Tag Archives: Looting

Wave of looting shutters stores, spreads fear in Venezuela

A worker closes the security shutter of a window display at a shoes store in downtown Caracas, Venezuela January 16, 2018.

By Alexandra Ulmer and Anggy Polanco

CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) – A wave of looting by hungry mobs across Venezuela has left streets of shuttered shops in provincial towns and pushed some store owners to arm themselves with guns and machetes, stirring fear that the turmoil could spread to the capital Caracas.

Worsening food shortages and runaway inflation have unleashed the spate of pillaging since Christmas in the South American country, in which seven people have reportedly died.

The unrest was sparked by shortages of pork for traditional holiday meals, despite socialist President Nicolas Maduro’s promise of subsidized meat to alleviate shortages.

Looters have ransacked trucks, supermarkets and liquor stores across the nation of 30 million people, which ranks as one of the most violent in the world.

The plunder is heaping more pain on battered businesses, raising questions about how much longer they can survive. Venezuela, once one of Latin America’s richest countries, is suffering a fifth straight year of recession and the world’s highest inflation rate, which the opposition-run Congress says topped 2,600 percent last year.

In the first 11 days of January alone, some 107 lootings or attempted lootings have taken place, according to the Venezuelan Observatory for Social Conflict, a rights group.

In one of the most dramatic incidents, a mob slaughtered cattle grazing in a field in the mountainous western state of Merida.

Skeptical that authorities can protect them, shopkeepers in the Andean town of Garcia de Hevia in the neighboring state of Tachira have taken matters into their own hands.

“We’re arming ourselves with sticks, knives, machetes, and firearms to defend our assets,” recounted William Roa, the president of the local shopkeepers’ association.

Roa, who owns a restaurant and liquor store, estimated that more than two-thirds of stores in the small town near the Colombian border were shut.

“A person spends the night in each store and we communicate using WhatsApp groups, coordinating by block 24 hours a day,” he said.

In Ciudad Guayana, a former industrial powerhouse on the Orinoco river in eastern Venezuela, many stores remain closed after a wave of nighttime lootings.

Garbage fills the streets and few cars circulate, though buses crammed with people crisscross town looking for places to buy food.

Businessmen in Caracas now fear the lootings, so far concentrated in the poorer and more lawless provinces, will spread to the sprawling capital, with its teeming hillside slums.

The owners of patisserie Arte Paris, in the city’s gritty downtown, reinforced the storefront with metal shutters last month. They now only stock ingredients like sugar for a handful of days and have considered hiring a costly nighttime guard.

“The fear is real,” said Sebastian Fallone, one of the owners, as men and children begged patrons for food. “I leave at night without knowing what I will find the next morning.”

‘NO HOPE’

Government critics say Maduro’s refusal to reform the OPEC nation’s floundering economy is to blame for the chaotic fight for survival in the country home to the world’s largest crude reserves.

With a presidential election looming this year, Maduro retorts that Venezuela’s oil-reliant economy is under attack by U.S.-backed saboteurs seeking to stoke conflict and discredit socialism in Latin America.

While videos of ransacking have gone viral, Maduro’s government has stayed largely mum. The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for information on the scale and impact of the looting.

The unrest has also stoked fears Venezuelan society could unravel as chaos sets in, fuelling mass emigration to nearby South American countries or a full-blown social explosion at home.

People line up outside a supermarket with its security shutters partially closed as a precaution against riots or lootings, in San Cristobal, Venezuela January 16, 2018.

People line up outside a supermarket with its security shutters partially closed as a precaution against riots or lootings, in San Cristobal, Venezuela January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Eduardo Ramirez

“Small-scale protests will be numerous and increasingly violent; any of these protests could contain the spark to serious unrest,” said consultancy Teneo Intelligence in a note to clients about the year ahead in Venezuela.

In an effort to curb voter anger over inflation, the government agency tasked with ensuring “fair prices” ordered some 200 supermarkets to slash their rates this month, triggering frenetic buying.

Roadside lootings have also scared truck drivers, disrupting the food distribution chain that is traditionally slower anyway in January because of holidays.

For Mery Cacua, manager of La Gran Parada, a supermarket chain in Tachira’s state capital San Cristobal, it has become too much to handle.

“We’re closing in two weeks. There’s no hope anymore,” said Cacua, adding she and her siblings had not yet mustered the strength to break the news to their 87-year-old father, who founded the business 60 years ago.

The family does not know what to do but is considering starting from scratch in Colombia.

Venezuelan supermarkets that remain open are often a shadow of what they once were. Many shelves are barren and poor Venezuelans increasingly mass outside stores, imploring entering shoppers to buy them goods.

“What are they going to loot here? There’s nothing. The warehouse is empty,” said an employee at a big supermarket in Caracas, as a colleague behind him filled empty shelves with water bottles to make them look stocked.

