Public safety in Venezuela has reached a crisis point where the morgues overflow with cadavers of crime victims.
Venezuela News and Views reports on the photo causing a stir on the cover of El Nacional
El Nacional simply mentions what we all know already, that the Venezuelan morgues do not have enough staff to deal with the onslaught of dead bodies sent to them, and thus the messy pile up we can observe on the above picture. El Nacional also tells us that the morgue of Bello Monte has received in the first 6 months of this year, 2010, 2177 bodies of homicide victims, more than the year digits! Think about that for a second, before you rush to compare this number to war torn Baghdad.
The accompanying article will do little to cheer you up. If 2,177 bodies were for murder, the total for the 6 months was 3,111 bodies (difference due to accidents I presume). The whole of Venezuela has seen AT LEAST 5,186 murders in the same period. I wrote “at least” because the regime refuses to publish the final numbers and we must rely on ONG body counts as they are brought to the diverse morgues of the country. 72% of the victims are male between 15 and 29, giving a new meaning to 2lost generation”. And to illustrate the meanness that such a murder rate implies, 63% of the bodies shot have been shot 5 times or more. 5 bullet wounds at least!
Needless to say that the impact of front page of El Nacional generated a virulent reaction of “shoot the messenger” in the regime ranks, already quite touchy after the CNN debacle of Izarra and Chavez in Santa Marta. The CICPC director started by threatening a law suit against El Nacional. The CICPC is kind of a FBI and its director Wilmer Flores Trosel is a jerk, and a manipulator one at that. For some reason he considered an argument that the picture dates from 2006 whereas the Nacional puts clearly the date on its front page. But in 2006 ALREADY violence and crime and murders and morgues were a problem!!!!! And the regime had been in office for 7 years already! Besides, Trosel does not explain why 2006 is the date.
Not to be left behind, the ombudsman, people’s defense, Gabriela Ramirez who is absolutely genetically unable to defend anyone that is not chavista even though we all pay her paycheck, went out to say that such front page is an injury to the brains of young people who should be protected from such nightmares and the Nacional made to stop such publications. No word from her as to her plans to protect the innocent ears of the slums from the nightly intra gang shootings, or the tender eyes from the bodies abandoned in the middle of the street because the morgue is late in picking them up, bodies they must bestride on their way to school in the early morning, or their tender souls as they learn of the funeral services from their murdered neighbor. But her cynical idiocy has been well established long ago, so let’s move on.
The Chavista government responded with censorship through a court order, so today newspaper El Nacional published its front page leaving large blank spaces with the word “CENSORED” (click on photo for link in Spanish)
Venezuela News and Views has more on El Nacional’s front page and how it has brought Chavez’s censorship out of the closet.
The morgue photo that caused the stir is below the fold. PLEASE NOTE IT IS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC AND NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK.
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