If we do the maths, unlike El Universal, which just quoted the absolute numbers from an OAS report, we can see how Venezuela under Chávez compares with the rest of America when it comes to violent crime. So: we take the population of all our hemisphere, the total number of murdered people and compare that to the most reliable information we have about our country. Admittedly, that is not easy as the Chávez government refuses to send detailed information about the mess it has put Venezuela in.
Things are not rosy for the inhabitants of the Land of Grace. A Venezuelan citizen has almost 5 times more chances of getting murdered than the average citizen of the American Hemisphere, from Canada to Chile.
In some countries the murder rate is much lower - take Canada or Chile - and in others it is high but still lower than in Venezuela - take almost all the rest, including Mexico and Colombia. Only a couple of small countries have murder rates worse than Venezuela's under Chávez. Those countries are Honduras, Guatemala and Jamaica.
Venezuela's murder rate has tripled since the Llanos caudillo is in power.