(Additional reporting by Maria Ramirez in Ciudad Guayana, Mircely Guanipa in Maracay, Andreina Aponte and Leon Wietfeld in Caracas; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Sandra Maler)

Floridians return to shattered homes as Irma crosses into Georgia

Residents walk through flood waters left in the wake of Hurricane Irma in a suburb of Orlando, Florida, U.S., September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

By Andy Sullivan and Robin Respaut

FLORIDA CITY/MARCO ISLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – Shocked Florida residents returned to their shattered homes on Monday as the weakened Hurricane Irma pushed inland, flooding cities in the northeastern part of the state and leaving millions without power.

Downgraded to a tropical storm early on Monday, Irma had ranked as one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes recorded. It cut power to millions of people and ripped roofs off homes as it hit a wide swath of Florida on Sunday and Monday and moved into neighboring states.

Authorities said the storm had killed 39 people in the Caribbean and one in Florida, a man found dead in a pickup truck that had crashed into a tree in high winds on the Florida Keys over the weekend.

With sustained winds of up to 60 mph (100 kph), Irma had crossed into Georgia and was located about 47 miles (76 km)northeast of the Florida state capital Tallahassee, the National Hurricane Center said at 2 p.m. ET.

In Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, people returned to the wreckage of trailers shredded by the storm after the city escaped the worst of Irma’s winds but experienced heavy flooding.

Melida Hernandez, 67, who had ridden out the storm at a nearby church, found her home split down the middle by a tree.

“I wanted to cry, but this is what it is, this is life,” Hernandez said.

High winds snapped power lines and left about 7.3 million homes and businesses without power in Florida and elsewhere in the U.S. Southeast, state officials and utilities said. They said it could take weeks to complete repairs.

Miami International Airport, one of the busiest in the country, halted passenger flights through at least Monday.

Police in Miami-Dade County said they had made 29 arrests for looting and burglary. Fort Lauderdale police said they had arrested 19 people for looting.

Some residents who had evacuated the Florida Keys archipelago, where Irma roared ashore on Sunday with winds up to 130 mph (209 kph), grew angry as they tried to return to their homes on Monday.

A few dozen people argued with police who turned them away from the first of a series of bridges leading to the island chain, which officials warned still lacked power, water and cellphone service.

White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert said it might be weeks before many residents of the Keys were able to return. “The Keys are going to take a while,” Bossert told a regular White House briefing. “I would expect that the Keys are not fit for re-entry for regular citizenry for weeks.”

Irma hit Florida after powering through the Caribbean as a rare Category 5 hurricane. It killed 39 people there, including 10 in Cuba, which was battered over the weekend by ferocious winds and 36-foot (11-meter) waves.

A week earlier Hurricane Harvey flooded a wide swath of Houston. Nearly three months remain in the official Atlantic hurricane season.

Northeastern Florida cities including Jacksonville were flooding on Monday, with police pulling residents from waist-deep water.

“Stay inside. Go up. Not out,” Jacksonville’s website warned residents. “There is flooding throughout the city.”

The city also warned residents to be wary of snakes and alligators driven into the floodwater.

 

BILLIONS IN DAMAGE

The storm did some $20 billion to $40 billion in damage to insured property as it tore through Florida, catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimated.

That estimate, lower than earlier forecasts of up to $50 billion in insured losses, helped spur a relief rally on Wall Street as fears eased that Irma would cut into U.S. economic growth.

Shares of insurance companies were among the big winners, with Florida-based Federated National, HCI Group and Universal Insurance all up more than 12 percent.

Some 6.5 million people, about one-third of Florida’s population, had been ordered to evacuate their homes ahead of Irma’s arrival. More than 200,000 people sought refuge in about 700 shelters, according to state data.

As shelters began to empty on Monday, some 7,000 people filed out of Germain Arena in Estero, south of Fort Myers. The crowd included Don Sciarretta, who rode out the storm with his 90-year-old friend, Elsie Johnston, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

Sciarretta, 73, spent two days without sleep, holding up a slumped-over Johnston and making sure she did not fall out of her chair. He relied on other people in the shelter to bring the pair food, often after waiting in hours-long lines.

“For the next storm, I’ll go somewhere on my own like a hotel or a friend’s house,” Sciarretta said. “I’m not going through this again.”

Shelters across western Florida opened, filled up – and often closed because of overcrowding – after the storm made a western shift on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, attending a ceremony at the Pentagon on the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, vowed a full response to Irma as well as ongoing federal support for victims of Hurricane Harvey, which flooded Texas.

“These are storms of catastrophic severity and we are marshalling the full resources of the federal government to help our fellow Americans,” Trump said.

On Marco Island, where the storm made its second landfall on Sunday, residents were cleaning up damaged homes and dealing with the downed trees that knocked out power lines and crushed cars.

Salvatore Carvelli, Jr., 45, rode out the storm in DaVinci’s, his Italian restaurant.

“It sounded like a train going through,” Carvelli said.

