Venezuelan military begins overseeing food distribution

The Venezuelan military began overseeing food distribution at ports, airports and businesses Tuesday as part of a plan by President Nicolas Maduro to alleviate acute shortages plaguing the country.

"We have taken some ports and have started to go to some silos, warehouses, and public and private businesses," said Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, who is in charge of the program.

The country, whose economy has been hard-hit by the plunging value of its main export, oil, is suffering from shortages of basic goods such as food, medicine, toilet paper and diapers.

Padrino said that the distribution program is "a matter of the nation's security and defense."

However Venezuelan bishops Tuesday denounced the increased militarization, calling it a "threat to tranquility and peace."

Dozens of members of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces were deployed across Vargas, Miranda, Carabobo, Falcon, Lara, Zulia and Anzoategui states to inspect the distribution.

Maduro said Monday that the goal of the program was to end corrupt practices, such as crooked officials turning food deliveries over to smugglers who resell the items.

According to Maduro, such an act, which is punishable by five years in prison, is part of the "unconventional warfare" being waged by the opposition and right-leaning entrepreneurs.

The Venezuelan opposition has launched recent efforts to remove Maduro from office via a referendum and blames the socialist president's economic mismanagement for the country's deep recession and shortages.

"We will ensure that what arrives at the ports and heads down the road to consumers will not go towards resale," Francisco Arias, governor of Zulia, said on state-run television.

On Monday the government ordered the takeover of operations at facilities where US consumer goods giant Kimberly-Clark had just shut down.

The American company announced on Saturday it would cease production. It said it was impossible to get enough hard currency to buy raw materials, and that inflation was surging.