Another Venezuelan Labor Leader is Assassinated in Aragua

Carora, December 4, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Another trade union leader, Simon Caldera, was assassinated Tuesday in the state of Aragua, in Venezuela.

This is the fourth assassination of a union leader in this central state in less than a week, and occurred amidst protests from labor unions regarding the assassinations. Caldera was the president of the pro-Chavez Bolivarian Construction and Industry Union.

Carora, December 4, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)– Another trade union leader, Simon Caldera, was assassinated Tuesday in the state of Aragua, in Venezuela.

This is the fourth assassination of a union leader in this central state in less than a week, and occurred amidst protests from labor unions regarding the assassinations. Caldera was the president of the pro-Chavez Bolivarian Construction and Industry Union.

The shots were fired from a moving vehicle while Caldera and two other trade unionists drove on a national highway. Caldera was shot in the head and the two others were injured in the attack. The gunmen fled the scene without robbing the victims.

The government has yet to issue a statement on the latest killing. On Tuesday, Venezuela’s Interior and Justice Ministry announced that it arrested a suspect in the three previous murders, which the head of that ministry Tarek El Aissami called a “hired homicide.”

The Minister declared that “the investigation is already well underway,” and that additional suspects in the killings may be apprehended soon.

The arrests came one day after President Hugo Chavez ordered a full-scale investigation into the murders, stating, “In Venezuela we cannot permit the installation of this perversion, these hired assassinations.”