Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Venezuela's decent into chaos and violence. And, of course Maduro says it's the US to blamet.
| CARACAS
The click-clack of guns being cocked echoes in the cement safe house where seven kidnappers keep watch over a western Caracas slum, their 33-year-old gang leader boasting of grenade attacks on police and growing wealth and power.
Venezuela's socialist economy is suffering triple-digit inflation, severe shortages and a third year of recession, but gangs like this have found strength and profit in the chaos.
They are teaming up with former rivals and buying heavier weapons to control ever-larger territory in the capital and beyond, the criminals, the government and criminologists say.
"The majority of the other slums are our friends. It's not only us anymore, now we do business with each other," said the leader, sat at a desk with his face hidden by a black ski mask. He would only give his name as Anderson.
He said rampant inflation is forcing the gang to be even more active as it seeks to cover sky-rocketing costs for weapons, drugs and even food.
"We used to do one job a month. Right now we are doing them every week," Anderson said, before a phone pinged with news of a drugs delivery. Venezuela's economy suffered 181 percent inflation and shrank nearly 6 percent last year, and is expected to perform worse in 2016. Basic products are scarce and food riots regular.
Yet gangs like this are thriving.
Unlike a growing array of other armed groups in Venezuela - which include pro-government gangs and some small rural guerrilla and right-wing paramilitary forces - the street gangs are largely apolitical.
But as their reach grows, they are another destabilizing factor for President Nicolas Maduro, who is already struggling to govern a nation that is running short of food and medicines despite vast oil reserves and has one of the world's highest murder rates.
He has responded with aggressive raids by soldiers and police, a policy supported by many people sick of criminals but which rights groups say leads to executions and arbitrary arrests. Some criminologists warn the raids encourage gangs to seek out ever heavier weaponry in defense.
While some gangs are teaming up, there are still turf battles and internal disputes, and Venezuela is seeing more of the spectacular violence associated with Mexico's more powerful drug cartels. Police showed Reuters images of bodies left mutilated, hanging from bridges, or beheaded.
As he spoke, Anderson's henchman prowled around him, waving sniper rifles and pistols, changing ammunition clips and peering through a narrow window onto the rooftops and steep alleyways below, as reggae music drifted up.
They have good reason to be on guard.
Two weeks ago, in the nearby El Valle neighborhood, two factions of one gang fought for hours, leaving six leaders dead. The victorious faction released a cell-phone video showing a man pumping dozens of bullets into a victim's head.
Anderson's gang stalks victims for days before snatching them, and tries to get $5,000-$10,000 ransom paid in euros or dollars within 24 hours. He said his gang killed about 10 of its several dozen kidnapping victims last year, usually because families did not pay on time.
In the first six months of 2016, the number of kidnappings reported to just one of several national security forces soared by 170 percent to 326 compared to the same period last year.
The total number of kidnappings is believed to be many times higher than that, since most victims never go to the police.
In this highly polarized country, one of the few things both the government and its opponents agree on is that organized crime is a serious and growing problem.
Even from prison, gang leaders are able to coordinate nationally with street thugs like Anderson, who started his life of crime at 13 and spent 10 years locked up for murder.
'CONSPIRACY'
Maduro says crime is part of a conspiracy by the opposition and the United States. His opponents blame his policies and armed pro-government "collectives," which have multiplied in the past 5 years.
In the opposition-ruled state of Miranda, among Venezuela's most violent, state security chief Elisio Guzman traces the gangs' strength to a 2013 attempt by junior minister Jose Vicente Rangel Avalos to negotiate, promising gang members "territories of peace" where they would give up crime in return for jobs as laborers and support raising chickens.
"They used the money to buy new weapons and vehicles," said the crew-cut policeman, whose officers carry 9 mm pistols and feel out-gunned by gangs who buy heavier weapons on the black market, a trade the government accepts is fueled by corruption in the army.
"They have almost become a guerrilla force, guerrillas in crime," Guzman said.
In a 2015 interview with local media, Rangel Avalos denied giving up territory to the gangs as a policy.
What is not in doubt is that gangs like Anderson's often call the shots in Venezuela's slums, not police. He says the National Guard, a unit of the army used for internal security, also works with them.
"They are in business with us. We buy automatic weapons from them, tactical vests, whatever we need. And they warn us when they are going to send some cops."
The government did not respond to Reuters' requests for interviews for this story.
MADURO FIGHTS BACK
Speaking at the headquarters of Venezuela's equivalent of the FBI last week, Maduro blamed U.S. popular culture for the rise of drug and gun crime in Venezuela since the 1990s and said gangs have become more paramilitary in nature since 2014.
