ROME -- Oil-rich Venezuela continues its slide into poverty, misery and oppression, turning Hugo Chavez’s dream of “socialism for the 21^st century” into an Orwellian nightmare.

 That was the message to Rome’s Foreign Press Club from Leopoldo Lopez Gil, the father of the country’s imprisoned opposition leader, who was on a European tour to draw attention to the plight of his troubled homeland.

 Among the audience was the daughter of the mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, another opposition leader, who saw most of his powers removed after winning an election in 2008 and who has been under house arrest for a year and a half.

 “My son has been in isolation in a military prison for a year,” Mr Lopez said. “He is physically and mentally well and published a memoir, “A Prisoner but Free”, in April.”

 The popular opposition leader is serving a 13-year prison sentence for crimes including incitement of riots and terrorism.

 The opposition-controlled parliament recently passed an amnesty law that would have granted freedom to Mr Lopez and other political prisoners. It was quashed by the Supreme Court, packed with supporters of President Nicolas Maduro, on the grounds that an amnesty would deprive the prisoners of the right to clear their names in court.

 Mr Lopez Sr lives in exile in Spain after having his passport withdrawn for republishing allegations in a Spanish newspaper about the involvement of a leading government politician in the drug trade. He and 19 other people responsible for running the newspaper El Nacional have been forced to leave the country, joining around 1.5 million people who have turned their backs on Chavez’s socialist experiment.

 “Power cuts last four hours a day, public sector employees are on a two-day working week, schools close on Fridays, queues for staples like corn flour begin at five in the morning. Chavez’s successor, the former bus driver Nicolas Maduro, has banned the ironing of shirts and the blow-drying of hair to save on energy,” The Times reported recently.

 Inflation is likely to reach an astonishing 2,200 percent next year, according to the International Monetary Fund. And to make things worse, the country’s biggest brewery has suspended beer production.

 Venezuela’s lack of foreign currency results in shortages of food and vital medicines. Cheap food imported from abroad is often close to or beyond its sell-by date, exacerbating the food crisis that has spawned an entire new industry, the bachaqueros, who specialisein queueing at supermarkets and snapping up food supplies for resale.

 The misery is compounded by the water and energy crises, but for Mr Lopez it is the violence stemming from Venezuela’s sick democracy that is most alarming.

 “The government is distinguished by its incompetence and dishonesty. They have plundered money from the national oil companies and failed to invest in refineries. Today we export the same quantity of oil as in the 1950s,” he said.

 The most worrying feature of the new regime, though, was the violence that was depriving citizens of their basic right to life. World Bank figures show the number of murders doubled between 2000 and 2013 in Venezuela, while the figure halved in neighbouring Colombia. Last year the number of murders stood at 28,000.

 “In Venezuela we are officially at peace but there is a class war being fought by militias who are armed by the government. Los collettivos are authorised to steal, your bag, your shoes, and now the food they need.”

 ch-pw