Dear friends of VISUALPOLITIK, I’m sure I don’t have to do much to convince you
that Latin America is one of the most unsafe and volatile regions in the world.
Unfortunately, violence and crime have made some Latin American areas very dangerous.
As you may know, we’re talking about a region that has been strongly infested with drug
trafficking, arms trafficking and many other illegal activities, which have been executed
without the individual states having been able to – or let’s not fool ourselves,
wanting to, – fix the situation.
Even though it may be hard to understand, many criminal groups have built extremely
close links with governments and public institutions in the region.
In some cases, these groups are even able to influence, control and direct entire governments.
Here on VisualPolitik, we recently talked about the case of Central America.
But, there’s another volatile country that we can’t ignore and it’s one which has
shot to the lead in recent years and may yet become the most dangerous country on the planet:
I am, of course, talking about Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela.
[TEXT: Venezuela’s saving grace is its popular power.
And popular power must work fully and for all.]
This is not a new story.
We’ve already talked on this channel about how Venezuela is becoming a narco-dictatorship
at breakneck speed.
But, unfortunately, that’s not the worst of it.
In today's Venezuela, crime and organized crime are so much a part of the scenery that
if crime decreases, it’s not outlandish to conclude that there are simply fewer and
fewer things to steal.
(CHART)
Almost 30,000 fatalities each year in a country that’s not at war.
130,000 violent deaths in the last five years alone, according to released data.
That’s truly awful.
What’s strange is that, as you can see on the screen, both the known homicide rates
and the number of violent deaths began to decrease in 2017.
Strange considering that this country is worse than ever both economically and socially,
don't you think?
And I know, some of you may be thinking... it’s probably because of all the emigration
Venezuela has experienced recently.
More than four million people have left, hundreds and hundreds of thousands, millions of young
people have emigrated, which has to have an effect on the statistics.
[TEXT: Because those of us who’ve had to leave practically in exile, we want justice
to return to Venezuela and freedom.]
Well yes... and no.
It’s a truly grey area.
In this video we’re going to talk about the effects of crime in Venezuela.
We’re talking about institutionalized crime, which has largely been caused by the government
itself.
And we’re also going to talk about how crime has reached such high levels that it’s no
longer profitable for common criminals to commit crimes within Venezuela, causing many
to seek better opportunities outside.
Listen up.
(EVIL IN POWER)
First of all, we need to set the scene a little.
Let’s say we’re in a regular country, it’s not unusual for the government to fight
crime and focus resources on persecuting the bad, right?
Well, in Venezuela it’s not like that.
Here we find the opposite: the bad guys govern.
Take a look.
(AUDIO: Tareck El Aissami: United States includes Venezuelan Minister in the 10 most wanted
list for international narcotraffic.
- BBC)
(AUDIO: Spanish judge investigates half of Maduro’s government for money laundering
from oil.
- El Confidencial)
Surprised?
I bet you aren’t, especially if you’ve been following VisualPolitik for a while.
You’ve probably seen our video on how Venezuela has become a narco-state.
And in case you haven’t, I’ll leave the link in the description.
The truth is that there’s not much that can surprise us anymore from Venezuela.
Except for maybe one thing..:
How the Chavista regime has managed to monopolize street crime.
(AUDIO: Maduro calls for ideologically related groups to “defend peace”.
- El Universal)
Yes, that’s right.
The Venezuelan government has literally thousands of paid criminals.
Criminals who in many cases have been armed by the State itself to function as parapolitical
groups for political repression.
They’re known as “collectives”.
The collectives are groups that mobilize at the government’s request, especially when
the opposition protests.
Then they move around on motorcycles carrying long weapons and shooting at everything that
moves, with absolute impunity, while the police and the Bolivarian National Guard watch them
impassively.
In many cases, they even act together.
In other words, that’s how Venezuela’s violence has been controlled by the State,
not for the purpose of ending it, but to dominate and mobilize it against opposing citizens.
And no, that’s not the end of it.
In addition to the deadly collectives – which is how they’re popularly known – the actual
state security forces – well so-called security – act as true criminals.