As well as offering some gang members a way out, Maduro has responded with tough raids that send soldiers into poor neighborhoods in so-called People's Liberation Operations, or OLPs, emulating the iron-fisted strategy used to fight gangs in Central America and Brazil.
"It is our turn for combat," Maduro said at the event, where he gave some police a 50 percent wage hike in a bid to counter the dwindling value of their salaries.
The OLPs, which send police and soldiers sweeping through streets and grabbing suspected criminals from their homes, are popular with the public – a relief for Maduro whose overall support is barely 25 percent, according to a recent poll.
But they have also left a trail of extrajudicial killings in poor neighborhoods and their success in lowering crime is questionable.
Venezuela’s murder rate last year was 58 per 100,000 habitants, official numbers show, second only to Honduras globally.
A recent private calculation, by Dorothy Kronick, the assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, put that number even higher, at 68 per 100,000.
Even Maduro's attorney general, Luisa Ortega, warned in July the OLPs create more violence, and complained of multiple reports of abuses.
Venezuela's leading human rights group Provea said OLPs contributed to 270 extrajudicial killings at the hands of security forces in 2015, the highest number since 1992.
The operations also encourage gang leaders to unite and seek more powerful weapons, said Keymer Avila, part of a group of Venezuelan and foreign academics researching crime in the country.
At his safe house, Anderson confirmed that.
"It's better to work together than be enemies. It's better to make war with the police than with each other."
(Editing by Girish Gupta and Kieran Murray)
I guess Europe is short of gang violence so they have to import it.
The Jungle 'is ready to blow' after two are stabbed in gang clash between Afghans and Sudanese migrants trying to board lorries
- Two Afghans were stabbed in a clash between rival migrant gangs trying to board UK-bound lorries
- The men, in their 20s, were part of a larger group confronted by Sudanese migrants in The Jungle camp
- There are tensions between nationalities and aid workers say camp is a 'pressure cooker waiting to blow'
Jesse Jackson Praised Trump in 1999 for His Commitment to ‘Diversity,’ Being ‘Inclusive’.
Jesse Jackson Praised Trump in 1999 for His Commitment to ‘Diversity,’ Being ‘Inclusive’
The Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1999 praised Donald Trump for being someone who pushed for diversity and inclusivity.
In video uncovered by the Daily Caller, Jackson is seen introducing Trump at the Wall Street Project Conference in Lower Manhattan.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson (Image source: YouTube)
The project, founded by Jackson in 1996, bills itself as an organization that “challenges corporate America to end the multi-billion dollar trade deficit with minority vendors and consumers, while working to ensure equal opportunities for culturally diverse employees, entrepreneurs and consumers,” according to its website.
Trump made an appearance at the group’s 1999 annual conference, where Jackson thanked the now-Republican nominee for president and praised his efforts to achieve “diversity” and for being “inclusive.”
“I do want to thank you, Donald Trump, for being with us tonight,” Jackson said in the speech. “We need your building skills, your gusto for people on Wall Street to represent diversity.”
Jackson went on to state that Trump’s success is “beyond argument,” although, he noted, “one can miss his seriousness and his commitment.”
“When we opened this Wall Street project … he gave us space at 40 Wall Street, which was to make a statement about our having a presence there,” Jackson said.
“Beyond that, in terms of being inclusive, he’s done that too,” he added.
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Wherever Islam dominates there is no freedom of religion for others.
‘May God Protect Us From the Backlash in the Streets’: Egypt’s New Law on Churches Angers Christian Critics
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s lawmakers on Tuesday passed the country’s first law spelling out the rules for building a church, a step Christians have long hoped would free up construction that was often blocked by authorities. But angry critics in the community say the law will only enshrine the restrictions.
Church building has for decades been one of the most sensitive sectarian issues in Egypt, where 10 percent of the population of 90 million are Christians but where Muslim hardliners sharply oppose anything they see as undermining what they call the country’s “Islamic character.”
A man and woman pray at the Cavern Church, and the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, famously known as the Abu Serga Church, in Old Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Local authorities often refuse to give building permits for new churches, fearing protests by Muslim ultraconservatives. Faced with refusals, Christians turned to building illegally or setting up churches in other buildings, which in many cases prompted riots and attacks by ultraconservatives. In contrast, building a mosque faces few restrictions.
Christians had hoped that the law would enshrine broad rights to build, encouraged by promises from President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The Christian minority has been among el-Sissi’s staunchest supporters ever since, as army chief, he led the military’s ouster Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and launched a heavy crackdown on Morsi’s supporters.
Egyptian Christian girls light candles in the Hanging Church in Old Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
But the law left critics, including some Christian lawmakers, embittered, warning that it will maintain Christians’ second-class status. The Coptic Orthodox Church, to which most Egyptian Christians belong, had at first opposed the bill but later backed it — and critics say it bent to heavy government pressure.
