When hunger drew tens of thousands of Venezuelans to the streets in protest last summer, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro turned to the military to manage the country’s diminished food supply, putting generals in charge of everything from butter to rice.
However, instead of fighting hunger, the military is making money from it, an Associated Press (AP) investigation shows. That is what grocer Jose Campos found when he ran out of pantry staples this year. In the middle of the night, he would travel to an illegal market run by the military to buy pallets of corn flour — at 100 times the government-set price.
“The military would be watching over whole bags of money,” Campos said. “They always had what I needed.”
With much of the country on the verge of starvation and billions of dollars at stake, food trafficking has become one of the biggest businesses in Venezuela, the AP found.
From generals to foot soldiers, the military is at the heart of the graft, according to documents and interviews with more than 60 officials, business owners and workers, including five former generals. As a result, food is not reaching those who most need it.
The US government has taken notice. Prosecutors have opened investigations against senior Venezuelan officials, including members of the military, for laundering riches from food contracts through the US financial system, according to four people with direct knowledge of the probes. No charges have been brought.
“Lately, food is a better business than drugs,” said retired Venezuelan General Cliver Alcala, who helped oversee Venezuela’s border security. “The military is in charge of food management now and they’re not going to just take that on without getting their cut.”
After opposition attempts to overthrow him, late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez began handing the military control over the food industry, creating a Food Ministry in 2004.
His government nationalized farms and food processing plants, then neglected them, and domestic production dried up. Oil-exporting Venezuela became dependent on food imports, but when the price of oil collapsed in 2014, the government could no longer afford all the country needed.
Food rationing grew so severe that Venezuelans spent all day waiting in lines. Pediatric wards filled up with underweight children, and formerly middle-class adults began picking through trash bins for scraps. When people responded with violent street protests, Maduro handed the generals control over the rest of food distribution, and the country’s ports.
The government now imports nearly all of Venezuela’s food, said Werner Gutierrez, the former dean of the agronomy school at the University of Zulia, and corruption is rampant, jacking up prices and leading to shortages.
“If Venezuela paid market prices, we’d be able to double our imports and easily satisfy the country’s food needs,” Gutierrez said. “Instead, people are starving.”
The Food Ministry’s annual report shows significant overpayments across the board, compared to market prices, and the prices the government pays for imported foods have been increasing in recent years, while global food prices remain stable.
Internal budgets from the ministry obtained by AP show that the government budgeted for US$118 million of yellow corn in July at US$357 per tonne, which would amount to an overpayment of more than US$50 million relative to prices that month.
By putting the military in charge of food, Maduro is trying to prevent soldiers from going hungry and being tempted to participate in an uprising against an increasingly unpopular government, retired Venezuelan General Antonio Rivero said.
Venezuela’s military has a long history of coups against governments, and Maduro has arrested several officials for allegedly conspiring against him from within.
“They gave absolute control to the military,” Rivero said from exile in Miami. “That drained the feeling of rebellion from the armed forces and allowed them to feed their families.”
“You make the legal payment, and then you pay the kickback,” he said. “We have no other option; there’s no substitute for sugar.”
In Puerto Cabello, hungry residents said it feels like corrupt soldiers are taking food off their children’s plates.
Pedro Contreras, 74, watched more than 100 trucks carrying corn rattle onto the highway and walked stiffly into traffic to sweep up the kernels that had sifted out. He planned to pound them into corn flour that night to feed his family.
“The military is getting fat while my grandchildren get skinny,” he said. “All of Venezuela’s food comes through here, but so little of it goes to us.”
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