Deadly Peace in the Tuy Valley (Updated)

/ April 27, 2015

Ocumare-del-TuyAnother weekend, another massacre in Venezuela: ten people were killed and three wounded during a late birthday party in Lomas de Guadalupe, a recently opened housing complex located near the town of Ocumare del Tuy (Miranda State).

Sadly, the details of the incident sound all too familiar. An armed group came into the building and shot everyone on sight. Even if the whole event took less than three minutes, the victims were shot multiple times by the perpetrators (specially in the head).

As the formal investigation has been opened, it seems like this is just the latest in the brutal turf war currently taking place in the Tuy Valley between several criminal gangs. The direct consequence of this is a huge increase in homicides in the area.

According to El Universal’s Deivis Ramirez, there have been 274 murders in the Tuy Valley by mid-April (35% more than the same period last year). Ten of those murdered were cops. And some of the local bands are going even further to settle differences with rivals and hold control of their territory.

But wait a moment… isn’t Ocumare del Tuy what the central government calls a “peace zone”? Well, not quite…

Since the establishment of the State-sponsored Peace and Life Movement, and the creation of the so-called “peace zones”, many have complained that places like the Tuy Valley has turned into crime sanctuaries instead. Under the excuse of peace agreements and lax presence of the authorities, criminals impose their rule by the way of the gun.

And that doesn’t happen on the Tuy Valley alone. This El Nacional report by Javier Mayorca show how other peace zones located in Miranda State towns like Caucagua and Barlovento are now used by gangs involved in kidnappings, robberies and extortion. And looks like the bosses of the Criminal Police are in no hurry to retake those areas.

UPDATE: A new shoot-out took place this afternoon in Ocumare del Tuy, apparently related to the weekend’s incident. National Guards faced members of a gang known as “Los Enanos” in another housing complex (Ciudad Betania II). A grenade went off taking the life of a National Guard officer. Three delinquents were also killed.

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30 thoughts on “Deadly Peace in the Tuy Valley (Updated)”

  1. So, if one of the hypothesis proves to be true, the government uses public monies to built housing to be given for free to drug gangs ¡Viva Misión Vivienda! ¡Viva el Comandante Eterno!

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  2. Dad, who’s italian and arrived here in the seventies, always says to me that Tuy was hell on earth since forever.

    Same thing with grandpa, who was portuguese an arrived in 47′. They always wondered why the place is ridden with chaos since dawn of time.

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  3. More Venezuelan territory in which the regime has ceded sovereignty. Can someone produce a map of Venezuela showing all the areas which are now effectively lawless?

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    • Very simple, The only parts of Chavezland that are still in theory lawfully governed are; Miraflores, The AN and the various military bases. All other territory has been effectively handed over to the motorizados, collectivos and others.

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  6. Im told by someone familiar with Barlovento , that in some places a big local gang imposed order on all the minor gangs so that criminal activities followed certain strictly enforced rules which avoided the horrors we see now . The gang was led by two brothers , then one of them was taken prisioner by the police and the other was killed , the big gang dissolved and chaos took over , nothing holding in check all the frenzied psychopaths who previously had to observe certain restraint just to stay alive.

    The govt does not have the capacity to control crime so they just do things that allow crime to flourish with their blessing but making it appear as if they are doing it for saintly and enlightened reasons . What important to them is not protecting people from becoming the victims of crime , but saving face so that they are not blamed directly when it happens .

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    • “The govt does not have the capacity to control crime so they just do things that allow crime to flourish with their blessing but making it appear as if they are doing it for saintly and enlightened reasons .
      What important to them is not protecting people from becoming the victims of crime , but saving face so that they are not blamed directly when it happens .”

      Nope, dude.

      Criminals are slaughtering Venezuelans left and right because that IS a plan from chavismo to keep the population under control, it has been that way since the corpse took over in 1999 with his infamous “if I was hungry then I would steal”

      It isn’t that the regime CAN’T control criminals, the thing is that they DO NOT WANT TO.

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      • May be but I doubt it because its a key element of communist regimes that they hold a total monopoly on everything , including crime , in time if they develop the resources they will either make them a branch of the security forces or cut them to pieces , they cant stand anything which isnt under their total control , look at Cuba , these events in Cuba would be unthinkable , they dont have a problem with allowing crime and corruption provided they are the only ones to enjoy its benefits. !!

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      • Ralph,

        Paraphrasing Occam’s Razor: “Never try explain through a complex conspiracy, that which could be explained by simple incompetence.”

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        • It’s not a “complex conspiracy”, it’s a proven fact (Murder rate multiplied by almost 700% in chavista era), it’s logical (Control the criminals with impunity, control the population through fear), and it’s much simpler than trying to take shelter in the false assumption than all chaburros are retarded imbeciles who can’t wipe their own asses and thus they are all “are too incompetent” to control a bunch of armed brats.

