From FPRI:
KIDNAPPINGS IN VENEZUELA
by Vanessa Neumann
November 21, 2011
Vanessa Neumann is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy
Research Institute and is co-chair, with FPRI Trustee Devon
Cross, of FPRI's Manhattan Initiative.
Available on the web and in pdf format at:
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/2011/201111.neumann.venezuela.html
KIDNAPPINGS IN VENEZUELA
by Vanessa Neumann
The November 9 kidnapping and subsequent rescue of Major
League Baseball player Wilson Ramos, a catcher for the
Washington Nationals, has shone a spotlight on Venezuelan
crime rates. Unfortunately, his kidnapping was commonplace;
only his swift and successful rescue is a rarity.
Taken from the porch of his family home near the Venezuelan
industrial town of Valencia, Ramos was liberated just over
51 hours later in a massive operation that included
operatives from the Scientific, Criminal and Penal
Scientific Investigations Body (CICPC is its Spanish
acronym), the Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Group of the
Bolivarian National Guard, the Bolivarian National
Intelligence Service (SEBIN) and the Military Intelligence
Directorate, amongst others. After a shootout at the house
where Ramos was being kept -- a farm called "My Refuge"
about three hours down the road -- the kidnappers fled,
leaving Ramos alone in the house to be rescued.
Nevertheless, the kidnappers have since been apprehended,
identified and indicted.
Such judicial efficiency is extraordinary in Venezuela, a
country of 28 million inhabitants, of which at least five
are kidnapped every day. Even the government's official
statistics show that 1,050 kidnappings were reported this
year through October - which is 23 times more than number
recorded when Hugo Chavez was elected 13 years ago, and
double the figure of 2008.[1] That's what's actually
reported by the government; some estimates place last year's
kidnappings as high as 17,000, on the basis that most
Venezuelans do not report crimes to the police, whom they
suspect will be at best powerless, and at worst, complicit.
To be sure, there have always been kidnappings in Venezuela,
but they used to be either mostly along the lawless border
with Colombia or highly-organized with high-net-worth
targets in Caracas and other industrial centers - such as
that of Wilson Ramos. Yet the Ramos case is indicative of
another rising trend in kidnapping: the taking of Major
League Baseball players and their families.
Whereas the rest of South America is better known for its
contributions to soccer, Venezuelans, in rather more
Caribbean style, are better at baseball. Indeed over 270
Major League Baseball players have been Venezuelan, and
while Ramos is the first MLB player to have been abducted
while playing in his home country's winter season (for the
Tigres de Aragua), other MLB players have had relatives
abducted back home in Venezuela - parents, siblings and
children. The reason is obvious: in a country that is as mad
for baseball as Venezuela, native sons who make it to the
MLB are well-publicized national heroes, with their
salaries, schedules and home addresses well known to all. So
they make easy targets.
The skyrocketing kidnapping rates, however, are mainly due
to the proliferation of a different kind of kidnapping: the
secuestro express, or express kidnapping, which now
represents 80 percent of all kidnappings, 25 percent of
which happen in the capital city Caracas. Grittily depicted
in the eponymous 2004 film, the secuestro express is an ad
hoc, yet highly profitable, crime of opportunity that, while
originating in Colombia and Mexico, has been perfected in
Venezuela's cities.
A paradigmatic example happened to a friend's elderly aunt a
decade ago, when the genre was still fairly new. Upon
leaving her hairdresser in the tony neighborhood of Las
Mercedes (a bit like Manhattan's Upper East Side), she put
her key in her expensive car, when suddenly a jeep pulled up
behind her, containing four young men with guns. "Get in,"
they said, "and call your husband and tell him you won't be
coming home tonight." The husband paid the requested ransom,
in the vicinity of $15,000, and she was released unharmed
within 24 hours. I was told that after that, his aunt
switched hairdressers to one with valet parking. Venezuelans
are nothing if not adaptable and resilient.
