Crime rates increased in the Guárico State during 2022, positioning it as one of the most dangerous in the country and its inhabitants continue to fear the precarious security policies applied by the national government to contain the advance of criminal groups.
By Correspondent La Patilla
The rate of violent deaths went from 28.9 in 2021 to 40.5 in 2022, only surpassed by the Capital District, and the states of La Guaira, Miranda and Bolívar.
These data represent the number of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (deaths per hundred thousands) that occurred as a consequence of events of inter personal violence, classified as: intentional homicides, deaths caused by police intervention, and deaths under investigation.
In the extensive plains region, robberies and homicides continue to be the order of the day, as well as cases of extortion and cattle rustling in rural areas.
Despite the efforts to dismantle the criminal mega-gang “Tren del Llano” (Plains Train, mega gang that evolved from government supported rail workers union), its members continue to do their own thing, its cells have even expanded to other regions.
Not only the residents of the main cities of Guarico State suffer from the serious crime rates that have become the norm in recent years, but also peasants and producers are “visited” by the underworld on their farms and production areas.
According to recent data collected by the ONG Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV) in Guárico –data which a La Patilla reporting team had access to– most of the criminal acts are concentrated in the northeastern area of the state, including the municipalities of Pedro Zaraza, José Tadeo Monagas and José Félix Ribas, without leaving out Leonardo Infante and Francisco de Miranda.
The data makes clear that for at least 18 years official crime figures have not been presented in Venezuela related to “the scope that various types of interpersonal violence have on Guarico’s society.”
In turn, the National Annual Report on Violence 2022, detailed that the rate of deaths ‘under investigation’ “gathered the highest proportion (52.3%) of the violent deaths of this plains state with 21.2 deaths per 100 thousands, followed by the homicides and death rates caused by police intervention with 11.5 and 7.8 deaths respectively per 100,000 inhabitants.”
Guárico State, Entry And Exit Point For Illegal Mining Of The Orinoco Mining Arc
Among what is reflected in the recent OVV-Guárico document, the situation on the southern border of Guarico stands out. This area has become an entry and exit point for armed and irregular groups that operate in zone 1 and 2 of the Orinoco Mining Arc.
“These areas border the Guárico state across the Orinoco River and in these areas there is a whole spatial segregation of the territory by non-state armed groups. They are plagued by small artisanal mining operations controlled by these irregular armed groups that use Guárico State as a causeway to transport part of the extracted metallic and non-metallic minerals, which are then sent mainly to the Caribbean islands and other world markets,” explained Adrián González, coordinator of the OVV-Guárico.
Similarly, he highlighted that members of the Dissident Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Dissident FARC) roam the neighboring states of Apure and Bolívar, and take advantage of their proximity to Guárico to commit criminal acts such as extortion and kidnapping.
“After the expropriation policy, new economic actors have appeared that, through these ill obtained capitals, have begun to intervene the agri-food circuit such and as a result hypermarket chains, transportation, wholesalers, have become targets of these criminal groups,” González stressed.
Security Plans Have Not Put An End To The Violence
The “Bicentennial Security Device” (2010), “Madrugonazo al Hampa” (2011), the “Safe Homeland Plan” (2013), the so-called “Zones of Peace” (2015), the “Operation for the Liberation of the People” (OLP) (2015-2017), the creation of the FAES (2016) –A special reaction police force renowned for human rights abused and denounced at the International Criminal Court– among other many security plans that Chavismo has implemented throughout the past years, have not been able to put an end to crime in Venezuela, where the violation of human rights has been the main accomplishment of these deployments.
“When the only way to address criminal dynamics is based on the rationality of war, where legal limits are not respected and with precarious institutional controls, you don’t get very far. Proof of this are the ten military-police operations that have been implemented in the national territory with distressingly mediocre results, in addition to the fact that they have been imposed through fear and the most brutal violence,” said the representative of the NGO.
For González, security “operativos” (operations, plans) have resulted in the creation of new armed groups, with a much better structure, and proof of this are the cells that have been formed from large gangs such as “Tren del Llano”, “Tren de Aragua”, “El Koki”, among others, with the support of (inmates in) the prisons.
“Although in the short term these militarized incursions seem to break the control exercised by criminal gangs in their fiefdoms, disturb their parallel justice systems and alter the peaceful coexistence pacts between rival groups, experience tells us that in the country and in Guárico since Since 2016, these police saturation operations, as a consequence of their accumulated condition, have given way to better structured and more consolidated criminal groups, since the internal factions dissolve after a brief fight for leadership and some time later, also through the use of force, criminal gangs have not only managed to recover their territories but have also diversified their illicit economies,” he revealed.
More Than 100 Thousand Cattle Are Stolen Through Rustling In Guárico
Insecurity continues to haunt the farmland of the entity, and rustling is a scourge that the so-called “revolution” has not been able to stop, and according to an estimate of the National Federation of Cattlemen (Fedenaga), about 10% of the country’s livestock producers are a victims of animal theft, which disturbs even the consumption of meat in the nation.
According to Carlos Arana, a rancher and spokesman for the State Cattlemen’s Association, the figure could be between 100,000 and 120,000 stolen head of cattle. “We have had support from the authorities, but we see that this is insufficient because the numbers (of crimes) have been maintained.”
It is enough to observe what happened in the middle of the current month, in “Santa María de Ipire”, where police officers managed to frustrate the kidnapping and theft of cattle in a farm located on the road to the “Agua Amarilla” sector of this jurisdiction.
In fact, the anti-socials confronted the authorities, but managed to flee into a wooded area. Thanks to rapid police intervention, the release of two women and two minors was achieved, who were gagged but without major injuries.
Some 60 cattle were recovered at the site, as well as a motorcycle, a power plant and a chainsaw.
That is why, like all inhabitants of Guárico State, the producers pray for citizen security plans to be implemented that will truly reduce homicides, extortion, and kidnappings, and thus the Guárico population will cease to be part of the red figures (crime statistics) in this matter. which is another of the many subjects that Chavismo from Chávez to Maduro has not been able to pass.