          /////////////////////

          No es una “conspiración compleja”, es un hecho probado (La cantidad de asesinatos se multiplicó por casi 700% en la era chavista), es lógico (Controla a los criminales con la impunidad, controla a la población por el miedo), y es mucho más sencillo que intentar refugiarse en la presunción falsa de que todos los chaburros son unos imbéciles retrasados que no pueden ni limpiarse el culo y que por tanto todos ellos “son muy incompetentes” para controlar a un montón de mocosos armados.

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          • I don’t disagree that the crime levels are high (astronomical). I disagree that the Government, with malice aforethought, intended it to happen. Not even a dictatorship desires chaos. It is too unpredictable. The criminality in Venezuela is the result of massive incompetence and negligence.

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            • Roy, i agree on your premise of unpredictability, and it being not in a government’s” best interest to let criminality run free, however, I think this the basic misunderstanding here, and that is there is no government, but a charade to confuse and control people, while the occupation and its puppets embezzles dry the national treasury.

              Once they get all they can get out of the por ex-pais, “que se maten entre ellos!”….

              It is actually very good to cover their tracks and go abroad to enjoy their loot.

              What do you think?

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              • Actually, there IS malice, and a lot, on it.

                You think that “criminals are impossible to control”, nope, if they get out of hand, you kill them, period, no one will cry for them (Anybody remembers the colectivo odreman being shot like 30 times and then the crime scene destroyed by rodríguez torres’ orders?), the regime’s been doing that for years, or what do you think that the infamous “enfrentamiento entre bandas” and “razones pasionales” means?

                There won’t be chaos either, because you use the criminals to keep the angry people under control and to stop them from protesting, because they’ll be too busy trying not to get killed by the criminals that do as they please.

                castro told the corpse once that he should use the criminals as a tool to control the rest of the population (as he did once in cuba, only that those criminals are now all part of the infamous butt lickers that go and beat the crap and kill dissenters every time they please)

                It also was a viable strategy in Venezuela, for years, the media contributed to build the bullshit myth that malandros were just “misunderstood little children that were pushed to a bad life by a mean society that made their poor mommas suffer and in the end they represented a vindicative hero for the pauper”, which lead to the idiotic “If I was hungry then I would steal” that was actually “I’m giving carte blanche to every mugger, rapist and murderer to do as they please as long as they are loyal to me”.

                One recent proof that the regime’s been sponsoring crime and supporting criminals to keep slaughtering people is the sickening iris varela when she ordered to let free the kidnapper (condemned to 25 years for kidnapping and murder) that would kill Adriana Urquiola later with two gunshots, one to her face, other to her belly; and the latest example is how the murderers that killed Mónica Spears and her husband (And tried to kill their daughter too) were given ONLY FOUR YEARS for all of that.

                There is other perk in having criminals as your enforcers, NO ONE COULD IRREVOCABLY PROVE THAT THE MURDERS WERE ORDERED BY THE REGIME, because, hey, they were “just criminals”

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  9. Chavismo is not really the characterization of a strong state, rather, the process whereby the Venezuelan state was systematically dismantled to allow the occupying force (Cuba) to progressively embezzle and triangulate treasures out of Venezuela.

    Mision bolivar 2000 (15 yr.s ago) was the cabecera de playa, aimed at the military, and very effectively singled out any patriotic and ethical leaders out. Its been all down hill since then.

    The Tuy bands are just a result of a lack of a strong state and a lawless environment.

    Venezuela has become the poster child for capitalismo salvaje, with emphasis on salvaje. (i.e. la ley de la selva)

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  10. And then there are those who insist that the chavista regime isn’t actively instigating murder:

    http://www.ntn24portal.info/noticia/tribunal-venezolano-condena-a-cuatro-anos-a-adolescentes-implicados-en-asesinato-de-monica-spear-y-48745

    Let’s see the crimes involved here:

    1) Theft.
    2) Child violence.
    3) Attempted murder against child.
    4) Gender violence.
    5) Murder, and double.
    6) Let’s not forget public way blocking.

    Getting just FOUR years for all that? Now THAT’S A BARGAIN!

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  11. Another gem from this case : http://www.eluniversal.com/sucesos/150428/homicidas-de-la-masacre-de-ocumare-estaban-en-la-fiesta

    “De todos los fallecidos, el único que tenía registro policial, según destacaron funcionarios de seguridad, era Yovanny José Urbano, quien estuvo preso más de un año por homicidio.

    Los efectivos informaron que el sujeto había asesinado a su pareja y por ese delito estuvo tras las rejas.

    No especificaron más detalles de este hecho.

    En la balacera hubo tres heridos. Una es adolescente, de 17 años, que está grave.”

    So in Iris Valera’s Venezuela you kill your partner and only get one year in jail and free government housing.

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