The ad hoc strategy and relatively small sum of money of
express kidnappings are designed for quick turnover so that
they can kidnap someone else the next day. Nine times out of
ten, they release the hostage unharmed within twenty-four
hours and move on to another victim. Indeed, the average
ransom requested is $8,000, and the victim is largely chosen
by the car he or she drives.
But as kidnap rates have exploded (doubling in the past
three years), it is no longer just the wealthy who are
kidnapped: it is storekeepers, engineers, housewives,
students. I know of one story where a woman who lived in the
slums was so poor, all she had to ransom her kidnapped
eight-year-old daughter was her refrigerator.
Kidnappings are only part of the problem; violent crime is
in fact pandemic in Venezuela. Venezuela's murder rate of 48
murders per 100,000 inhabitants makes it the most violent
country in the hemisphere - no small feat considering
Mexico's Ciudad Juarez. The global average is 9 murders per
100,000 inhabitants. Indeed in 2008, the last year for which
the UN has statistics available, respective homicide rates
per 100,000 inhabitants were as follow: United States, 5.22;
the United Kingdom (England and Wales), 1.19; Mexico, 11.58;
Venezuela, 47.21 - and it has risen sharply since.
Human rights group Provea argues that the violence and
impunity racking Venezuelan society is the result of
corruption in the police force and weak judicial
institutions. Indeed, in 2009, a government report stated
that a full 15-20 percent of crimes are committed by police
officers, and this percentage is higher for the most violent
crimes, such as murder and kidnapping.
The estimated 18,000 criminal gangs often comprise Colombian
FARC guerrillas - another reason for the skyrocketing rate.
As I wrote in my previous E-Note, "The Middle Eastern-Latin
American Terrorist Connection,"[2] the Chavez government has
both offered succor and active support to various terrorist
organizations operating within Venezuela (including
Hezbollah, FARC, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda) and armed civilian
militias known as Bolivarian Circles with thousands of
unregistered weapons. This witch's brew of weak governance,
armed and angry poor civilians plus terrorists has spawned
an astounding crime rate that might well be the Achilles
heel of the Chavez regime.
Data released by the International Crisis Group[3] shows
that since Chavez's election in 1998, the murder rate has
quadrupled from 4,550 in 1998 to more than 17,000 last year.
"In 2010, Caracas became the deadliest capital in the world
with the highest murder rate in the world, averaging one
murder every hour," according to the United States
Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security.[4]
Indeed, caraquenos, as inhabitants of the capital city of
Caracas are known, have long quipped that they would be
safer in Baghdad, and now the statistics bear them out: in
2009, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in
Iraq, according to Iraq Body Count, while Venezuela had over
16,000 murders.
Indeed, crime, not poverty, is now considered the number one
problem by Venezuelans, according to Lu¡s Vicente Leon, a
political analyst and president of Datanalisis, a Venezuelan
polling firm. The press conference to celebrate Ramos's
rescue reflected the administration's awareness of its
weakness in this area. Interior Minister Tareck el-Aissami,
took pains to tout the exceptional rescue of Wilson Ramos.
"Here is the national government facing up to its
responsibilities," he said.
While el-Aissami insisted that the government is committed
to resolving "each case of violence, of homicide, or
whatever crime that the Venezuelan family suffers," the
statistics do not bear this out. Unfortunately for
Venezuelans, as I wrote in The Weekly Standard last
month,[5] because of the entrenchment of narcoterrorists,
the proliferation of weapons in the barrios, and the
hatemongering rhetoric of a regime promoting class warfare,
rampant crime and violence look set to continue well into
Venezuela's future, with or without Chavez.
----------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/nationals-catchers-kidnapping-just-one-of-thousands-in-venezuela/2011/11/15/gIQADiKoON_story.html
[2] http://www.fpri.org/enotes/201105.neumann.latinamericanterrorist.html
[3] http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/latin-america-caribbean/andes/venezuela/038-violence-and-politics-in-venezuela.aspx
[4] https://www.osac.gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=11224
[5] http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/hugo-ch-vez-s-long-shadow_595217.html
----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/).
