Post by scumbuster on Jul 20, 2016 9:54:33 GMT -5
Mangoes, Colombia or Aruba? Solutions that Don’t Solve Venezuela's Food Shortage
CARACAS -- Venezuelans have resorted to everything in order to alleviate the food shortage in their country: from crossing the borders with Brazil and Colombia on foot to buy food, getting parcels sent by relatives in the U.S. -- just as Cubans and Haitians have for decades -- to chartering private planes to Aruba for grocery shopping.
“What all these movements tell us is: ‘We are past the limit, there is nothing to buy here in this country and we need to go to the country next door,’” said Luis Salamanca, a university professor and political analyst in Caracas.
Mango Steaks
While the well-off rely on the occasional “encomienda” from Miami relatives or the short jet to Aruba, the bulk of Venezuela has to make do with more common and garden methods, such as shaking the tree for mangoes, which happen to be in season.
“I guess, something like people knocking down mangoes is, to Maduro’s eyes, the perfect solution. But really, the solution is either the recall or Maduro resigning from his post. That’s what the polls say at least,” Salamanca says.
Salamanca and others say the only good fix is not a contrived, expensive food run but the sacking of embattled President Nicolas Maduro. That process is already in motion and the second of three stages should begin in a week or so, according to the electoral law, even if the government is admittedly seeking to delay the vote until next year, so that the Vice President serves the remainder of Maduro’s term.
“These is survival conduct, common to every human being, not exclusive to Venezuelans. And they don’t mean we Venezuelans are not facing the real problem. A different leadership could take us, however, from mere survival to having an existence, but, right now, for a lot of people, survival is the solution,” says the analyst.
A mixture of high inflation (brought on by unchecked government spending that quadrupled the money supply in just two years) and price and currency exchange controls have resulted in certain key foodstuffs becoming unobtainable. And when a Venezuelan worker manages to get his hands on scarce goods, he very often has to pay five days’ wages for, say, a half-kilo of red beans.
Venezuelans who crossed into Colombia over the past week have learned just how much they were being gouged by “bachaqueros” in their home country: next door, a kilo of sugar goes for Bs 1,000, that’s a lot less than the Bs 4,000 the food smugglers demand back home.
Some 120,000 Venezuelans have crossed into Colombia on foot over the last two weeks, according to the Colombian government, challenging a Presidential decree shutting down the border almost a year ago. Venezuela's National Guard has actively tried to stop the tide but on Saturday morning it was partially, almost clandestinely reopened in certain crossings, just like the one connecting Cucuta in the Colombian side with San Antonio in Venezuela.
laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2416746&CategoryId=10717
CARACAS -- Venezuelans have resorted to everything in order to alleviate the food shortage in their country: from crossing the borders with Brazil and Colombia on foot to buy food, getting parcels sent by relatives in the U.S. -- just as Cubans and Haitians have for decades -- to chartering private planes to Aruba for grocery shopping.
“What all these movements tell us is: ‘We are past the limit, there is nothing to buy here in this country and we need to go to the country next door,’” said Luis Salamanca, a university professor and political analyst in Caracas.
Mango Steaks
While the well-off rely on the occasional “encomienda” from Miami relatives or the short jet to Aruba, the bulk of Venezuela has to make do with more common and garden methods, such as shaking the tree for mangoes, which happen to be in season.
“I guess, something like people knocking down mangoes is, to Maduro’s eyes, the perfect solution. But really, the solution is either the recall or Maduro resigning from his post. That’s what the polls say at least,” Salamanca says.
Salamanca and others say the only good fix is not a contrived, expensive food run but the sacking of embattled President Nicolas Maduro. That process is already in motion and the second of three stages should begin in a week or so, according to the electoral law, even if the government is admittedly seeking to delay the vote until next year, so that the Vice President serves the remainder of Maduro’s term.
“These is survival conduct, common to every human being, not exclusive to Venezuelans. And they don’t mean we Venezuelans are not facing the real problem. A different leadership could take us, however, from mere survival to having an existence, but, right now, for a lot of people, survival is the solution,” says the analyst.
A mixture of high inflation (brought on by unchecked government spending that quadrupled the money supply in just two years) and price and currency exchange controls have resulted in certain key foodstuffs becoming unobtainable. And when a Venezuelan worker manages to get his hands on scarce goods, he very often has to pay five days’ wages for, say, a half-kilo of red beans.
Venezuelans who crossed into Colombia over the past week have learned just how much they were being gouged by “bachaqueros” in their home country: next door, a kilo of sugar goes for Bs 1,000, that’s a lot less than the Bs 4,000 the food smugglers demand back home.
Some 120,000 Venezuelans have crossed into Colombia on foot over the last two weeks, according to the Colombian government, challenging a Presidential decree shutting down the border almost a year ago. Venezuela's National Guard has actively tried to stop the tide but on Saturday morning it was partially, almost clandestinely reopened in certain crossings, just like the one connecting Cucuta in the Colombian side with San Antonio in Venezuela.
laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2416746&CategoryId=10717