alleviation, health outcomes etc.
With regards to the crime stats—i was taking issue with your anecdotal evidence (“unofficial statistics we were given as students”). I don’t think anyone denies that crime is a big problem—not even the government who are almost certainly, as you say, trying to contain the public relations disaster surrounding it. I cannot comment on whether there is an actual government cover up on this issue. Although i do know that reliable information can be found from the Universidad Central de Venezuela if you are interested. Failing that you could just take a look at the study i linked to in the article.
By Samuel Grove, on 23 August 2010 - 23:12 |
oh you got there first
damn moderating system
By Jamie, on 23 August 2010 - 23:43 |
Thanks for the link MDFS - I’ll have a look at it tomorrow. As Sam says, UCV data is generally seen as reliable (something I have no reason to question). But like I say, I don’t pretend to know anything about Venezuelan crime rates - I was more challenging your dismissal of the massive social and economic improvements that have been achieved under the Chavez government.
By mdfs, on 24 August 2010 - 09:51 |
Good Samuel, now we are understanding to each other…
My comments were not meant to deligitimate your article regarding media treatment; someone post a horrible article from NYT here, they speak about 200 deaths per 100,000 based on claims of a sociologist that appeared in a CNN interview with the director of Telesur laughing like an idiot… Although in Caracas according to the report I have posted is around 130 per 100,000, and the rate of the rest of the country is much smaller but following a rising pattern.
If you check the peaks in the graph (14) you can see a direct link between political events and rising violence. A pick from 1988 to 1989 (Caracazo), 1991 to 1994 aprox. (two failed coup attemps and rising turmoil during CAP period). The a steady reversal from 1994 to 1998, a period of relatively political calm during Caldera’s period, and then from 1998 onwards we went back to the levels of 1994 and supassed them. Please note that Chavez’ period have been tainted by ongoing political violence and class rhetoric, and it is very well reflected on the Graph (note that I’m talking about Caracas). For some it will be hard to admitt that Chavez has fuelled the violence phenomenon, and I particularly blame him for his dividing rhetoric…
Ahhh and by the way, I would recommend to cease with the moderating system and leave the conversation to flow on the blog. I’m a bit alergic to any kind of control of opinions…
Regards,
By Samuel Grove, on 24 August 2010 - 12:41 |
“If you check the peaks in the graph (14) you can see a direct link between political events and rising violence… Please note that Chavez’ period have been tainted by ongoing political violence and class rhetoric, and it is very well reflected on the Graph”
Im not sure we do understand each other : ). It is always important to remember that correlation is very different from causation
If the statistics were being bumped by hordes of poor vigilante groups invading the rich districts of Caracas, massacring well off venezuelans while chanting presidential slogans—i might be more sympathetic to your argument. In fact there is evidence that the reverse is true. That rich Venezuelans are hiring armed gangs to attack and kill peasants in revenge for government led land reforms.
However it would be just as inaccurate to suggest that the statistics are being spiked by rich in this regard. I don’t think anyone is disputing that the poor are bearing the brunt of the violence. This makes sense as they are also the most vulnerable
Two things that need to be remembered.
1) The rise in crime shown in the graph is reflected across Latin America. Let us just take Colombia as an example. The Colombian Commission of Jurists estimates that at 14,028 people have been killed between mid-2002 and mid-2008. This does not include the 2.4 million people that CODHES estimates were displaced since 2002. Although It may well include thousands of civilians falsely presented as guerillas.
The American so called “war on drugs” is failing (if we are to assume that its aims are genuine) and neighbouring countries are are undoubtedly suffering
2) In respect to Venezuela I think you are right when you said “police has been tied up regarding the way the deal with crime in shanty towns”. The government have taken a cautious approach to policing the poorer areas in Caracas. Considering the history of police violence and murder (that continues to bedevil law enforcement albeit on the thinner end of the wedge) this is very understandable. However it helps explain the rise in the murder rate as well as the dip in state sanctioned murder. Reform of the police force takes a long time. There was a really good programme on the BBC World Service awhile back (which I suspect is no longer available) on the initiatives to reform the police (so <http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/3159”>these</a> pieces will have to do).
If you are indeed a Marxist you should be particularly sensitive to popular and crude depictions of the mob.
