At his Feb. 2 inauguration, President Carlos Andres Perez warned Venezuelans that hard times were ahead for their heavily indebted, oil-exporting country. Even he had no idea how hard -- or how soon. Last week the citizens of one of Latin America's most stable democracies were in shock after a social explosion that tore apart downtown Caracas, the capital, and shattered the peace in at least 16 other cities. Government-imposed austerity measures had ignited a three-day free-for-all of rioting, looting and killing that left an estimated 300 people dead, 2,000 injured and another 2,000 in jail.
Venezuela had not seen such...