The winds tore the air conditioner from his restaurant’s roof, he said, adding that the storm surge added to the danger.

“There was no road that you could see,” Carvelli said. “The parking lot was gone, you could fish.”

 

(Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Orlando, Bernie Woodall, Ben Gruber and Zachary Fagenson in Miami, Letitia Stein in Detroit, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Doina Chiacu and Jeff Mason in Washington, Scott DiSavino in New York and Marc Frank in Havana; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Frances Kerry, Howard Goller and Paul Sim

Houston imposes night curfew to prevent looting

A helicopter hovers above the Houston skyline as sunlight breaks through storm clouds from Tropical Storm Harvey in Texas, U.S. August 29, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

(Reuters) – Houston has imposed an overnight curfew beginning at midnight Tuesday for an indefinite period amid incidents of looting, armed robberies and people impersonating police officers, city officials said.

The curfew will run from midnight until 5 p.m. It originally was due to begin at 10 p.m. but the city pushed the start back two hours to allow volunteers to continue working, Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement. The city is also bringing additional police from other regions.

“You cannot drive, nor be in any public place. We have had problems with armed robberies, with people with guns and firearms,” said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo.

Turner earlier said the city was opening several additional emergency shelters to alleviate crowding at the convention center, which has 10,000 people. Some of those will be moved to a nearby concert hall and basketball arena.

One shelter will open on the city’s west side, near where more than 3,000 homes have been flooded. Another center in Humble, Texas, will house people from the city’s northern suburbs, the mayor added.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Millions heed anti-Maduro shutdown in Venezuela

riot police versus anti-maduro protesters

By Andrew Cawthorne and Girish Gupta

CARACAS (Reuters) – Many Venezuelan streets were barricaded and deserted on Thursday for a strike called by foes of President Nicolas Maduro to demand elections and the scrapping of plans for a new congress they fear would consolidate dictatorship in the OPEC country.

From the Andes to the Amazon, millions joined the 24-hour shutdown, staying at home, closing businesses or manning roadblocks in a civil disobedience campaign the opposition hopes will end nearly two decades of socialist rule. Two young men died in the unrest, authorities said.

“We must all do our best to get rid of this tyrant,” said Miguel Lopez, 17, holding a homemade shield emblazoned with “No To Dictatorship!” at a barrier on a Caracas street devoid of traffic.

Many private transportation groups heeded the strike call, while students, neighbors and activists hauled rubbish and furniture into streets to erect makeshift barriers. The opposition said 85 percent of the country joined the strike.

In some places, however, such as the poor Catia and January 23rd neighborhoods of Caracas, streets and shops were still buzzing, while motorbike taxis replaced buses.

“I have to work to subsist, but if I could, I would strike,” said clothes seller Victor Sanabria, 49, in the southern town of San Felix. “We’re tired of this government.”

In a speech, Maduro vowed some of the strike leaders would be jailed and insisted the action was minimal, with the 700 leading food businesses, for example, still working.

He said opposition supporters attacked the headquarters of state TV and burned a kiosk of the government postal service, but were repelled by workers and soldiers. “I’ve ordered the capture of all the fascist terrorists,” he said, singling out a Caracas district mayor, Carlos Ocariz, for blame.

In clashes elsewhere, security forces fired tear gas at protesters manning barricades. Youths shot fireworks at them from homemade mortars.

Ronney Tejera, 24, and Andres Uzcategui, 23, died after being shot during protests, the state prosecutor’s office said. More than 170 people were arrested by late afternoon, a local rights group said.

DEATHS

Violence during four months of anti-government unrest has taken around 100 lives, injured thousands, left hundreds in jail and further damaged an economy in its fourth year of a debilitating decline.

Clashes have occurred daily since the opposition Democratic Unity coalition and a self-styled youth-led “Resistance” movement took to the streets in April. In the latest fatality, a man confronting protesters was burned to death this week in the northern coastal town of Lecheria, media and authorities said.

Leaders of Venezuela’s 2.8 million public employees said state businesses and ministries remained open on Thursday.

“I’m on strike ‘in my heart’ because if we don’t turn up, they will fire us,” said a 51-year-old engineer heading to work at state steel plant Sidor in southern Bolivar state.

Oil company PDVSA, which brings in 95 percent of Venezuela’s export revenue, was not affected.

In an internal memo seen by Reuters, PDVSA ordered “all workers to strictly comply with working hours” and stressed that failure to show up would lead to “sanctions.”

“The Constituent Assembly is going ahead!” PDVSA president Eulogio Del Pino said on state TV, referring to Maduro’s plan to create a super-legislature in a July 30 vote to replace the current opposition-controlled National Assembly.

As the PDVSA president spoke he was surrounded by red-shirted oil workers in Monagas state chanting “they will not return” in reference to opposition aspirations to take power.

Some Venezuelans grumbled that Thursday’s strike would cost them money at a time of extreme hardship.

“How can I eat if I don’t work?” said Jose Ramon, 50, chopping bananas and melons at his stall in a market in Catia.