To give you a better idea, according to the data provided by the UN, almost 7,000 people
lost their lives due to “resistance to authority” between January 2018 and May 2019, that is,
in just over a year there were 7,000 extrajudicial executions.
(AUDIO: Policemen and criminals share crimes together in Venezuela.
- La Razón)
(AUDIO: 464 policemen are prosecuted in Venezuela for extortion and kidnappings.
- El Comercio)
Basically, in Venezuela crime occurs at every level.
And that largely explains why it goes unpunished as well.
When the police themselves are often complicit... it isn’t good news.
(AUDIO: 92% of homicides in Venezuela go unpunished.
- El Nacional)
And we’re not just saying that on this channel.
Even Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, described the situation
in her report on Venezuela.
(AUDIO: “My office has continued to document possible extrajudicial execution cases committed
by members of the Special Police Forces, of the National Police (FAES).
Only last July the non-governmental organization “Victim Monitor” identified 57 new cases
of alleged executions committed by FAES members in Caracas” Michelle Bachelet)
And I don't think you can say, even though Nicolás Maduro often makes such claims, that
Bachelet is part of some international movement that is hell-bent on persecuting the Bolivarian
regime.
Given Bachelet’s leftist leanings, it’d be absurd to think so.
And considering Venezuela’s situation, the testimonies and information documented by
the UN seem to be on the conservative side, which isn’t all that surprising, by the
way.
[TEXT: And we have to go into a definitive battle in order to achieve peace in Venezuela.
For a national unification.
Let's get ready to defeat them.]
And still there’s more.
Along with the collectives, and the state security forces’ reprehensible actions,
the current situation in Venezuela has also multiplied the incidence of small-scale crimes.
Not to mention the widespread corruption that reigns throughout the country.
Nowadays in Venezuela, to get official documents, passports or even to get medical attention,
bribes are indispensable.
And this has two fundamental reasons:
On the one hand we have poverty and practically useless wages.
Hyperinflation has made local salaries grossly insufficient.
(AUDIO: The new minimum wage in Venezuela is only enough to buy an egg carton.
- VOA)
And therefore petty crime becomes almost natural, it's a matter of survival.
When in need, people take advantage and try to get any money they can, using the lack
of control and impunity in their favor.
Now, some of you may say… but Simon!
Didn't you say before that crimes are decreasing?
It doesn’t seem so with what you’ve just described, right?
Well, it may seem like a contradiction, but the truth is that yes, icrime overall is decreasing,
and we’re going to tell you why.
Listen up because we have some curve balls coming.
[The productive models we’ve tried so far have failed.
And the responsibility is ours, it's mine, it's yours.]
(WHY CRIME NO LONGER PAYS) Basically it’s Venezuela’s sad but crude
reality.
Things are so bad, that the crisis has even affected criminals, or “malandros” as
they’re known in Venezuela.
(AUDIO: Venezuela murder rate dips, partly due to migration: monitoring group.
- Reuters)
(AUDIO: Crisis in Venezuela reduces robberies and assaults; criminals no longer can afford
bullets.- El Universal)
Yup.
Think about it for a minute.
With a 200,000% inflation, which is what the IMF forecasts for this year, what use is it
to steal small things if the value of the money you’re going to get for them will
deteriorate almost overnight?
What use is it to break into a bank's safe if the bolivars inside are worthless?
Or what good is it to steal cars or motorcycles, if you won’t be able to get spare parts
or afford the gas to use them?
And if we add the emigration factor, well... the equation is solved.
Yes, it may seem surreal and hard to believe, but the disaster that Nicolás Maduro is leading
Venezuela into is causing thousands and thousands of criminals to look for new places to commit
crimes.
The result is that Venezuela is exporting its crime.
(AUDIO: Maduro boosts the exit of criminals from Venezuela.
Panam Post)
It’s true, Venezuela is so bad right now that not even criminals want to stay.
And do you know who the main victims of this phenomenon are?
Yes, okay, the citizens of the countries unfortunate to accept the criminals but, spare a thought
also for the other three million Venezuelans who’ve emigrated.
