Yet the Socialist leaders sit home safe, sound and fully fed.

WTF....Socialism for the World!



Venezuela mobs kick, burn thieves in lynching epidemic



Caracas (AFP) - Swearing in fury, the crowd strips the man naked and stomps
on his head as he sprawls on the ground.

"You want things that come easy? Then take this, you *******."

In Venezuela, this is what robbers get when they are caught by passers-by.

It is not just the country's economy and political system that are sick, but
society itself, experts say. An epidemic of lynchings is one of the most
gruesome symptoms.

- 'Justice' -

AFP journalists filmed a lynching close-up in a busy street in the capital
Caracas.

A witness says he stopped the man who had tried to rob a woman at gunpoint
in a bakery. Then the mob took over.

"You're lucky we didn't burn you," a voice yells, as police lug the man,
limp but still breathing, into the back of their car.

The crowd yells in satisfaction -- but not at the man's arrest. They think
they are the ones who have done justice here.

"Their aim is to kill the person before the police arrive," says Marco
Ponce, coordinator of the Venezuelan Social Conflict Observatory (OVCS).

The body says some 60 people were recorded as killed in lynchings in the
first five months of this year alone.

Last year there were 126 such killings -- a surge from the 20 reported in
the previous year, coinciding with the worsening of political tensions and
economic chaos.

"In lynchings, citizens let out their anger in the face of a state that is
not defending their right to justice," says Ponce.

"They think they are dispensing justice, and they do so with anger, so they
go as far as killing the person."

- No pity -

Caracas resident Damaso Velasquez recalls taking part himself in a separate
lynching.

"I didn't feel pity for that person because I knew he was a criminal," he
tells AFP.

"I felt rage and hatred towards that person... I saw him committing a
robbery. That makes you feel furious, so whatever happens to him, it's
alright," he goes on.

"The government grabs him, puts him in jail and then they let him go again.
There is disorder here in Caracas -- starting with the government."

Venezuela has one of the highest annual murder rates in the world -- 70 for
every 100,000 inhabitants in 2016, according to the state prosecution
service.

Yet only about six crimes out of every 100 here result in a sentence, says
criminologist Fermin Marmol.

"People feel that the state is not protecting them, so they opt to defend
themselves," says Freddy Crespo, a criminologist at the University of the
Andes.

"Their fear turns into anger."

- 'Social breakdown' -

Ponce sees the rise of lynchings as a sign of a "social breakdown" in
Venezuela.

President Nicolas Maduro suggested that a man who was set on fire during a
demonstration in May was targeted for being a government supporter.
Witnesses said the crowd accused him of thieving.

Maduro broadcast a chilling video of the 22-year-old man running in flames
after being doused in fuel and set alight. The man died in hospital two
weeks later.

In another case, a man was set on fire by a crowd who thought he had
committed a robbery, but it turned out he had been trying to help the
victim.

A man was sentenced to six years in jail in March for taking part in that
killing.

For some Venezuelans, the lynchings inspire as much terror as the criminals
they are meant to punish.

"The state is supposed to provide you with civil and judicial security,
which we are totally lacking," says one Caracas resident, Maria Hernandez.

"But I don't think it is just for me to come and kill or burn you just
because you have robbed," she adds.

"That way I would turn into someone more barbaric than you."