By early evening, the strike seemed far more successful for the opposition than a similar action last year, which had a lukewarm response after Maduro vowed to seize closed businesses.

“The streets are desolate, including close to the dictator,” said opposition leader Freddy Guevara, tweeting pictures of empty avenues including near the Miraflores presidential palace.

“We fill and empty the streets when we choose in protest.”

“SANCTION ME”

Venezuela’s opposition now has majority support and said it drew 7.5 million people over the weekend for a symbolic referendum against the proposed assembly, which 98 percent of voters rejected.

Maduro also faces widespread foreign pressure to abort the assembly, which could rewrite the constitution and supersede other institutions.

The opposition is boycotting the vote, whose rules seem designed to guarantee a government majority in the new congress.

U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in on the dispute this week, threatening economic sanctions if the July 30 vote goes ahead. Individual sanctions could be applied to Maduro allies such as Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino or Socialist Party No. 2 Diosdado Cabello, U.S. officials have told Reuters.

“If they don’t sanction me, I would feel bad!” mocked Cabello at a rally of supporters on Thursday.

As well as a presidential election, Venezuela’s opposition is also demanding freedom for more than 400 jailed activists, autonomy for the legislature and foreign humanitarian aid.

(Additional reporting by Andreina Aponte, Diego Ore, Corina Pons, and Alexandra Ulmer in Caracas, Franciso Aguilar in Barinas, Anggy Polanco in San Cristobal, Maria Ramirez in Ciudad Guayana, Isaac Urrutia in Maracaibo, Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo; Editing by Tom Brown, Toni Reinhold)

Venezuela opposition condemns ‘vandalism’ in apartment block raids

People walk past the broken fencing of a building after opposition supporters and security forces clashed in and outside the building on Tuesday according to residents, in Caracas, Venezuela June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

By Diego Oré

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition lawmakers on Wednesday said security forces used excessive violence during a raid to capture protesters in a sprawling middle-class apartment complex carried out after officers came under fire.

Videos taken during the raid show an armored truck smashing through the gates of the Los Verdes complex, in an operation that Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said resulted in the capture of 23 people who had been involved in attacks on security forces.

“These subjects were involved in violent acts in which several officials were injured by gun fire,” Reverol said, describing clashes at a barricade close to the apartments as the trigger for the raid.

Los Verdes is located in a Caracas neighborhood that has been the site of almost nightly clashes over two months since protests broke out against government restrictions on the opposition and chronic shortages of basic consumer goods.

With at least 68 killed since April, the increasing intensity of protests and the government response has led some to warn that Venezuela risks descending into deeper political violence.

The government calls violent protesters “terrorists” who want to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro, and says that acts including attacks on police, the burning of vehicles and a looting and arson attack on a court building this week delegitimize their cause.

Dozens of car windows were smashed and at least 12 elevators broken during the operation on Los Verdes, said a Reuters witness at the site on Wednesday. One resident said an agent shot her dog in the eye.

“They are mafia criminals armed by the government,” said opposition lawmaker Tomas Guanipa, describing as “vandalism” the government action at the complex, which houses some 4,500 people.

Small protests and clashes rumbled on in several parts of Caracas and other cities on Wednesday, with security forces firing tear gas to clear a roadblock in a wealthy part of the capital and protesters burning a car.

Reverol said two people were killed in an accident when one motorcycle hit another after turning back from an opposition barricade on Wednesday.

The opposition street movement has been fanned by Maduro’s plan for July 30 elections for a special assembly to rewrite the constitution, which critics say are stacked in the government’s favor and will result in the opposition-controlled congress being dissolved.

The opposition is determined to stop the vote, calling instead for a presidential election. In a sign of how heated rhetoric has become, opposition lawmakers warn the situation could descend into armed conflict if protesters are not heard.

“If this government insists on going ahead, the world needs to know, sadly, what is coming here is a major war for the Venezuelans,” said lawmaker Juan Requesens at a sit-in protest blocking a Caracas highway on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Diego Ore; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Venezuela prosecutor chides government over military tribunals

Opposition supporters rally against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Eyanir Chinea and Alexandra Ulmer

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s chief prosecutor on Wednesday accused security officers of excessive force and condemned the use of military tribunals to judge protesters, deepening her split with President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

After nearly two months of massive anti-government rallies demanding early presidential elections, fissures have appeared in the hitherto publicly homogenous socialist administration.

In a speech on Wednesday, prosecutor Luisa Ortega said 55 people had been killed in unrest, around 1,000 others injured, and 346 properties burned or looted as chaos flares across the oil-rich country that is reeling from an economic crisis.

In one particularly controversial case, Ortega said investigations showed that 20 year-old student Juan Pernalete was killed by a tear gas canister fired from close range by a National Guard, not by a pistol as officials had suggested.

“Firing tear gas directly on people is banned,” she said, holding up a canister at a press conference that she gave at an alternative venue after a power outage in her office.

