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LatinNews Daily - 9 September 2008

Venezuela's interior minister resigns

Development: On 8 September Venezuela's powerful interior and justice minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, resigned suddenly for “strictly personal reasons".

Significance: Although there was no indication that Rodríguez Chacín, a close ally of President Hugo Chávez , left office for any other reasons, the local press immediately began speculating that he was pushed. He was replaced by his number two, Tarek El Aissami, a veteran of the interior ministry.

Rodríguez Chacín had only been in his post since January 2008, when he was given the position in a major cabinet shake-up after the government's November 2007 defeat in referendum on constitutional reform.

He had previously occupied the post in 2001-2002, but left it after the April 2002 48-hour coup attempt against President Chávez .

Early this year, he personally led the Chávez government's negotiations with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), which resulted in the release of six civilians held hostage by the Farc.

He also headed up the government's efforts to introduce a controversial new intelligence law in May, which had to be scrapped by the president after a major public outcry over its potential infringement of civil liberties. He had more success with the new police law to integrate the country's fissiparous police forces under one central command.

Announcing his resignation, the minister noted there had been an “important fall" in the number of homicides in the country, although he gave no new figures in support of his claim. Earlier this year he reported that the national homicide total had fallen to 573 in 2007, down from 763 in 2006. Public concern about violent crime regularly tops local opinion polls.

According to the Global Peace index 2008, Venezuela registered 5 homicides per 100,000 people, ranking second worst in the Central and South America region (only Colombia was worse). Its homicide rate was shared by Colombia (which has an internal conflict), and several countries in Central American and the Caribbean, including Haiti, Honduras and Guatemala, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Brazil also had the same rate.

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