Preparations Continue for Initiation of Venezuelan National Police

Mérida, November 29^th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – In further steps toward implementing a new policing model in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez named directors of the new National Police and announced the creation of an anti-crime commission within the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Yesterday at a conference of aspirants to the National Police, Chavez designated two police commissioners, Luis Fernandez and Argenis Gonzalez, as director and sub-director of the National Police.

The National Police force is to be the new main police body, and is expected to begin operating in December. It was formally created last year when the National Assembly passed the Law on National Police Service and National Police force, which was based on the findings of a two-year consultation process with human rights organisations, communities and police forces.

The new anti-crime commission within the PSUV will work with the National Police, Chavez said. It will be headed up by ex-Caracas mayor, Freddy Bernal.

In his speech to the aspirants, Chavez said that in the future Venezuela would have “the best police in the world.”

He said that crime in Venezuela has become a “fifth counter revolutionary column” that ruins the plans of the Bolivarian revolution and he repeated the need for a police force that is respected, run by the people, and preventative rather than repressive.

“Police should be the synonym of a man or woman who defends the people,” Chavez said, “And they should have a dignified and fair salary.”

Some delegates from the PSUV will also travel to Cuba to participate in the next Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) and will receive training in how to work with communities and party branches to find solutions to the crime problem.

“We have to prepare ourselves to defend our people against drug trafficking… we can’t allow it to continue damaging our youth,” Chavez said.

The minister for justice and internal affairs, Tarek El Aissami, also spoke at the conference, saying that the nuclei of communal police, a force being formed in conjunction with the National Police that will work with the community councils, will be organised according to three main elements: Land area, population density and the local crime rate.

Venezuelans consistently nominate crime as the most serious issue in Venezuela, and government officials have admitted that police are responsible for a large proportion of it.