More than half of the injuries have been caused by security forces, she said, condemning violence on both sides.

Soon after the speech, her office announced two more deaths in the unrest, including a 14-year-old, taking the total to 57.

Ortega said her office was also investigating seven cases of military courts trying people who should be in civil courts. “We’re worried about the situation of those detained in military courts,” Ortega said, demanding access to detainees.

Rights group Penal Forum has said that 338 people have faced proceedings in military tribunals in recent days, with 175 still detained. It has said that in total, over 2,700 people have been arrested since early April, with more than 1,100 still behind bars.

“SHAM” VOTES

There was continued unrest around the country on Wednesday, with people barricading streets in some places and the opposition holding more protest marches. The Supreme Court ordered Caracas mayors to ensure that streets were clear and to take action against those responsible.

The pro-government electoral council said on Tuesday that voting for a controversial “constituent assembly” would be held in July and delayed state elections in December.

Maduro foes countered that was a sham designed to confuse Venezuelans, and to prompt infighting among the opposition and allow the unpopular leftist government to dodge free and fair elections they would likely lose.

Opposition lawmakers have said that the assembly, whose 540 members would be elected on a municipal level and by community groups like workers, would be filled with people who would merely obey Maduro’s orders to rewrite the constitution.

“Once installed, this constituent assembly will eliminate governorships, mayors, and the National Assembly,” said opposition lawmaker Tomas Guanipa.

“There’s been a break in Venezuela’s constitutional order, and the streets are our way to rescue it,” he said.

Maduro has said that he is facing an “armed insurrection” and the constituent assembly, a super body that would supersede all other public powers, is the way to restore peace to Venezuela. The former bus driver and union leader, elected in 2013, calls the opposition coup-mongers seeking to stoke violence and overthrow his “21st century Socialism.”

RIOTS AND LOOTING

Looting, roadblocks and riots are now commonplace around Venezuela given hunger, hopelessness, easy access to weapons, and gangs taking advantage of chaos as protests spin out of control.

In many places, school classes are canceled, public transportation is halted, and streets are barricaded. Some neighborhoods look like war zones after nighttime pillaging of bakeries and warehouses.

At some intersections, hooded young men ask passersby for money to “collaborate with the resistance.”

Traffic was blocked in parts of the capital on Wednesday.

The trouble has been particularly bad this week in Barinas, the home state of Maduro’s mentor and predecessor Hugo Chavez that the socialists regard as the “cradle of the revolution.”

Seven people died in protests there in the last few days, according to the state prosecutor.

A man who had been set alight on Saturday by protesters in Caracas appeared on state television from his hospital bed and said that he had been attacked for being a government supporter, echoing Maduro’s version of the incident over the weekend.

“They said I had to die because I was a ‘Chavista’,” said Orlando Figuera, adding that he was not a supporter of the ruling ‘Chavismo’ movement named for the former president.

Witnesses to that incident, including a Reuters photographer, had said the crowd accused him of being a thief. But officials have said that the attack on Figuera was an example of the “fascist” violence they are facing.

A protesting violinist, who has been a regular fixture playing the National Anthem and other tunes despite tear gas, flying rocks and petrol bombs in Caracas, told reporters that security forces broke his instrument on Wednesday.

A video of him crying with his smashed instrument went viral on Venezuelan social media. Supporters bought him a replacement.

(Additional reporting by Diego Ore, Mircely Guanipa, Corina Pons, Andrew Cawthorne, Andreina Aponte, and Brian Ellsworth; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Girish Gupta; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Toni Reinhold)

Highland Venezuelan town blitzed by looting and protests

Manuel Fernandes, a local businessman, embraces a neighbour outside of his bread and cake shop after looters broke in, following days of protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in the city of Los Teques, near Caracas, Venezuela, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Andrew Cawthorne

LOS TEQUES, Venezuela (Reuters) – Like many Portuguese immigrants to Venezuela after World War Two, Manuel Fernandes spent a lifetime building a small business: his bread and cake shop in a highland town.

It took just one night for it to fall apart.

The first he knew of the destruction of his beloved “Bread Mansion” store on a main avenue of Los Teques was when looters triggered the alarm, resulting in a warning call to his cellphone at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

Fernandes was stuck at home due to barricades and protests that have become common in seven weeks of anti-government unrest in Venezuela. So he was forced to watch the disaster unfold via live security camera images.

“There were hundreds of people. They smashed the glass counters, the fridges. They took everything – ham, cheese, milk, cornflakes, equipment,” the 65-year-old said, as workmen secured the shop on Friday with thick metal plates.

“I’ve dedicated everything to this. My family depends on it,” said the distraught businessman, on a street where most neighboring stores were also ransacked in a frenzy of looting in Los Teques this week.

Unrest and protests against President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government since early April have caused at least 46 deaths plus hundreds of injuries and arrests.

They have also sparked widespread nighttime looting.

