Colombia's murder rate went down 45 percent, since president Álvaro Uribe took office in 2002, National Police commander Óscar Naranjo said Wednesday.
According to Naranjo, "the country experiences a reduction of homicides of 45 percent from 2002 to now, meaning we went from about 29,000 in 2002 to 16,140 murders in 2008."
"This reduction also means a decrease in the rate of violent deaths in Colombia from 67 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants to 33 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants," the Police commander told newspaper El Espectador.
Colombia hasn't seen such improvement in 30 years, the official said, adding that the country now has the lowest murder rate since the 1980's.
Naranjo reiterated the Government's claim that, despite a rise of murders on labor activists in 2008, the number of murders on unionists is still 82 percent lower than in 2002, when 225 unionists were murdered.
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