Colombia’s oligarchy is to blame for Venezuela’s soaring violence, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday.
According to the leftist president, the soaring crime rate is being influenced by Colombian right-wing paramilitary fighters whose aim it is to worsen the security situation in Venezuela.
“Groups of assassins come from Colombia … all this supports the bourgeousie, footmen, the fifth column that has not hesitated to subordinate to the interest of the Yankee empire,” Chavez told the National Assembly.
Chavez says he has no doubt that these gangs are supported by the local and Colombian bourgeousie and “the Yankee empire.”
According to recent surveys, the increasing crime rate is the main concern of Venezuelans; according to the police 10,000 murders took place in the country in 2008. An independent research institute said that between October 2008 and September 2009 some 15,000 people were murdered in Venezuela.
Chavez considers crime and its perpetrators the “great enemies” of his so-called Bolivarian revolution that has implemented numerous social policies.