KIDNAPPINGS IN VENEZUELA
by Vanessa Neumann
November 21, 2011
Vanessa Neumann is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy
Research Institute and is co-chair, with FPRI Trustee Devon
Cross, of FPRI's Manhattan Initiative.
Available on the web and in pdf format at:
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/2011/201111.neumann.venezuela.html
KIDNAPPINGS IN VENEZUELA
by Vanessa Neumann
The November 9 kidnapping and subsequent rescue of Major
League Baseball player Wilson Ramos, a catcher for the
Washington Nationals, has shone a spotlight on Venezuelan
crime rates. Unfortunately, his kidnapping was commonplace;
only his swift and successful rescue is a rarity.
Taken from the porch of his family home near the Venezuelan
industrial town of Valencia, Ramos was liberated just over
51 hours later in a massive operation that included
operatives from the Scientific, Criminal and Penal
Scientific Investigations Body (CICPC is its Spanish
acronym), the Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Group of the
Bolivarian National Guard, the Bolivarian National
Intelligence Service (SEBIN) and the Military Intelligence
Directorate, amongst others. After a shootout at the house
where Ramos was being kept -- a farm called "My Refuge"
about three hours down the road -- the kidnappers fled,
leaving Ramos alone in the house to be rescued.
Nevertheless, the kidnappers have since been apprehended,
identified and indicted.
Such judicial efficiency is extraordinary in Venezuela, a
country of 28 million inhabitants, of which at least five
are kidnapped every day. Even the government's official
statistics show that 1,050 kidnappings were reported this
year through October - which is 23 times more than number
recorded when Hugo Chavez was elected 13 years ago, and
double the figure of 2008.[1] That's what's actually
reported by the government; some estimates place last year's
kidnappings as high as 17,000, on the basis that most
Venezuelans do not report crimes to the police, whom they
suspect will be at best powerless, and at worst, complicit.
To be sure, there have always been kidnappings in Venezuela,
but they used to be either mostly along the lawless border
with Colombia or highly-organized with high-net-worth
targets in Caracas and other industrial centers - such as
that of Wilson Ramos. Yet the Ramos case is indicative of
another rising trend in kidnapping: the taking of Major
League Baseball players and their families.
Whereas the rest of South America is better known for its
contributions to soccer, Venezuelans, in rather more
Caribbean style, are better at baseball. Indeed over 270
Major League Baseball players have been Venezuelan, and
while Ramos is the first MLB player to have been abducted
while playing in his home country's winter season (for the
Tigres de Aragua), other MLB players have had relatives
abducted back home in Venezuela - parents, siblings and
children. The reason is obvious: in a country that is as mad
for baseball as Venezuela, native sons who make it to the
MLB are well-publicized national heroes, with their
salaries, schedules and home addresses well known to all. So
they make easy targets.
The skyrocketing kidnapping rates, however, are mainly due
to the proliferation of a different kind of kidnapping: the
secuestro express, or express kidnapping, which now
represents 80 percent of all kidnappings, 25 percent of
which happen in the capital city Caracas. Grittily depicted
in the eponymous 2004 film, the secuestro express is an ad
hoc, yet highly profitable, crime of opportunity that, while
originating in Colombia and Mexico, has been perfected in
Venezuela's cities.
A paradigmatic example happened to a friend's elderly aunt a
decade ago, when the genre was still fairly new. Upon
leaving her hairdresser in the tony neighborhood of Las
Mercedes (a bit like Manhattan's Upper East Side), she put
her key in her expensive car, when suddenly a jeep pulled up
behind her, containing four young men with guns. "Get in,"
they said, "and call your husband and tell him you won't be
coming home tonight." The husband paid the requested ransom,
in the vicinity of $15,000, and she was released unharmed
within 24 hours. I was told that after that, his aunt
switched hairdressers to one with valet parking. Venezuelans
are nothing if not adaptable and resilient.
The ad hoc strategy and relatively small sum of money of
express kidnappings are designed for quick turnover so that
they can kidnap someone else the next day. Nine times out of
ten, they release the hostage unharmed within twenty-four
hours and move on to another victim. Indeed, the average
ransom requested is $8,000, and the victim is largely chosen
by the car he or she drives.
But as kidnap rates have exploded (doubling in the past
three years), it is no longer just the wealthy who are
kidnapped: it is storekeepers, engineers, housewives,
students. I know of one story where a woman who lived in the
slums was so poor, all she had to ransom her kidnapped
eight-year-old daughter was her refrigerator.
Kidnappings are only part of the problem; violent crime is
in fact pandemic in Venezuela. Venezuela's murder rate of 48
murders per 100,000 inhabitants makes it the most violent
country in the hemisphere - no small feat considering
Mexico's Ciudad Juarez. The global average is 9 murders per
100,000 inhabitants. Indeed in 2008, the last year for which
the UN has statistics available, respective homicide rates
per 100,000 inhabitants were as follow: United States, 5.22;
the United Kingdom (England and Wales), 1.19; Mexico, 11.58;
Venezuela, 47.21 - and it has risen sharply since.
Human rights group Provea argues that the violence and
impunity racking Venezuelan society is the result of
corruption in the police force and weak judicial
institutions. Indeed, in 2009, a government report stated
that a full 15-20 percent of crimes are committed by police
officers, and this percentage is higher for the most violent
crimes, such as murder and kidnapping.
The estimated 18,000 criminal gangs often comprise Colombian
FARC guerrillas - another reason for the skyrocketing rate.
As I wrote in my previous E-Note, "The Middle Eastern-Latin
American Terrorist Connection,"[2] the Chavez government has
both offered succor and active support to various terrorist
organizations operating within Venezuela (including
Hezbollah, FARC, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda) and armed civilian
militias known as Bolivarian Circles with thousands of
unregistered weapons. This witch's brew of weak governance,
armed and angry poor civilians plus terrorists has spawned
an astounding crime rate that might well be the Achilles
heel of the Chavez regime.
Data released by the International Crisis Group[3] shows
that since Chavez's election in 1998, the murder rate has
quadrupled from 4,550 in 1998 to more than 17,000 last year.
"In 2010, Caracas became the deadliest capital in the world
with the highest murder rate in the world, averaging one
murder every hour," according to the United States
Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security.[4]
Indeed, caraquenos, as inhabitants of the capital city of
Caracas are known, have long quipped that they would be
safer in Baghdad, and now the statistics bear them out: in
2009, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in
Iraq, according to Iraq Body Count, while Venezuela had over
16,000 murders.
Indeed, crime, not poverty, is now considered the number one
problem by Venezuelans, according to Lu¡s Vicente Leon, a
political analyst and president of Datanalisis, a Venezuelan
polling firm. The press conference to celebrate Ramos's
rescue reflected the administration's awareness of its
weakness in this area. Interior Minister Tareck el-Aissami,
took pains to tout the exceptional rescue of Wilson Ramos.
"Here is the national government facing up to its
responsibilities," he said.
While el-Aissami insisted that the government is committed
to resolving "each case of violence, of homicide, or
whatever crime that the Venezuelan family suffers," the
statistics do not bear this out. Unfortunately for
Venezuelans, as I wrote in The Weekly Standard last
month,[5] because of the entrenchment of narcoterrorists,
the proliferation of weapons in the barrios, and the
hatemongering rhetoric of a regime promoting class warfare,
rampant crime and violence look set to continue well into
Venezuela's future, with or without Chavez.
----------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/nationals-catchers-kidnapping-just-one-of-thousands-in-venezuela/2011/11/15/gIQADiKoON_story.html
[2] http://www.fpri.org/enotes/201105.neumann.latinamericanterrorist.html
[3] http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/latin-america-caribbean/andes/venezuela/038-violence-and-politics-in-venezuela.aspx
[4] https://www.osac.gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=11224
[5] http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/hugo-ch-vez-s-long-shadow_595217.html
----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/).
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