Under the law passed Tuesday, Christians must apply to the local provincial governor when they want to build a church.
The law stipulates that the size of the church must be “appropriate” to the number of Christians in the area. According to an official supplement to the law, the governor should also take into account “the preservation of security and public order” when considering the application.
A general view of the Cave Cathedral or St. Sama’ans Church on the Mokattam hills overlooking Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
The law “empowers the majority to decide whether the minority has the right to hold their religious practices,” said Ishaq Ibrahim, a top researcher in the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
The law passed with support of two-thirds of the 596 lawmakers in the House of Representatives, according to Egypt’s state agency. Though many of the body’s 36 Christian members had previously spoken out against it, in the end they largely voted in favor.
A painting of Jesus Christ on the ceiling of St. George Church in Old Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
One Christian lawmaker, Nadia Henary, said the law is flawed and still allows constraints on churches. “But we have to respect the opinion of the majority,” she said. “I am a daughter of the Church and I respect the priests and the Church leadership.”
Father Sergius, a top official in the Coptic Church, praised the law as “historic,” saying, “The church and the government reached a reconciliatory agreement. Thank God we have this law now.”
Father Abdel-Masseh Basit, head of the Church’s Bible Studies Center, said the law was a grudging compromise. “We are no longer talking about a constitutional right but about negotiations,” he said. “The church couldn’t reject the law because it will put the state in a bad spot.”
Christian children hang around the Coptic Hanging Church in Old Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
He said the law means church-building will now depend on the flexibility of each governor. “In the cities, the governors are already flexible but in southern Egypt and in the villages, it is a different story.” There, governors are more vulnerable to demands by Salafis, the ultraconservative Muslim movement, parts of which back el-Sissi.
The law passed with support of two-thirds of the lawmakers, according to Egypt’s state agency. Eleven members of the Salafi Nour Party boycotted the vote, saying the law gives Christians too much freedom to build and will anger Muslims.
“May God protect us from the backlash in the streets,” said Mohammed Ubaidi, a Nour lawmaker.
Ethiopian women visit the Coptic Hanging Church in Old Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Christian activist and researcher Nader Shukry said the security and order provisions connected to the law still mean authorities can still use threats of mob violence as an excuse to ban church construction.
“What if Salafis protest against the construction of a church, would this prompt the governor to turn down the request, for fear of national security?” he said.
He and other activists also warned that authorities can also limit churches by citing the article that restricts the size of churches according to the size of the local Christian community, because there are no official statistics on the Christian population.
The government has never released an official figure for the Christian population, viewing the statistic as a sensitive national security matter. Activists believe the government doesn’t want to show how large the community actually is.
A worker renovates part of the Cavern Church, and the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, famously known as the Abu Serga Church in Old Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Youssef Sedhom, the chief editor of the Coptic weekly Watani, wrote Sunday that the law shows the state wants to continue to have “full mandate and monopoly” over the Copts and their churches. The provisions are “vague” and empower local authorities to say “yes, this is allowed” or “no, this is not allowed,” he wrote.
The law does allow churches built without permits in the past to be recognized, if the construction meets regulations and if religious rites have been held there over the past five years.
But critics say that many such churches were shut down by force, so no rites were held, while others were not built according to specifications since they were hastily converted from residential buildings.
Among critics, the law fueled a sense of betrayal by el-Sissi and anger at the Coptic Church, led by Pope Tawadros II, because the bill was worked out in direct negotiations between the Church and government behind closed doors.
Christians saw the law as a reward for their staunch support for el-Sissi. On Aug. 14, 2013, security forces broke up two giant protest camps by Morsi supporters, killing hundreds. In retaliation, Islamists attacked nearly 70 churches and priests’ houses around the country.
“We choose to remain silent that day (Aug. 14) knowing that this is not the time to speak. Now, we feel this has gone in vain,” Tadros Kaldas, a Christian lawmaker, told The Associated Press. He blamed the law on authorities “fear of (Muslim) ultraconservatives.”
The Coptic Church’s position on the law has fluctuated. On Aug 18, it rejected the draft bill, calling it “dangerous to national unity.”
But days later, Tawadros met with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail. The pope then met with the Church’s Sacred Congregation, a body of 105 top officials, bishops and heads of monasteries. The congregation then issued a statement accepting the bill.
A general view of the Cave Cathedral or St. Sama’ans Church on the Mokattam hills overlooking Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
“The government has killed the dream,” said Emad Gad, a Christian lawmaker. The state is telling Christians, “You aren’t going to be full citizens in a state that strips away the national identity and puts a Salafi one on in its place.”