Settle in as they take over Caracas’ streets

Protesters sprawled in lawn chairs, worked on maths homework and played cards on main roads around Venezuela’s cities yesterday, joining in sit-ins to disrupt traffic as the latest slap at the Socialist Government.

Thousands shut down the main highway in Caracas to express their anger with the increasingly embattled Administration of President Nicolas Maduro.

They turned the road into a kind of public plaza, with protesters settling in for picnics, reading books and reclining under umbrellas they brought to protect against the blazing Caribbean sun.

But other protests turned deadly. The public prosecutor announced that 54-year-old Renzo Rodriguez was killed by a gunshot to the chest at a protest in the plains state of Barinas.

In the mountain town of Merida, state worker Jesus Sulbaran was fatally shot in the neck at a progovernment rally.

In addition, five people were injured at the Merida protest, Venezuela ombudsman Tarek William Saab said.

The two killings raised to 23 the number of deaths linked to unrest that began almost a month ago over the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the opposition-controlled Congress of its powers.

The current wave of protests is the most intense the economically struggling country has seen since two months of anti-government protests in 2014 that left dozens dead.

Maduro said on Monday that he wouldn’t give in to opponents and again urged them rejoin negotiations they broke off in December. But opposition leaders had no plans to meet with Maduro. They are demanding the immediate scheduling of elections. — AP