[Ward:] Venezuela is a country on the brink of collapse, torn apart by violent protests as opposition leaders face off with President Nicolas Maduro and his supporters. The government is cracking down on dissent and intimidating journalists, even taking CNN's sister network, CNN en Espanol, off the air. Well, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh went into the country under cover. Much of the filming was done covertly to avoid the risk of being arrested. Watch this.
[Nick Paton Walsh, Cnn Senior International Correspondent:] Venezuela's dark lurch into poverty and chaos is on display as you drive into the capital. This food truck breaking down for mere seconds before it was looted. Basic food is scarce. No shortage of bleach but long lines for bread. This crisis all created by the mad policies of a government that now wants to hide the collapse, cracking down on and intimidating journalists. We had to go under cover and much of our filming was done covertly to avoid arrest. With some poor nearing starvation, the people demand change in violent clashes. Tens of lives lost as desperation meet tear gas and police birdshot. You've heard of the Molotov cocktail? Well, that would be too simple for a once suave, gas rich state. So this is the Puputov, a sewage bomb.
[Unidentified Male:] Mixed with gas and ammonia, prepared directly for the police that throw tear gas bombs at us worth $60 each. My country doesn't food and we can't even protest peacefully.
[Paton Walsh:] This is the daily standoff. The crowd sometimes attacked by pro-government folks on motorcycles who open fire discriminately. Gunfire takes at least one this day, that of 27- year-old Miguel Castillo. But it doesn't stop the daily battle to eat. Virginia has been doing this for 18 months to feed her five kids. She can't find work since she had this little one, but here sometimes what she calls meat.
[Virginia, Venezuelan:] Sometimes I find stuffed bread, rice, meat, beans, pasta. Some people are conscientious and put it in clean bags, leaving it out.
[Paton Walsh:] So how has oil-rich Venezuela got so bad? In most countries, it's the market that sets the price of, let's say, for example, rice. But here in Venezuela, the government decides how much you should pay for most goods stuff but also what many people's wages actually are. And since the oil price has crashed globally, they have not been able to keep one up with the other. They're basically flat out of money. And now, for rice like this, you need to find three times as many as many notes as these, and that's about a month's minimum wage. Wherever you look, repression and hunger haunts this once proud city. Jesus is a juggler, a magician for kids' parties, beaten heavily, he says, in the day before's protests, now begging for food him when we find him.
[Jesus, Venezuelan:] I spent two days on the street and two days at home. And when I go home, it's because I have food. Before, I get calls to do magic at birthday parties, but now, no. Now, with the country the way it is, magic doesn't help.
[Paton Walsh:] They mourn the dead. The anger, quiet, indignant, not belligerent. South America is looking to see if Venezuela can fix its self-made crisis without major bloodshed. But they are falling so far, so fast, and the ground is getting nearer.
[Ward:] Nick Paton Walsh joins us now live from New York. Nick, let me start out by asking you, what is the Venezuelan government saying about this?
[Paton Walsh:] Well, despite their bid to practically keep a lid on what's happening inside that country, it's hard to work there as a journalist, even if you're actually based there with official accreditation. They say that much of the depiction of their country is from a hostile foreign media with their agenda, that we exaggerate some of the problems. And they also point out that they are facing an opposition that often has its fingers in business there that are involved in sort of manipulating or complicating the economic problems facing Venezuela. And then also, too, they're servicing their foreign debt with a lot of the state funds that remain. And, of course, since the oil price has crashed, those state funds are significantly reduced, Clarissa.
[Ward:] And give us a sense of what daily life is like there.
[Paton Walsh:] It is a very, very strange place to be. I mean, this crisis is ostensibly entirely man-made. It's about the command economy in which the people running it have sort of lost command and control. It is strange to go with a bundle of dollars to try and pay for things, realize you can't pay in dollars. You have to pay in local currency. If you pay using your credit card, well, the exchange rate you get is oddly about four or five times the black market rate. So you try and change dollars into local currency, that then has rarely ever worked because there isn't actually enough physical currency around to be able to convert a hundred bucks, for example. So you end up asking a local if they wouldn't mind paying using their banking card, which they can do because they get better rate of you with your dollars. It's a very, very strange place to simply try, as you saw there, just buy a bag of rice. And that's for us with resources available. You know, we spoke to one family who, basically, the man works all week long, the husband of the couple, with a number of children, for enough money to buy 13 coconuts, roughly, on the black market exchange rate. Life is basically on limbo for most people there. And that's the reason you see the anger on the street because, frankly, that situation has been created by the governments, in want of a better word, mismanagement Clarissa.
[Ward:] Such an important story and so under reported. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much. And don't miss it tomorrow. Nick Paton Walsh gives us a rare glimpse into a Venezuelan hospital where the economic crisis is taking its toll on the most vulnerable.
[Paton Walsh:] Danielle is 14 and elsewhere, would probably have kept her leg. But in Venezuela, vital medicine for chemotherapy is short and so were the odds the bone tumor in her leg wouldn't spread. Just a little cold water, the doctor says. Does it make you feel angry as a doctor, that a procedure like this is necessary
[Unidentified Female:] Yes.
[Paton Walsh:] where you could prevent it if you had the right medicine?
[Unidentified Female:] Yes. That is very sad for us.
[Ward:] Danielle's case is not an isolated one. More from Nick Paton Walsh in Venezuela tomorrow on CNN.