When a mob smashed its way into a bakery in El Valle, a working class neighborhood of Caracas, last month, 11 people died, eight of them electrocuted and three shot.

This week, Maduro’s government sent 2,000 troops to western Tachira state, where scores of businesses have been emptied.

In Los Teques, an hour’s drive into hills outside Caracas, locals spoke of up to half a dozen more deaths in looting and clashes this week between security forces and young protesters from a self-styled ‘Resistance’ movement.

There has been no official confirmation of those deaths.

Reuters journalists visiting the town on Friday had to negotiate permission from masked youths manning roadblocks and turning back traffic at the main entrances.

Mostly students, the young men said they had put academic work on hold and were determined to stay in the street until Maduro allowed a general election, the main demand of Venezuela’s opposition in the current political crisis.

‘NOTHING TO LOSE’

“We are from humble families. We have nothing to lose. I don’t even have enough for a bus fare or food. That tyrant Maduro has wrecked everything,” said Alfredo, 28, who stopped studying to man barricades and says he runs a unit of 23 “resistance” members.

Armed with homemade shields, stones and Molotov cocktails, the youths build barricades with branches, furniture and bags of trash, scrawling slogans like ‘No Surrender’ on nearby walls.

They turn back traffic and wait for the inevitable arrival of security forces. Some have scars and wounds from intense clashes this week.

Oil has been spread on the ground to deter armored vehicles used by the National Guard. Barbed wire is also used.

On Friday morning, one man walked up to the barricade with a woman in a wheelchair, and was granted special permission to pass. Some women, trying to visit relatives jailed in a nearby prison, also managed to talk their way through.

Mid-morning, some neighbors delivered arepas, a cornmeal flatbread that is Venezuela’s staple food, to the youths, offering them words of encouragement and thanks.

“You see, they all support us,” said Micky, covering his face with a red bandana at a barricade. “We are not coup-mongers like Maduro says. All we want is a general election.”

The 54-year-old president narrowly won election in 2013 to replace the late Hugo Chavez who died from cancer.

But without his predecessor’s charisma, popular touch and unprecedented oil revenues, Maduro has seen his popularity plunge as the economy nosedived, helping the opposition win majority support in the OPEC nation of 30 million people.

He accuses foes of an “armed insurrection,” with the support of the United States, and blames “fascist” protesters for all the deaths and destruction in Venezuela since April.

In Los Teques, however, youths at the barricades hotly deny any involvement in looting, pointing the finger instead at local pro-government neighborhood groups known as ‘colectivos.’

The unrest is exacerbating an already appalling economic crisis in Venezuela. There is widespread scarcity of food and medicines, inflation is making people poorer and hungrier, and standing for hours in shopping lines has become a norm for many.

“I’m closing. So the same people who did this to me now won’t have anywhere to buy their food,” said Fernandes, running his hands through his hair and surveying the once-bustling commercial street of now boarded-up shop fronts.

“Why are we all hurting and fighting each other?”

(Editing by Girish Gupta, Toni Reinhold)

Mayhem rages in west Venezuela; Capriles blocked from U.N. trip

Opposition supporters clash with riot security forces while rallying against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, May 18, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Anggy Polanco and Andreina Aponte

SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela/CARACAS (Reuters) – Mobs looted shops and fought security forces overnight in Venezuela’s restive western region, where three soldiers were being charged on Thursday with the fatal shooting of a man who was buying diapers for his baby, witnesses said.

Six weeks of anti-government unrest have resulted in at least 44 deaths, as well as hundreds of injuries and arrests in the worst turmoil of President Nicolas Maduro’s four-year rule of the South American OPEC-member country.

Protesters are demanding elections to kick out the socialist government that they accuse of wrecking the economy and turning Venezuela into a dictatorship. Maduro, 54, the successor to late leader Hugo Chavez, says his foes are seeking a violent coup.

One of Maduro’s main opponents, local governor Henrique Capriles, said on Thursday that his passport was confiscated when he was at the airport outside Caracas for a flight to New York, where he was to visit the United Nations and denounce human rights violations.

“My passport is valid until 2020. What they want to do here is avoid us going to the United Nations,” Capriles said, before returning to the capital to join a protest march.

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, was due to meet with Capriles in New York on Friday.

“Hope (Capriles’) passport removal is not reprisal linked to planned meeting with me tomorrow,” Zeid said on Twitter.

The move comes a month after Capriles, a two-time presidential candidate who was seen by many as the opposition’s best chance in the presidential election scheduled for 2018, was banned from holding political office for 15 years.

Capriles, a sports-loving lawyer who has tried to shake the opposition’s reputation of elitism by focusing on grassroots efforts with poor Venezuelans, narrowly lost the 2013 vote against Maduro, and the two frequently lock horns.

UNREST IN THE WEST

Across the country near the border with Colombia, clashes and lootings raged overnight, even though the government sent 2,000 troops to Tachira state.

