Food shortages in the communist country of Venezuela are causing long lines and significant violence and rioting.
In one recent incident, a mob angered by lack of food stormed a National Guard posting in La Sibucara, looting the offices and burning it before slamming military trucks into the building and reducing it to rubble.
The country’s food situation has degraded to the level that people are standing in line for hours just to obtain basic food staples such as rice and milk. The country’s economy has undergone triple digit inflation which President Nicolas Maduro blames on food smuggling and price speculation.
A survey of Venezuelans found that 30% have two meals or less each day because of lack of food and 70% say they have stopped buying some basic food staple because of excessive cost or lack of availability.
The worldwide fall in oil prices has significantly hurt the country and the government’s ability to control the populace. When oil prices hovered around $100 a barrel, the government provided subsidized food and personal items such a diapers. Residents were able to smuggle items like cheap gasoline to neighboring countries as significant profit.
Since the collapse of the market, the government has been unable to provide the cheap goods and have used soldiers to close the borders and intercept any attempts to smuggle goods.
Venezuelan residents told the Wall Street Journal that they have no choice but to attempt to smuggle goods.
“The people that used to give us work—the private companies, the rich—have all gone,” said a woman who identified herself as Palma in La Sibucara.. “It’s not the greatest business but we don’t have work and we have to find a way to eat.”
“I think we’re going to die of hunger,” Yusleidy Márquez said.
Venezuelan leaders have begun to blatantly ignore human rights in squelching protests and opposition to their rule.
President Nicolas Maduro has been warning opposition leaders for weeks that they will be jailed and tortured like opposition hardliner Leopoldo Lopez if they do not stop opposing his plans for the country.
Thursday the government arrested two opposition members of the legislature and had already sentenced one of them to 10 months in jail. Another congresswoman is jailed and the government is working to strip away her congressional immunity from prosecution because of her opposition to Maduro.
The mayor of San Diego, Enzo Scarano, was removed from his position by the Supreme Court which is loaded with Maduro associates. He was jailed for not following a court order to remove protester barricades from the city.
Maduro said Thursday he will “neutralize” the “country’s enemies.”
Thousands of Venezuelan citizens attempted to have an “empty pots march” to the country’s food ministry Saturday in protest of chronic food shortages when military troops forced them to disburse at gunpoint.
The move by the military is the latest effort by the Maduro government to stop public opposition to his government.
Activists said over 5,000 people banged pots and blew horns as they marched toward the capital with banners pointing out massive shortages of flour, milk and toilet paper. In addition to the capital, similar protests were held in five other cities.
“There’s nothing to buy,” one of the marchers told The Guardian newspaper. “You can only buy what the government lets enter the country because everything is imported. There is no beef. There is no chicken.”
The food protests are the latest outcries against the Maduro government, which has allowed 56 percent inflation to remain unchecked and has done little to lower one of the world’s highest murder rates.
Officials with the Maduro government say that no protests are actually started by native Venezuelans, but are rather efforts of the United States, Panama and other nations to undermine the country’s socialist leadership.
Venezuelan’s government is trying to keep the world from finding out about the degrading conditions in the country.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is threatening to throw CNN out of the country if they don’t stop providing truthful coverage of the protests and civil unrest in the nation.
“I’ve asked minister Delcy Rodríguez to tell CNN we have started the administrative process to remove them from Venezuela if they don’t rectify (their coverage),” Maduro said on state TV. “Enough! I won’t accept war propaganda against Venezuela. If they don’t rectify this, they’re out of the country.”
The government has been trying to hide the level of protests in the country since the arrest of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez on terrorism charges. Human rights groups around the world have condemned the arrest as purely political.
The government has kept Venezuelan media from reporting on the protests.
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