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In the absence of gasoline, good gas. Government agents yesterday attacked hundreds of people who skipped the "radical and social quarantine" to demonstrate in Churuguara, Falcón state, due to the fuel drought. The police used "good gas" thoroughly, as Hugo Chávez named the tear gas he ordered to launch against the students.

The protests were repeated in half the country , from Barinas to Lara through Guárico, Cojedes and Portuguesa. A day earlier, hundreds and hundreds of motorized, thirsty for fuel, broke in Valencia the national confinement, so sui generis in Venezuela, in a new chapter of the Bolivarian Mad Max . The videos and images of what happened in the San Blas distributor have once again overcome strong government censorship to portray the reality of the country with the largest oil reserves on the planet: there is no gasoline.

"For weeks we have been holding meetings with the military chiefs, who have warned us that the gasoline shortage goes a long way. There is very little and it should be directed at those whom they consider essential, such as the security forces and the government people. We are facing a collapse ", specified for EL MUNDO the owner of a Valencia pump, who prefers to remain anonymous.

Neither in Valencia, nor in Caracas (rationed by identity card) nor in Barquisimeto, much less in the rest of the country. Nor in the border states, which have been fighting rationing for two years. Even health personnel find themselves facing a mountain of obstacles to load their vehicles with fuel and go to protect their fellow citizens.

Venezuela is dry, of water but also of gasoline . 89% of citizens denounce that there is no fuel in their states, according to the Covid-19 National Impact Survey, carried out by experts elected by Parliament.

Even producers cannot bring their fruits and vegetables to markets, which directly affects prices and the shortage of certain products. Carlos García, former mayor of Mérida, recounted the adventures of a group of farmers who walked for eight hours to transport food from Chacanta to Santa Cruz de Mora. Chronically ill people cannot go to their dialysis or treatments either.

The queues multiply throughout the country, between protests and together with fights and discussions, it does not matter if they are military against police. In Guárico a crowd cornered a group of national guards. The arrests of those who resell in dollars what little gasoline there is monopolize the official media, despite the fact that these practices have been known since the first great national blackout occurred 13 months ago. 20 liters of gasoline are sold on the black market at a price between 20 and 30 US dollars , when the minimum wage is around three dollars a month.

"We are working every day to resolve the fuel issue and to have good signs in the weeks to come," Nicolás Maduro promised in one of his television statements on Sunday. In parallel, a military charge warned in Barinas, megaphone in hand, that there was not a drop for the waiting crowd.

One of the government's hopes is the commissioning of the El Palito refinery, paralyzed for years and with the capacity to produce 80,000 barrels a day. "After so long with the stick stopped it will not be so fast that it produces gasoline. It would be more pending for the arrival of loaded ships, because without fuel soon it is not the government that is going to stop, but the lives of many people in the middle of the pandemic, "replied the political scientist Luis Vicente León, president of Datanálísis.

"The most serious problem now is fuel, not the coronavirus," said a spokesman for Fedeagro, the farmers' association.

Why is Venezuela running out of fuel at the worst possible time? "The reason for the lack of gasoline is that Chavismo destroyed the refineries and now he wants to blame an alleged naval blockade", revealed the deputy José Guerra, who believes the same as the former oil tsar, Rafael Ramírez, exiled today in Italy . In 2013, the beginning of Maduro's presidency, Venezuela consumed 400,000 barrels a day. The economic meltdown reduced to 140,000 barrels this year, but in the early days of the pandemic, only 30,000 per day were counted.

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  • Venezuela
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