Government's newly-launched plan to rein in violent crime on public transport more modest than indicated

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): Citizen Security Deputy Minister Tarek El Assaimi disclosed some details of the government's newly-launched plan to rein in violent crime on public transport, but these showed action on a scale more modest than indicated when the crackdown was unveiled. El Assaimi said 1,200 officers from the Metropolitan Police (PM) would join the plan.

This would take place next week, he added, and deployment of police and National Guard (GN) troops would be decided in consultation with public sector workers. This in turn was taken as a sign that the additional forces would be focused on the most perilous routes and districts in the capital. On past occasions, critics warn, similar steps have had the effect of nudging criminals to move to other areas.

At one the point, last year, a wave of vicious muggings suddenly broke out in normally safe Chacao. Only days before, Libertador Mayor Freddy Bernal had evicted street vendors deemed to have provided a haven for thugs in his own bailiwick.

The latest anti-crime plan coincides with a statement by El Assaimi's boss, Interior & Justice Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin that 70 percent of murders in the capital involve criminals fighting each other. The minister was not reported to have issued figures to back up his claim, instead saying this was something for criminologists to discuss. But he was said to have argued that, in his understanding, these killings didn't affect public security.

This in itself posed questions about the remaining 30 percent of victims, some of whom are simply going about their lawful business when they're caught in the cross-fire of a shoot-out. Reports suggest there have been several such cases in recent days, with victims including at least one young mother and a 14-year-old boy shot in the head as he passed by on the way to see his brother.

Mirela Mendoza, a blond and willowy television actress, told the newspaper 2001 about how she'd been ambushed at gunpoint on her way home from dinner with friends at 10.30 last Tuesday night. She said she'd emerged unscathed from a terrifying experience.

Rodriguez Chacin may be wondering whether he got his timing right. There has been a spate of lengthy newspaper reports citing official figures supposedly showing that the rate of violent crime in Caracas all but doubled during the last decade.