Skip to footer

Venezuela's Maduro threatens to jail factory owners

Factories in Venezuela are struggling due to the country's economic views, while Maduro's government struggles to retain power.

|
Reuters
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro at a rally on Sunday.
  • By Ricardo Nunez and Juan Camilo Hernandez Associated Press

President Nicolas Maduro threatened Saturday to take over idle factories and jail their owners following a decree granting him expanded powers to act in the face of a deep economic crisis.

Maduro's remarks came as Venezuela's opposition warned the embattled leader that if he tries to block an attempt to hold a recall referendum, society could "explode."

Speaking to supporters in the capital, Caracas, the president ordered "all actions to recover the production apparatus, which is being paralyzed by the bourgeoisie."

He also said that businesspeople who "sabotage the country" by halting production at their plants risk being "put in handcuffs."

Last month the country's largest food and beverage distributor, Empresas Polar, shut down its last operating beer plant. It says it has been unable to access hard currency to buy raw materials.

Maduro accuses Polar and others of trying to destabilize the financially stricken country by exacerbating shortages of goods from foodstuffs to medicines to toilet paper.

Meanwhile dueling anti- and pro-government crowds demonstrated in Caracas on Saturday for and against a bid to recall the president. Maduro opponents demanded that the National Electoral Council rule on the validity of some 1.8 million signatures collected in favor of the referendum and allow it to move forward.

"If you obstruct the democratic way, we do not know what could happen in this country," opposition leader Henrique Capriles said at one rally. "Venezuela is a bomb that could explode at any moment."

Across town, Maduro ally Jorge Rodriguez vowed there would be no recall referendum.

"They got signatures from dead people, minors and undocumented foreigners," Rodriguez said.

Opposition leaders deny any fraud in the signature drive.

Friday's decree extended for 60 days Maduro's exceptional powers to address the crisis. Venezuela is suffering from multiple financial woes including rampant inflation and low prices for oil, the cornerstone of its economy.

Opposition leaders accuse Maduro and his predecessor, the late President Hugo Chavez, of mismanaging the economy. Maduro alleges that conservative political interests are waging what he calls an "economic war" seeking his ouster.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Venezuela's Maduro threatens to jail factory owners
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0515/Venezuela-s-Maduro-threatens-to-jail-factory-owners
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe