State Ruled by Crime and Chávez Family

Publié le par JSS

Stretching over vast cattle estates at the foothills of the Andes, Barinas is known for two things: as the bastion of the family of President Hugo Chávez and as the setting for a terrifying surge in abductions, making it a contender for Latin America’s most likely place to get kidnapped.

An intensifying nationwide crime wave over the past decade has pushed the kidnapping rate in Venezuela past Colombia’s and Mexico’s, with about 2 abductions per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Interior Ministry.

But nowhere in Venezuela comes close in abductions to Barinas, with 7.2 kidnappings per 100,000 inhabitants, as armed gangs thrive off the disarray here while Mr. Chávez’s family tightens its grip on the state. Seizures of cattle ranches and crumbling infrastructure also contribute to the sense of low-intensity chaos.

Barinas offers a unique microcosm of Mr. Chávez’s rule. Many poor residents still revere the president, born here into poverty in 1954. But polarization in Barinas is growing more severe, with others chafing at his newly prosperous parents and siblings, who have governed the state since the 1990s. While Barinas is a laboratory for projects like land reform, urgent problems like violent crime go unmentioned in the many billboards here extolling the Chávez family’s ascendancy.

“This is what anarchy looks like, at least the type of anarchy where the family of Chávez accumulates wealth and power as the rest of us fear for our lives,” said Ángel Santamaría, 57, a cattleman in the town of Nueva Bolivia whose son, Kusto, 8, was kidnapped while walking to school in May. He was held for 29 days, until Mr. Santamaría gathered a small ransom to free him.

The governor of Barinas, Adán Chávez, the president’s eldest brother and a former ambassador to Cuba, said this month that many of the kidnappings might have been a result of destabilization efforts by the opposition or so-called self-kidnappings: orchestrated abductions to reveal weaknesses among security forces, or to extort money from one’s own family.

“With each day that passes,” the governor said recently, “Barinas is safer than before.”

Through a spokeswoman, he declined to be interviewed.

In an election last year marred by accusations of fraud, Adán Chávez succeeded his own father, Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, a former schoolteacher who had governed Barinas for a decade with the president’s brother, Argenis, the former secretary of state in Barinas.

Another brother, Aníbal, is mayor of nearby Sabaneta, and another brother, Adelis, is a top banker at Banco Sofitasa, which does business with Adán’s government. Yet another brother, Narciso, was put in charge of cooperation projects with Cuba. The president’s cousin Asdrúbal holds a top post at the national oil company.

Politicians once loyal to the president who have broken with him and his family here contend that Mr. Chávez’s family has amassed wealth and landholdings through a series of deals carried out by front men.

One opposition leader, Wilmer Azuaje, detailed to prosecutors and legislators what he said was more than $20 million in illegal gains by the family since the president’s father was elected governor in 1998. But in a brief review of those claims, National Assembly, under the control of Chávez loyalists, cleared the family of charges of illicit enrichment.

“In the meantime, while the family wraps itself in the rhetoric of socialism, we are descending into a neo-capitalist chaos where all that matters is money,” said Alberto Santelíz, the publisher of La Prensa, a small opposition newspaper.

One reason for the rise in kidnappings is the injection of oil money into the local economy, with some families reaping quick fortunes because of ties to large infrastructure projects.

A new soccer stadium, built under the supervision of Adelis Chávez’s at a cost of more than $50 million, is still unfinished two years after its first game in 2007, joining other white elephants dotting Barinas’s landscape. Nearby lies the unfinished Museum of the Plains, intended to celebrate the culture of the president’s birthplace. A sprawling shopping mall stands half-completed after its backers fled a shakedown by construction unions.

More than a decade into the Chávez family’s rule in Barinas, the state remains Venezuela’s poorest, with average monthly household income of about $800, according to the National Statistics Institute. Kidnapping, once feared only by the wealthy, has spread in Barinas to include the poor. In one case this year of a 3-year-old girl kidnapped in the slum of Mi Jardín, the abductor, when told that the only thing of value owned by the girl’s mother was a refrigerator, instructed her to sell it to pay the ransom.

Kidnapping specialists here said the abductors were drawn from two Colombian rebel groups, a small Venezuelan guerrilla faction called the Bolivarian Liberation Front, other criminal gangs and corrupt police officers. Just a fraction of the kidnappings result in prison sentences.

“With impunity rampant in Barinas, how can our governor say with a straight face that people are kidnapping themselves?” asked Lucy Montoya, 38, a hardware store owner whose sister, Doris, a 41-year-old mother of three, was kidnapped in March.

Doris Montoya’s abductors have not freed her or communicated with her family since receiving ransom money in May, Lucy Montoya said, adding, “The government’s handling of this crisis is an affront to our dignity as human beings.”

Meanwhile, new figures show kidnappings climbing to 454 known cases in the first six months of 2009, including about 66 in Barinas, compared with a nationwide 2008 estimate of between 537 and 612. But officials acknowledge that the true figures are probably higher because many cases are never reported.

Here in Barinas, victims seethe over the inaction of the president and his family. “Our ruling dynasty is effectively telling us we are expendable,” said Rodolfo Peña, 38, a businessman who was abducted here last year. “The only other plausible theory,” he said, “is that they are too inebriated by power to notice the emergency at their feet.”
Written by the NYtimes, Merci à William pour l'info!

Publié dans In English

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<br /> Discours intéressant pour un personnage exhibitionniste    en manque de reconnaissance .<br />  <br /> C' est le mot de la fin qui m'intéresse , " Communauté " .<br />  <br /> Faites vous référence à ce vieux livre écrit sous l'époque tsariste par Golovinski ?<br />  <br /> Pourquoi ne pas "étaler " directement  vos sympathies aux thèses conspirationnistes de Meyssan  ?<br />  <br /> Et pourquoi pas votre haine d'une communauté qui vous est totalement étrangère , vous le laïc qui n'a soufflé mots pendant les tueries d'étudiants en Iran  votre soutien .<br />  <br /> Vous auriez du commencer par là !<br />  <br /> "Droit au but ! "<br />
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ok ATAHUALPA!!je te reçois 5 sur 5invites moi pour célébrer Pacha Mamma ça me fera plaisircordialement aussi
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L'(des)avantage lorsque l'on poste sous sa veritable identité , c'est qu'il se trouvera toujours un inspecteur DUFLAIR courageusement retranché derrière un pseudo pour vous monter qu'il connait votre adresse et se livrer à des attaques " ad hominem " .Concernant mes opinions philosophiques et religieuses , je me qualifierais de " Neo-Païen Gallicaniste " . Je pratique tous les 1er janvier le culte de Yemanja sur la plage du Prado en compagnie d'autres Bresiliens et en particulier de Bresiliens pouvant se réclamer " de souche " , c'est à dire ayant des origines Amérindiennes .Mon épouse , Amerindienne , est restée dans la secte Papiste connue sous le nom d'ECR  ( Son prénom est sOnia et non sOUnia ! ) .La seule cérémonie de la secte Papiste à laquelle j'assiste c'est la Pâques , en raison du feu ! Je regette d'ailleurs les decisions prefectorales qui interdisent desormais les feux du solstice d'été ;0) Je ne cache pas ces convictions , ni mon positionnement politique " National Bolchevique " , proche des " identitaires " et de la " Nouvelle Droite " .Vous pourrez d'ailleurs en apprendre plus sur Mr Mezigue , puisque je vais repondre à une interview pour le blog d'Alexandre LATSA " Dissonance " . Vous aurez même une photo en prime .Depuis que je publie , en particulier par exemple dans le DNSC d'Aout , et que je reponds à des interviews , je n'utilise plus de pseudo . Sur l'Islam , je vous conseille de consulter le blogue de " Varvara " , " Voices from Russia " . Il ya quelques jours elle montrait les convergences philosophiques entre l'EOR et le Chiisme Iranien , particulièrement dans le rejet des ( autoproclamées ) " valeurs " " occidentales" . Cela me rappelle un article de Marc Slonim dans les années 30 qui prophetisait la naissance d'une relgion syncrétique Othodoxo-Musulmane en Asie Centrale .J'avoue que je suis trés attiré par l' " Orientalisme " de l'EOR et la question du rapprochement entre l'EOR et les Chiites Iraniens fait l'objet de toute mon attention .Sur le Venezuela , je m'honore de figurer parmis les relations d'Eva Golinger . Mais elles restent platoniques à cause de la vigilance stricte mon épouse qui me " chaperonne" .Elle est en tout cas plus avenante que " Bob " Amsterdam , vous ne croyez pas ?Elle va peut être me faire l'honneur d'une interview en septembre ou en octobre quand je vais reprendre la plume .Sur le fond de l'article , je ne peux que regretter la violence au Venezuela , mais sur les responsables de cette violence il y aurait beaucoup à écrire !De la même manière l'article regrette quela region de Barinas soit sous la " coupe " de la famille Chavez . C'est là un phénomène que l'on retrouve sous toutes les latitudes et tous les régimes .Comme on dit parfois " Parente é competente ! " pour justifier cette situation .A l'auteur qui signe d'un marque, Hummm , ...... caballistique , même en étant Franco-Bresilien , je me sens desormais citoyen de ce que Victor Raul Haya de la Torre appellait la " Patria Grande " , l' " Indo-Amerique" , " Nuestra America " et qui un des axes forts du Bolivarisme . Je me sens donc concerné par ce qui se passe au Venezuela . De la même manière mon épouse pour qui les divisions politiques de ce continent sont artificielles . Je prone pour un rapprochement des " Bolivariens " avec les " Eurasistes " , une famille de pensée qui m'est aussi proche .Je le suis autant ( concerné ) que les membres de la " Communauté " qui resident dans les différents pays de l' " Indo-Amerique " et qui ont la pretention de lui dicter ses politiques nationales ou internationales .Cordialement Daniel BESSON
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Salut Joelencore des altermondialoslamogauchos je sais que Plombières, c'est un quartier pourri, surtout du coté de Paul Arène.......
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Danieltu t'es converti a l ' Islam avant d' épouser Sounia ??en effet je suis expert en traitement d' araboushimtu veux un échantillon de mon savoir faire ???envoies nous ta moukère...
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