by Paul Dobsonin Venezuela

VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro welcomed results from the first month of a crackdown on organised crime and paramilitaries on Tuesday.

The People’s Liberation Operations (OLPs) were launched in July in Caracas and have since been extended to 12 states.

“The time of action has arrived. I will be personally commanding the OLPs because I want to liberate the people from these criminal gangs,” declared Mr Maduro.

The OLPs are intended to “confront, dismantle and defeat the practices of paramilitaries that enemy groups are trying to implement here, replicating a model which has done so much damage to the Colombian people.”

Dawn raids by nearly 1,700 police and soldiers on new housing complexes built by the socialist government resulted in 931 arrests.

In all, 27 crime rings were broken up, with huge quanitities of drugs and firearms seized.

Fifty-two people were killed in shoot-outs with security forces.The raids also found over 1,200 flats and nearly 200 vehicles used by criminals.

Mr Maduro said the OLPs would be reinforced with 20,000 more personnel.

On his weekly TV programme, the president also aired a video allegedly exposing links between Venezuela’s right-wing opposition and paramilitaries trained and financed by former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe to destabilise Venezuela.

“We have identified 30 groups trained and financed by Uribe from Colombia,” Mr Maduro said. “We will capture all paramilitary groups who want to hurt Venezuela.”