Defiant rebels move on Maduro stronghold
VENEZUELA: After three weeks of protests in which 26 people have died, Venezuela’s emboldened opposition tried to breach what was once a no-go area for government critics: the western fringes of central Caracas.
Thousands of national guardsmen and police lined up on all main junctions last night to block access to the area. Every metro station in the city was closed. A police helicopter hovered overhead.
Until now the huge protests against President Maduro have been limited to the eastern, middle-class, suburbs. Government security forces, armed with tear gas and water cannon have repeatedly prevented the marchers from getting close to the poorer areas surrounding the city’s historic centre. Previous attempts to reach the centre have degenerated into clashes between riot police and stone-throwing protesters.
Henrique Capriles, a senior opposition leader, accused the authorities of savage repression. ‘‘We are going to resist. We are going to persist. We will not surrender,’’ he said.
Eduardo Gomez, 19, was brandishing a flag of the Primero Justicia opposition party as he joined the march. ‘‘This crisis is affecting every Venezuelan. We all suffer from the security problem. We all want a better future,’’ he said. ‘‘Maduro knows that if the west rises up, it is all over.’’
Sensing that, the government has been issuing increasingly threatening warnings of what might happen if the marches go citywide. ‘‘There will be blood flowing in the streets,’’ the pro- government mayor, Jorge Rodriguez, warned in a television broadcast on the eve of yesterday’s march.
Already there are signs that the government is losing control of parts of the city where its rule was once secure. Spontaneous protests, roadblocks and looting have been reported almost nightly from previously loyalist areas. The mildest demonstration, the banging of saucepans, can be heard across the capital whenever President Maduro begins one of his regular television addresses.
Popular anger at the authoritarian leftist government, widely blamed for chronic economic mismanagement, leading to shortages of food and medicine, is swelling support for the opposition. An attempt by the Venezuelan Supreme Court last month to seize all power from parliament, and the barring of Capriles from office have added to domestic and international concerns over the direction in which President Maduro is planning to take the oil-rich nation, once the most prosperous in Latin America.
Not all are prepared to protest. Alberys Rodriguez, 42, a cleaner who lives in the western suburb of Caricuao, voted for President Maduro in 2013. Even though her sympathies are with the opposition – ‘‘ We used to eat three meals a day,’’ she said. ‘‘Now it is down to one’’ – she will not take to the streets. ‘‘It’s too dangerous,’’ she said.
Maduro’s party lost its majority in the national assembly when the opposition won a landslide in 2015 but retains a firm grip on the courts and military. — The Times