VENEZUELA-LOOTING Looting and violence on the rise in Venezuela supermarkets

Record ID: 144699

  • Title: VENEZUELA-LOOTING Looting and violence on the rise in Venezuela supermarkets
  • Date: 6th August 2015
  • Summary: CARACAS, VENEZUELA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE GRABBING FOOD IN SUPERMARKET VARIOUS OF PEOPLE QUEUING TO ENTER A SUPERMARKET
  • Embargoed: 21st August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVADGU7A94EQ0Q4LYL2XJTUONF5A
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS USER-GENERATED CONTENT THAT WAS UPLOADED TO A SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITE. REUTERS' SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM HAS VERIFIED THE CONTENT AND OWNERSHIP BY CONTACTING THE UPLOADER AND HAS RECEIVED PERMISSION TO DISTRIBUTE IT. IT HAS BEEN REVIEWED BY A SENIOR EDITOR AND WE ARE CONFIDENT THE EVENTS PORTRAYED ARE GENUINE.
    Mobile phone footage captured the apparent looting of a supermarket in Ciudad Guayana in southern Venezuela last week as swollen lines and prolonged food shortages spark frustration in the OPEC nation struggling with an economic crisis.
    During this incident, which took place in the San Felix community in Ciudad Guayana on Friday (July 31), one man was killed and 60 were arrested.
    Footage taken by local resident Jesus Hernandez during this incident shows people running down the street while the looting took place.
    Another resident, who was present during the events, Wilmer Gonzalez, took mobile phone photos, showing a group of people crowding outside a supermarket, a man reportedly killed in the incident and another photo of a man pushing a trolley full of food.
    Shoppers routinely spend hours in lines to buy consumer staples ranging from corn flour to laundry soap, turning lines into venues for shoving matches and now more frequent attempts to plunder shops.
    The economic crisis has hit President Nicolas Maduro's approval ratings and raised tension levels in the country.
    Fifty-six incidents of looting and 76 looting attempts took place in the first half of 2015, according to the director of the local NGO Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict, Marco Ponce, which computed the figure based on media reports and testimony of observers around the country.
    "There (have been) 132 looting and attempted looting incidents, ranked as follows, 56 looting throughout the country and 76 attempts of looting, i.e., looting and attempted looting. What we saw in July, without the consolidated data, is that there has been a surge in vandalism acts in sale points of food, supermarkets and transportation of food also," Ponce said.
    The government did not respond to a request for comment on the lootings but Maduro calls the shortages and the unrest a product of an opposition-led "economic war".
    Lines have been noticeably longer since the start of the year, and have been especially tense since Friday's incident in Ciudad Guayana.
    Violence will increase if Maduro does not change his policies, Ponce said.
    "If the government of Nicolas Maduro manages to implement democratic correctives in economic matters and matters of food and other rights, the tensions and conflicts will decrease. While that does not happen and is not happening we observe that this growth trend remains towards the growth of protests and growth of violence," Ponce added.
    Supporters of the ruling Socialist Party note that the network of subsidized state-run grocery stores created by late president Hugo Chavez and financed by plentiful oil revenue helped reduce poverty and hunger during his 1999-2013 rule.
    But the combination of dysfunctional currency controls, which have limited Venezuela's capacity to import, and the end of a decade-long oil boom has left Maduro's government strapped for cash and struggling to maintain the largesse.
    His party is expected to do poorly in legislative elections later this year, its support hit by high inflation, the currency's collapse and food shortages.
    Lines are increasingly filled with smugglers who buy subsidized goods and resell them at a profit on the black market or in neighbouring Colombia, generating tension between resellers and those trying to stock their own kitchens.
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