Security forces fired teargas at stone-throwing gangs, and crowds smashed their way into shops and offices in San Cristobal, the state capital, and elsewhere.

Manuel Castellanos, 46, was shot in the neck on Wednesday when caught in a melee while walking home with diapers he had bought for his son, witnesses said.

Diapers have become prized products in Venezuela due to widespread shortages of basic domestic items.

The State Prosecutor’s Office said three National Guard sergeants would be charged later on Thursday for their “presumed responsibility” in Castellanos’ killing.

Earlier in the week, a 15-year-old was shot dead when out buying flour for his family’s dinner.

Most shops in San Cristobal, a traditional hotbed of anti-government militancy, were closed on Thursday, with long lines at the few establishments open.

In Caracas, protesters sought to march to the Interior and Justice Ministry but were blocked on a major highway by security forces firing tear gas and using armored vehicles. That sparked now-familiar scenes of masked youths brandishing shields and throwing stones at the security line.

International anxiety about the Venezuelan crisis is growing.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos discussed Venezuela’s “deteriorating situation” at a White House meeting on Thursday.

“We will be working with Colombia and other countries on the Venezuela problem,” Trump said. “It is a very, very horrible problem. And from a humanitarian standpoint, it is like nothing we’ve seen in quite a long time.”

France called for mediation amid the worsening situation, and Britain warned its citizens against “all but essential travel” to Venezuela.

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago in Caracas, Tom Miles in Geneva and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne, Alexandra Ulmer and Girish Gupta; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Leslie Adler)

Venezuela sends 2,000 troops to state hit by looting, protests

Workers of the health sector and opposition supporters take part in a protest against President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello

By Anggy Polanco

SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuela said it was sending 2,000 soldiers on Wednesday to a border state that is a hotspot of anti-government radicalism after looting that killed a 15-year-old in the latest unrest roiling the nation.

Most shops and businesses in San Cristobal, capital of Tachira state on the Colombian border, were closed and guarded by soldiers on Wednesday, though looting continued in some poorer sectors, residents said.

People made off with items including coffee, diapers, and cooking oil in the OPEC nation where a brutal economic crisis has made basic foods and medicine disappear from shelves.

Barricades of trash, car tires, and sand littered the streets, as daily life broke down in the city that was also a hotspot during the 2014 wave of unrest against leftist President Nicolas Maduro.

Hundreds of thousands of people have come onto the streets across Venezuela since early April to demand elections, freedom for jailed activists, foreign aid and autonomy for the opposition-led legislature.

Maduro’s government accuses them of seeking a violent coup and says many of the protesters are no more than “terrorists.” State oil company PDVSA also blamed roadblocks for pockets of gasoline shortages in the country on Wednesday.

In Tachira, teenager Jose Francisco Guerrero was shot dead during the spate of looting, his relatives said.

“My mom sent my brother yesterday to buy flour for dinner and a little while later, we received a call saying he’d been injured by a bullet,” said his sister Maria Contreras, waiting for his body to be brought to a San Cristobal morgue.

The state prosecutor’s office confirmed his death, which pushed the death toll in six weeks of unrest to at least 43, equal to that of the 2014 protests.

’21ST CENTURY JEWS’

With international pressure against Venezuela’s government mounting, the United Nations Security Council turned its attention to the country’s crisis for the first time on Wednesday.

“The intent of this briefing was to make sure everyone is aware of the situation … we’re not looking for Security Council action,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told reporters after the session.

“The international community needs to say, ‘Respect the human rights of your people or this is going to go in the direction we’ve seen so many others go’ … We have been down this road with Syria, with North Korea, with South Sudan, with Burundi, with Burma.”

Venezuela’s U.N. envoy Rafael Ramirez in turn accused the United States of seeking to topple the Maduro government.

“The U.S. meddling stimulates the action of violent groups in Venezuela,” he said, showing photos of vandalism and violence he said was caused by opposition supporters.

Venezuelans living abroad, many of whom fled the country’s economic chaos, have in recent weeks accosted visiting state officials and their family members.

Maduro on Tuesday likened that harassment to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust under the Nazis.

“We are the new Jews of the 21st century that Hitler pursued,” Maduro said during the cabinet meeting. “We don’t carry the yellow star of David … we carry red hearts that are filled with desire to fight for human dignity. And we are going to defeat them, these 21st century Nazis.”

Venezuela’s main Jewish group, the Confederation of Israeli Associations in Venezuela, responded with a statement expressing its “absolute rejection” of “banal” comparisons with the Holocaust that killed six million Jews.

Social media has for weeks buzzed with videos of Venezuelan emigres in countries from Australia to the United States shouting insults at public officials and in some cases family members in public places.

Maduro’s critics say it is outrageous for officials to spend money on foreign travel when people are struggling to obtain food and children are dying for lack of basic medicines.

But some opposition sympathizers say such mob-like harassment is the wrong way to confront the government.

