Venezuela is on the verge of becoming a failed state. President Nicolás Maduro launched an oil-backed cryptocurrency called the petro in a bid to save the economy in February, but on Monday President Trump issued an executive order banning U.S. entities from doing business with it.
With its currency devalued, inflation on track to hit 13,000 percent by the end of 2018, and citizens experiencing food and medicine shortages, Maduro believes the petro will help the country circumvent crippling international sanctions, which were largely put in place due to Maduro’s recent crackdown on democratic freedoms in Venezuela.
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Protests exploded this spring in Venezuela after President Nicolás Maduro called for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution without a referendum. Maduro’s response to the protests was a severe crackdown on both protesters and politicians who oppose his rule, resulting in over 100 deaths.
“The issue on the streets is not an issue of ideology, it’s not people out on the street saying ‘we want capitalism instead of socialism,‘” veteran journalist Phil Gunson told VICE News. “It’s people out in the streets saying ‘we can’t eat.’”
VICE founder Suroosh Alvi and Correspondent Ben Anderson were in Venezuela when Maduro seized the country’s political institutions. We followed congress Vice President Freddy Guevara and opposition leader Henrique Capriles as they saw Maduro’s government shutting them down in real time.
Maduro has since moved forward with an election that bans the opposition parties from participating, essentially guaranteeing his complete control over the Venezuelan government.
