Latin America

Bacchus4.0

(6,837 posts) Mon Jun 6, 2016, 08:29 AM Jun 2016

In Venezuela, Looting is the New Normal

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2413631&CategoryId=10717

CARACAS -- There were 81 incidents of looting in Venezuela during the month of May, according to a local NGO.

With worsening food shortages causing about three such instances a day, the country seems to be reliving the 1989 “Caracazo”, a two-day looting fest, only this time in slow motion, with the main difference being that, if in 1989 all of the looting was concentrated in only two days and mostly in Caracas, nowadays there is looting every day, several times a day, and all over Venezuela.

According to the government of Nicolas Maduro's narrative, Venezuela is going through severe scarcity because of the opposition's “economic war.” The opposition points out that it is the government which caused the shortages, through excess public spending (which caused liquidity to quadruple in two years), price and currency exchange controls, expropriations and nationalizations of agro-industrial firms, which paralyzed imports (Venezuela imports about 90% of all the food it consumes) as well as domestic production.

May’s looting doubles the total for April, which was of 41 incidents, according to the latest report from “Observatorio Venezolano de la Violencia” (Venezuelan Violence Observatory), which was published Friday, as Caracas was recovering from violent incidents Thursday afternoon in which looting became an anti-government riot bent on reaching the Miraflores Presidential Palace. The rioters were stopped six blocks from Miraflores by National Guard firing tear-gas grenades.