Here on VisualPolitik we can’t avoid discussing the effects that this phenomenon is having
on Venezuelan emigrants in the rest of Latin America.
Because leaving your country behind, your family, and on top of that everything you’ve
worked for is already traumatic enough, what if what comes next is even more so?
[TEXT: I didn’t want to leave my country, I’m Venezuelan, I love Venezuela]
(THE DIFFICULT CONDITION OF BEING VENEZUELAN IN LATIN AMERICA)
That's right, for many, being Venezuelan has become a challenge in some Latin American
countries.
Can you imagine what it’s like to have to endure constant racist or xenophobic comments?
Or suffer abuse from the authorities just because you come from a specific country?
Well, all this stems from Venezuelan criminals leaving for neighboring countries.
This is how the lives of many Venezuelan emigrants who do follow the rules – which is the vast
majority – are becoming more difficult because of the few.
And that causes situations like this:
(AUDIO: Red tape and xenophobic attacks against Venezuelans in Latin America.
- France 24)
In Peru, for example, we’ve recently seen even congressmen, such as Esther Saavedra,
harshly attacking Venezuelans from Congress itself.
[TEXT: “A million legal and illegal immigrants, both workers and criminals, they have to eat,
they have to sleep, they come and steal Peruvians’ jobs.
(...) Venezuelans, good or bad, have to leave Peru, leave”.]
Can you imagine running away from a dictatorship, from hunger and violence, and receiving such
insults from public representatives?
It must be hard, don't you think?
Fortunately, this way of thinking doesn’t represent all Peruvians, not at all, but hate
speeches that pinpoint a specific nationality are always worrying.
And coming from a country’s Congress, even more so.
And that’s not the end of it...
Even the Ecuadorian president, Lenín Moreno, fell into the grip of this campaign after
a pregnant woman was murdered by a Venezuelan.
(AUDIO: Ecuador announce the creation of brigades to “control” Venezuelan immigrants.- Europa
Press)
Now, what is really behind this wave of hatred against Venezuelans in Latin America?
Well, it has a lot to do with a poor migratory culture.
Traditionally most of these countries haven’t needed to receive migrants and suddenly, overnight,
there’s a Venezuelan exodus throughout the whole continent.
Given that context, it doesn’t seem far-fetched that many people perceive this movement with
fear, fear of something different, something that comes from outside and the consequences
that it may have.
And this is even happening in Colombia:
As Venezuela’s neighbor, it’s welcomed the most Venezuelans, more than a million
and a half, since the great Venezuelan crisis exploded between 2014 and 2015.
Its proximity and the fact that emigrating from Venezuela to Colombia is cheaper, has
led many common Venezuelan criminals setting themselves up in Colombia.
At first, the Colombian government’s attitude aimed to help the Venezuelan population by
opening its borders, granting temporary permits and accepting Venezuelans with expired passports.
However, this wave of solidarity at an institutional level hasn’t always repeated at street level,
in everyday life, since Colombia joins Peru, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador among the countries
with the most cases of xenophobia reported by Venezuelans.
And when we talk about xenophobia, we mean things like this:
(AUDIO: Venezuelans in Colombia targeted by threatening pamphlets.
- CNN Español)
Of course, this is by no means the majority, and if Latin American societies have shown
anything, it’s a huge solidarity to welcome thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands
of Venezuelans who’ve been forced to flee their country.
Yes, criminals must be prosecuted but it wouldn’t be fair for the innocent to pay for the sins
of sinners, would it?
What’s more, these type of xenophobic outbreaks favor the Venezuelan narco-dictatorship as
they reduce the pressure on the regime itself.
Anyway, this is the reality of violence in Venezuela and all these factors explain why
this country has become a true nightmare.
But now it’s your turn:
Can violence be fought in a country ruled by people who order criminals to kill?
Should Venezuelans abroad face their violent compatriots in order to end xenophobia?
And what’s even more important, do you think this hateful behavior against all of them
is justified?
We ask the questions, you provide the answers.
So I really hope you enjoyed this video, please hit like if you did, and don’t forget to
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