By Niall Ferguson (Original source The Times)
“The first and only time I have seen a man shot dead was in Venezuela. It was January 2010, and I was with a camera crew in a rough district on the outskirts of Caracas. A shot rang out. I spun round and saw a man lying in the street. He wasn’t moving.
“What just happened?” I asked the local fixer.
“Oh, the police shot that guy,” he replied.
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, he grabbed hold of a cop’s gun and so they shot him.”
“Oh well,” I said, my shock rendering me more than usually stupid. “I guess that’s better than if he had shot the cop.”
He looked at me with weary pity. “Niall,” he said. “In Venezuela the police are just another gang.”
Ever since, that has been my definition of the absence of the rule of law: when the police are just another gang.”
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