WUNRN
http://www.france24.com/en/20150125-thousands-march-venezuela-over-economic-crisis-shortages/
VENEZUELA – WOMEN CHALLENGED TO COPE WITH ECONOMIC CRISIS – SHORTAGE OF FOOD, BASIC NEEDS – OIL PRICE VULNERABILITY - PROTESTS
Venezuela Citizens
March over Economic Crisis, Shortages - Women
National guards control the entrance of a private supermarket as people line up to enter in San Cristobal January 15, 2015. Photographer STRINGER/VENEZUELA
CARACAS
(AFP) – 25 January 2015 - Demonstrators against Venezuela's economic
crisis -- facing sky-high inflation and shortages of food and consumer goods --
took to the streets in their thousands Saturday, banging pots and demanding an
end to President Nicolas Maduro's term.
Opposition
leaders, fed up with shortages of milk, coffee, sugar, meat, toilet paper,
diapers, deodorant and corn meal, and with Maduro's refusal to overhaul the
increasingly state-managed economy, say the elected socialist should go.
Ex-lawmaker Maria
Corina Machado -- who was jailed after deadly riots last year for inciting
violence -- said Maduro "must step aside now, so the Venezuelan people can
stand united again."
"The
government needs to be changed urgently," Machado argued, at what
opposition activists called the "March of Empty Pots."
She insisted that
constitutional order -- waiting for Maduro to be voted out -- "cannot
wait," even as some marchers chanted, and others wore tape over their
mouths saying "we want to eat."
Many Maduro foes
argue that the government has co-opted so many sectors of society that they
have no real chance at the polls against the political heir of longtime leader
Hugo Chavez.
Jesus Torrealba,
leader of the activist coalition, said organizers want those who oppose the
government to express themselves both at the polls and demonstrating on
Venezuela's streets.
"I am here
because of all the suffering we are going through," said architect Jose
Salinas, 46. "There are food shortages, shortages even in drugstores,
prices have gone up across the board, meat costs twice what it did
recently."
Maduro is facing a
dismal 22-percent approval rating, and three quarters of the population oppose
his government, recent polls show.
Venezuela was
already mired in economic woes before oil prices began their recent slide, but
the sharp downturn in crude prices has been especially punishing for a country
that relies on oil for 96 percent of its foreign currency.
With the
precipitous drop of oil, Maduro has traveled in recent days to Algeria, China,
Iran, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia as he makes an urgent appeal for cash.
In November,
Caracas failed to convince the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries, including top producer Saudi Arabia, to reduce production in order
to halt the price drop.
This week Maduro
even floated the idea of discussing raising the local price of gasoline
(petrol).
The price has not
been raised since 1989. Back then, a hike in gasoline and transport costs
helped trigger a deadly wave of protests, rioting and looting remembered here
as the Caracazo. Hundreds were killed -- some analysts say as many as 2,000.