I fear however that contempt for the mob is a prosaism you share. I also fear that this debate is fast becoming circular. With this in mind I’ll sign off with this extract from A Road to Wigan Pier
“Sometimes I look at a Socialist—-the intellectual, tract-writing type of Socialist, with his pullover, his fuzzy hair, and his Marxian quotation—-and wonder what the devil his motive really is. It is often difficult to believe that it is a love of anybody, especially of the working class, from whom he is of all people the furthest removed. The underlying motive of many Socialists, I believe, is simply a hypertrophied sense of order. The present state of affairs offends them not because it causes misery, still less because it makes freedom impossible, but because it is untidy; what they desire, basically, is to reduce the world to something resembling a chessboard… The truth is that, to many people calling themselves Socialists, revolution does not mean a movement of the masses with which they hope to associate themselves; it means a set of reforms which ‘we’, the clever ones, are going to impose upon ‘them’, the Lower Orders.”
By mdfs, on 24 August 2010 - 13:58 |
My dear Samuel:
Although you have thrown the towel in advance, expecting from me a long manifesto regarding your last entry, I will answer to your paragraphs and then assume the debate is over.
I said that we were barely understanding each other because you admitted, although grudgingly, that the government is ‘trying to contain the public disaster surrounding it.’ And it’s true, correlation is very different to causation; but correlation does not eliminate any causal link but sets a primary link between aleatory facts.
I guess your third paragraph, which I find strikingly divorce from the main body of debate, is because I said Chavez has fuelled the country with a dividing rhetoric and successfully gained from it. What you seem not very willing to admit is that statistics SHOW a spike in violence from 1998 onwards; I particularly stressed myself when I said that violence was dependant on political turmoil, regardless of where the violence is coming from. When I spoke about motorbikers in my first comment, it was not to decry population as mobs; it was simply to recall that sectors that were marginalised in the past have successfully gain notoriety during Chavez’ period, some of them in a good way, some of them in not a good way whatsoever (you can see the behaviour of Lina Ron and her acolites for example). But it is true because I have seen it, how these motorbikers mobilise around the city during election times for example, intimidating voters and occasioning unrest most of the time. It does not minimize opposition actions like the guarimbas and the oil strike that pulled down the country in 2003; it just shows that political violence has rooted in the country.
Of course the brunt of the violence is borne by the poorer sector of the society in first place, with the consequent spillover on the rest of the population that so much scandalise now the private media.
Now, regarding Colombia I cannot but simply agree with you (not grudgingly by the way), but I find in your example a very lax argument. We both know that Colombia is in a state of civil war for some 60 years, something I have written in extenso in Spanish and have caused me to be called ‘bloody Marxist’ ‘pro farc’ and the like. So in this sense you could compare Venezuela with any other country that is not submerged in such a dynamic; and although I have no data, it would be interesting to compare how criminality rates have behave the last ten years and see if is a really continental trend.
Your second comment about police being tied up, I didn’t mean extra-judicial executions, I meant the way in which ordre public was addressed before. Nevertheless, you should have a look to the graph in page 19 of the report to see by yourself that your claim is inexact. You can observe a rising pattern between 2000 and 2003; it declines in 2005 and 2006, just to go up in 2007, very well ahead of pre 90s levels… I imply from the last part of your comment that you certainly agree that this is not the best way of improving security, for if murders and sentenced cases go down it means the program is a failure. I know that police reform takes a long time; but it would be useful if the central government would take a coordination approach, rather than taking away arms and supplies from regional police bodies, intervene some of them and create a national police just to centralise something that had shown better results when local authorities have control over it.
I regret that you prefer to stigmatise me rather than immerse yourself in the statistics and discus why there have been an increase in crime rates the last ten years. But as you insist with the qualifying mob adjective, I would prefer to side with Marx’s concept of Lumpenproletariat, to define somehow out of control factions within the Chavez’ revolution.
Lastly, thank you very much for your remark on Orwell’s novel, which I think it applies masterfully to some socialists in this country, entrenched in universities and intellectual circles, but unable to grasp one centimetre of the real politik out there in White Hall. It’s very easy to be pro Chavez thousands of kilometres away, in the safeness of London, and on top of that to say that crime is, as the Venezuelan National Attorney put it recently, a ‘Sensation of insecurity’.
Many thanks
By Samuel Grove, on 24 August 2010 - 17:04 |
I think the Venezuelan National Attorney put it quite well
thanks for your input
By Samuel Grove, on 24 August 2010 - 17:27 |
If you go on to the NUSO website they have lots of data on rising crime in Latin America
http://www.nuso.org
For a summary this opinion piece by the Joseph Tulchin ties a lot of it together quite well.
By mdfs, on 24 August 2010 - 18:19 |
Of course she put it quite well!!!
I guess she is another victim of the lack of statistics in the web page of the CICPC, and particularly a beneficiary of having at least 6 body guards making sure she does not suffer of weird sensations…
By Michael Onile-Ere, on 04 September 2010 - 14:56 |
Nice article…well put together. Keep ‘em coming.