As night fell on Wednesday, thousands of opposition supporters poured onto the streets of different cities for rallies and vigils in honor of the fatalities during protests.

Many carried flags and candles.

“We’ve been in the street for more than 40 days because this government has broken every law, every human right, and we cannot bear it anymore,” said one demonstrator, Eugenia, who asked that her last name not be used.

“This rally is important because we have to retake the streets, we have been scared for too long,” she added, referring to the rampant violent crime that normally stops people from going out after dark.

For a graphic on Venezuela’s economic woes click https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__tmsnrt.rs_2pPJdRb&d=D

(Reporting by Anggy Polanco, additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Brian Ellsworth, Girish Gupta, Euridice Bandres and Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas, Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations in New York; Writing by Girish Gupta and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Andrew Hay)

‘End the injustice’ pleads Venezuelan official’s son over unrest

Opposition supporters clash with security forces during a rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Alexandra Ulmer

CARACAS (Reuters) – The son of Venezuela’s pro-government human rights ombudsman has surprised the country amid major protests against the leftist administration by publicly urging his father to “end the injustice.”

The opposition has accused ombudsman Tarek Saab, whose title is “defender of the people,” of turning a blind eye to rights abuses and a lurch into dictatorship by unpopular President Nicolas Maduro.

Some 29 people have died during this month’s unrest.

In many of the vast street protests in Caracas in recent days, marchers aimed to converge on his office, but security forces firing tear gas and water cannons blocked them.

So Venezuelans were shocked to see Saab’s son, a law student, breaking ranks with his powerful father and saying he himself had been a victim of what he called government repression against marchers.

“Dad, in this moment you have the power to end the injustice that has sunk this country,” said Yibram Saab in a YouTube video late on Wednesday, sitting outside and reading from a paper.

“I ask you as your son, and in the name of Venezuela that you represent, that you reflect and do what you must do,” added the younger Saab.

His father’s support would be key to allowing lawmakers to open a case to remove the magistrates of the pro-government Supreme Court, who have overridden the opposition-led National Assembly.

In the video, Saab’s son said he suffered “brutal repression” from security forces on Wednesday, when a 20-year-old demonstrator was killed by a tear gas canister that hit him in the chest. “It could have been me,” said Yibram Saab.

The ombudsman, a former student leader who became a poet, lawyer, and Socialist Party governor, responded in a radio interview later on Thursday, saying he respected his son’s right of opinion and loved him just the same.

“I love him, I adore him, whatever he might have said,” he told La Romantica station, adding that he always defended rights and condemned violence no matter which side it came on.

Maduro’s son called on Saab’s son to reconsider.

The president’s son echoed the government stance that demonstrators are terrorists trying to instigate a coup amid the biggest protests since 2014.

“Your three minutes of fame could have been different. I think you could have picked up the phone and spoken with your father, expressing to him your love and concern and listening to him,” wrote Nicolas Maduro Guerra.

The government has long accused the opposition of attempting to stage a coup, citing a short-lived attempt in 2002 against former President Hugo Chavez.

Saab, a staunch Chavez ally, was himself detained for a few hours during that coup, according to rights groups.

OPPOSITION BOOST

Opposition leaders said the video was evidence of fissures within “Chavismo,” a movement founded by the charismatic Chavez that has taken a hit under Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader whose presidency has been marked by a stark recession.

The opposition hoped Saab’s video would spur protesters to keep up street action despite fatigue, injuries, arrests and no sign of concessions from Maduro.

“The majority of us want a change, and that includes the families of those who today prop up this regime,” tweeted opposition lawmaker Juan Andres Mejia.

Maduro’s opponents are demanding a general election, the release of jailed activists, humanitarian aid to help offset shortages of food and medicine, and autonomy for the legislature.

They have been galvanized by international condemnation of Maduro’s government and Caracas’ increasing diplomatic isolation.

In what might have been a pre-emptive move to avoid expulsion, Venezuela has said it will withdraw from the Organization of American States, the first nation to do so in the bloc’s more than century-old history.

The head of the regional body had said Venezuela could be expelled, accusing Maduro of eroding the country’s democracy by delaying elections and refusing to respect the legislature.

“Today, Venezuela woke up freer than yesterday,” Maduro said in a speech to a women’s meeting on Thursday. “OAS, go to hell!”

Communist ally Cuba, which has not returned to the OAS after being suspended from 1962-2009, backed Venezuela “in this new chapter of resistance and dignity.”

But the United States said it would like Venezuela to remain in the OAS, so long as it complies with requirements. Separately, President Donald Trump, a strong critic of Maduro, said the situation in Venezuela is “very sad.”

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini condemned the violence in Venezuela, sent condolences over the dead, and urged the government to both protect peaceful protesters and set “a clear electoral calendar”

(Additional reporting by Girish Gupta and Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas, Lesley Wroughton in Washington D.C. and Nelson Acosta in Havana; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, and Andrew Hay)