CARACAS,
Venezuela — The courts? Closed most days. The bureau to start a
business? Same thing. The public defender’s office? That’s been
converted into a food bank for government employees.
Step by step, Venezuela has been shutting down.
This country has long been accustomed to painful shortages, even of basic foods. But Venezuela keeps drifting further into uncharted territory.
In
recent weeks, the government has taken what may be one of the most
desperate measures ever by a country to save electricity: A shutdown of
many of its offices for all but two half-days each week.
But that is only the start of the country’s woes. Electricity and water are being rationed, and huge areas of the country have spent months with little of either.
Many
people cannot make international calls from their phones because of a
dispute between the government and phone companies over currency
regulations and rates.
Coca-Cola
Femsa, the Mexican company that bottles Coke in the country, has even
said it was halting production of sugary soft drinks because it was
running out of sugar.
Last
week, protests turned violent in parts of the country where
demonstrators demanded empty supermarkets be resupplied. And on Friday,
the government said it would continue its truncated workweek for an
additional 15 days.
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“There’s
been plenty of problems, but one thing I haven’t seen until now is
protests simply to get food,” said David Smilde, a Caracas-based analyst
for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group,
referring to the demonstrations last week.
The growing economic crisis — fueled by low prices for oil, the country’s main export; a drought that has crippled Venezuela’s ability to generate hydroelectric power; and a long decline in manufacturing and agricultural production — has turned into an intensely political one for President Nicolás Maduro. This month, he declared a state of emergency, his second this year, and ordered military exercises, citing foreign threats.
But the president looks increasingly encircled.
American
officials say the multiplying crises have led Mr. Maduro to fall out of
favor with members of his own socialist party, who they believe may
turn on him, leading to chaos in the streets.
Old
allies like Brazil, whose leftist president, Dilma Rousseff, was
removed this month pending an impeachment trial, are now openly
criticizing Venezuela. José Mujica, the leftist former president of
Uruguay last week called Mr. Maduro “crazy like a goat.”
The
regional tensions came to a head last week when Mr. Maduro went on
television to chide the Organization of American States, which has
criticized Venezuela’s handling of the economic and political crises.
Mr. Maduro took aim at Luis Almagro, its secretary general, calling him a
“longtime traitor” and implying he was a spy.
Mr. Almagro responded with an open letter
blasting the president, calling on him to allow the recall referendum
his opponents are pushing this year to remove Mr. Maduro from office.
“You
betray your people and your supposed ideology with your diatribes
without substance,” Mr. Almagro wrote. “To deny the people that vote, to
deny them the possibility of deciding, would make you just another
petty dictator, like so many this hemisphere has had.”
As
the sparring continues, Mariángel González, a 32-year-old mother of
two, is most worried about the retreat of the government from daily
life.
Venezuela’s
public schools are now closed on Fridays, another effort to save
electricity. So Ms. González was waiting in line with her elder child at
an A.T.M., while her husband watched over the other one at home.
“Right
now, my older girl should be at elementary school and the little one in
kindergarten,” she said. “My husband and I have been inventing new
routines.”
Ms.
González, a freelance lawyer, lived a middle-class life until recently.
But she says the government shutdown has left her without work and her
family without food.
“The
older girl, who understands what’s going on says, ‘What is there, Mom:
bread, arepas or nothing?’” She said that on a recent night, the family
ate a dinner of pasta and ketchup.
For
Vanessa Arneta, who lives with seven relatives in an apartment on the
outskirts of Caracas, it’s the disappearance of the city’s water that is
causing the most pain. Water arrives just once a week, on Thursdays, to
her neighborhood of San Antonio de los Altos.
That
day, they quickly divide up the chores. A nephew gets into the shower
while another one washes the dishes, Ms. Arneta says. One of her
brothers washes up the bathroom, while someone else fills buckets with
water for later.
But
Ms. Arneta says the water is now a brownish color and is making her
family sick. Many Venezuelans say they have gotten skin irritations from
showering or from the inability to bathe and wash their sheets and
towels.
“Her body is filled with small bubbles and they sting horribly,” Ms. Arneta said of one of her sisters.
Venezuela’s
government says the problems are the result of an “economic war” being
waged by elites who are hoarding supplies, as well as the American
government’s efforts to destabilize the country.
But
most economists agree that Venezuela is suffering from years of
economic mismanagement, including over-dependence on oil and price
controls that led many businesses to stop making products.
Some
Venezuelans are channeling their frustrations into demonstrations
against the government. Mr. Maduro’s opponents, who now control the
National Assembly, have been staging weekly protests in support of the
recall referendum.
Last
Wednesday, protesters clashed with police officers who fired tear gas
at the demonstrations and were attacked with bottles and rocks.
“The
economic situation of this country is collapse,” Pablo Parada, a law
student, who was participating last week in a hunger strike in front of
the O.A.S. office in Caracas. “There are people who go hungry now.”
Mr.
Parada said the purpose of his hunger strike was to pressure the O.A.S.
to push Venezuelan officials to allow the referendum to take place this
year, the only way he felt the country could recover.
There is often little traffic in Caracas simply because so few people, either for lack of money or work, are going out.
On
a recent day in the downtown government center, pedestrians milled
about, but nearly every building — including several museums, the public
registry office and a Social Security center — was empty, giving the appearance of a holiday.
Only the guards were at work.
“It’s in God’s hands now,” said one, Luis Ríos, echoing a common phrase heard here.
Some point out what they see as the absurdity in shutting down services to save the government energy.
“I
don’t see them saving any energy this way,” said Youheinz Linares, a
38-year-old divorced mother, who was taking care of her children, ages 6
and 8, on a recent Friday when there was no school.
“At
school you have 40 kids under one light bulb in one classroom,” she
said. “Now you have 40 kids at home with the lights on, televisions,
tablets, consoles and computers turned on all day. It’s illogical.”
Correction: May 28, 2016
An earlier version of this article misstated part of the name of a human rights group. It is the Washington Office on Latin America, not the Washington Institute on Latin America.
An earlier version of this article misstated part of the name of a human rights group. It is the Washington Office on Latin America, not the Washington Institute on Latin America.
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