Peter Wilson, Special for USA TODAY 6:01 p.m. EDT June 15, 2016
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/06/15/venezuela-protests-lootings/85939072/LA VICTORIA, Venezuela — Hungry Venezuelans escalated attacks on trucks carrying scarce food to the country’s largest cities Wednesday, a day after hundreds of protesters were arrested by security forces.
Photos on social media showed looters attacking trucks on the highway that connects Venezuela’s main port of Puerto Cabello to the industrial city of Valencia. Others said that trucks ferrying food now can’t enter Cumana due to frequent attacks being carried out on the highways entering the city.
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Maduro blames the looting on his opponents, who are promoting a referendum to recall him.
Looting was reported throughout the country, including Caracas, where merchants refused to open their shops.
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The crisis goes beyond food.
International airlines are pulling out of the country because the country is barring them from taking earnings out of the country, and most of the country faces daily three-hour cuts in electricity service.
Venezuelans also can’t call out of the country on their mobile phones, and thousands of medical operations have been postponed due to a lack of supplies.
Against the backdrop of Venezuela’s worst economic crisis in recent history, government officials continue to claim that there isn’t enough time to hold a referendum to recall Maduro this year. If the vote is postponed until 2017 and goes against Maduro, his vice president would finish the rest of his term, which ends in 2019. If the vote is held this year and Maduro loses, fresh presidential elections would be held. Polls suggest that Maduro would lose any recall vote by a hefty margin.
