Virginia López - Everything is in chaos': night of violence reveals depths of Venezuela crisis
Venezuela has the
world’s highest inflation, forecast by the IMF to exceed 700% by the end of the
year. In 2016, the economy contracted more than 18.6%. Everyday life has become
reduced to succession of challenges: food shortages, cash shortages, spiralling
crime and a health sector in crisis. In El Valle, this translates into endless
hours lining up – often under a hot sun – for a chance to buy basic foods.
Crime forces people to live under a self-imposed curfew. Economic contraction
means more people hold informal jobs – typically as moto-taxi drivers or street
fruit vendors – with low incomes that evaporate as prices rise.
“They’re even painting
the edges of sidewalks bright yellow. That’s never been done before,” she said.
“The government is trying to pretend nothing happened, but we all know.” Sánchez, a
stay-at-home mother, was referring to a
wave of protests that broke out on 20 April and slowly morphed into a nighttime
looting spree that left 12 people dead. Nine of the victims died
inside a bakery, electrocuted after a bare cable from an industrial
coffee-maker ransacked in the looting hit a puddle of water. Three other people
were shot.
But the events of that
night also offer an indication that Venezuela’s slow-moving crisis may be
shifting to a new phase: poor people took to their streets to express their
frustration with the government of Nicolás Maduro. A
week before, in the city of San Félix, the
president was pelted with stones and eggs. Six months earlier, a similar
incident happened in the island of Margarita. Maduro grew up in El
Valle, and residents say they are not necessarily joining the anti-government
marches – but they are angry, and they’ve begun to show it. In El Valle and other
poor sections of Caracas, the stakes may be higher: residents fear a
heavy-handed response from the national guard, but they also fear the heavily
armed street gangs which dominate such neighbourhoods – and which now appear
willing to confront state security forces.
The latest round of
unrest began just over a month ago, when
a supreme court ruling stripping the opposition-led assembly of its powers.
The power grab was quickly overturned, but it galvanized the opposition, which
has launched a string of near-daily protests. Thirty people have
died, including a national guardsman, a woman who was hit on the head by a
bottle of frozen water thrown from a balcony, and the nine men inside the La
Mayer bakery...
