Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Wednesday 19 June 2019

Venezuela’s misery doesn’t even spare the dead in Maracaibo

By RODRIGO ABD an opposition stronghold of
Associated Press 1.5 million people, in April.
MARACAIBO, Venezu- He was forced to take a
ela (AP) — Even the dead boat across Lake Maraca-
aren’t safe in Maracaibo, a ibo to dodge police road-
sweltering, suffering city in blocks and reach throngs
Venezuela. of supporters waiting to
Thieves have broken into hear him speak.
some of the vaults and As the political standoff
coffins in El Cuadrado drags on, so does life in Ma-
cemetery since late last racaibo.
year, stealing ornaments Some people sift through
and sometimes items from trash, scavenge for food or
corpses as the country sinks hastily fill up buckets when
to new depths of depriva- a water truck makes a
tion. “Starting eight months neighborhood stop. A fish-
ago, they even took the erman makes a catch. A
gold teeth of the dead,” vendor in a market hauls a
said José Antonio Ferrer, side of meat — he’ll have
who is in charge of the to sell it quickly, since per-
cemetery, where a promi- ishables go bad quickly
nent doctor, a university without refrigeration in Ma-
director and other local lu- racaibo’s suffocating tem-
minaries are buried. Pillaged vaults stand inside Cuadrado cemetery in Maracaibo, Venezuela, May 16, 2019. peratures.
Much of Venezuela is in a Associated Press Gushing oil wells that
state of decay and aban- which was of a kind that Venezuelans who have left along with about four doz- helped make a nation with
donment, brought on by didn’t happen elsewhere in the country in recent years. en other nations contends the world’s largest oil re-
shortages of things that Venezuela and only quick- The city in northwestern that Maduro’s re-election serves flush with cash have
people need the most: ened the city’s descent. Venezuela is close to the last year was not legitimate given way to broken-down
cash, food, water, medi- The destruction in Mara- border with Colombia, host because many strong oil platforms that sit idle as
cine, power, gasoline. caibo, where blackouts to more than one-quarter opposition candidates nearby shores are black
Some of the most acute were the norm long before of the migrants. couldn’t run. with oozing crude.
misery plays out every day March, defied easy under- The opposition blames As in other cities, weary There are vestiges of bet-
on the streets of Maraca- standing. The fittings of a Venezuela’s misery on mis- drivers nap on top of cars ter days or signs of people
ibo, Venezuela’s second- hotel were torn out or just guided economic policies, as they wait for scarce gas- carrying on, finding a way
largest city and a hub of the torn to shreds, leaving the mismanagement and cor- oline in long lines at service forward. Waiters in jackets
once-booming oil industry. structure littered with debris ruption by the socialist ad- stations. “Operación Liber- and ties tend the counter
It was here in March that in an image reminiscent of ministration installed by the tad” (Freedom Operation) in what used to be a re-
residents, seemingly driven wartime or the aftermath of late Hugo Chavez. Presi- was scrawled in white on volving restaurant on the
to desperation by nation- a natural disaster. dent Nicolás Maduro, like the back window of one waterfront, even if there
wide power blackouts, Maracaibo’s mood today Chavez, says the troubles taxi, a reference to opposi- are hardly any customers.
looted and destroyed hun- is less furious, more exhaust- are the result of what he tion leader Juan Guaidó’s Boys in the street laugh as
dreds of buildings and busi- ed. Many who have the calls an economic war be- campaign to topple Mad- they play with a toy car.
nesses. Authorities blamed means leave, joining an ex- ing waged on the country uro. People move supplies on
criminals for the rampage, odus of more than 4 million by the United States, which Guaidó visited Maracaibo, wheelbarrows.q

Brazil’s Odebrecht files for bankruptcy protection

By ANNA JEAN KAISER producers Braskem S.A., Odebrecht and other
Associated Press Odebrecht Engineering construction companies
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — and Construction, oil pro- formed what was essential-
Brazilian construction giant ducers Ocyan, Odebrecht ly a cartel to distribute con-
Odebrecht filed for bank- Transport S.A., shipmakers struction contracts with the
ruptcy protection Monday Enseanada S.A., Odebre- government, which would
to restructure $13 billion cht Insurance Brokers, the funnel back a percentage
in debt, worn down after Odebrecht Pension Fund, into politician’s pockets.
spending five years at the the Odebrecht Foundation The company used bribes
center of one of the world’s non-profit, and sugar and to secure billions in lucra-
largest corruption investi- ethanol producers Atvos tive government contracts
gations. Odebrecht said in Agroindustrial S.A., which in Brazil and throughout
a statement that it and its already has a separate Latin America.
subsidiaries would continue bankruptcy protection. “Once Odebrecht’s cor-
operating normally dur- This April 12, 2018 file photo shows the Odebrecht headquarters Odebrecht has been at ruption came to light, the
ing the debt restructuring, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. the center of Operation tentacles were so wide-
which is one of the largest Associated Press Car Wash, the country’s spread that it was inevi-
ever filed in Brazil. consequence of an eco- new contracts after collab- largest-ever corruption in- table that this company
The company lamented nomic crisis ... the impact orating with the judiciary.” vestigation that revealed a wouldn’t hold itself togeth-
its demise from employing on a reputation because The request for bankruptcy kickback scheme between er,” said Monica De Bolle,
180,000 people five years of mistakes made, and the protection does not include politicians and construc- a senior fellow at the Peter-
ago, to just 48,000 employ- difficulty that companies several Odebrecht subsid- tion firms that had become son Institute for Internation-
ees, which it called “the have getting credit and iaries like petrochemical systematic in Brazil. al Economics.q