Opposition probably behind looting in Venezuela grocery

Government supporters, one holding a poster of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez, protest outside a distribution center belonging to Venezuela’s largest food company, Empresas Polar, in La Yaguara neighborhood, in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, July 31, 2015. The protesters are asking that the company give up their land so they can build homes of their own on the Empresas Polar property. Soldiers took over the warehouse complex used by Empresas Polar late Wednesday just as Venezuela's federation of brewers announced that Polar's beer manufacturing subsidiary is shutting two of its six plants because of a lack of imported barley. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A man was killed and dozens were arrested Friday as a mob looted a supermarket and other shops in an industrial Venezuelan city, Bolivar state authorities said.

In announcing the looting, Gov. Francisco Rangel pushed back against opponents of Venezuela's socialist government who attributed the unrest to widespread scarcities of basic goods across the oil-rich nation.

He said more than two dozen people were arrested in connection with the looting in the southeastern city of Ciudad Guyana and added that there was no excuse for the behavior. "No one is starving," he said.

Rangel also suggested to the television station Globovision that the looting might have been driven by people with "political motives." Tensions are running high in Venezuela as the country gears up for December legislative elections.

Local newspaper Correo del Caroni said the commotion, which centered on four stroes, caused merchants to temporarily shutter nearby businesses in fear they might be attacked, too.

Venezuela has been grappling with worsening shortages of basic goods like cooking oil and flour. The administration has adopted a variety of measures to address the situation and discourage hoarding, including fingerprinting shoppers who buy food at subsidized prices at supermarkets. Officials also limit the days that people can buy certain products.

The administration blames the shortages both on companies speculating with an eye toward future profits and on black market vendors who buy groceries at subsidized prices and illegally resell them for several times the amount.

The looting came a day after Venezuela's largest food distributor, Polar, protested a government seizure of one of its warehouses in Caracas and warned that any takeovers could exacerbate supply problems.

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