Venezuela arrests oppn leaders
CARACAS: Venezuelan authorities said on Friday they arrested two opposition youth leaders, the latest move in a crackdown on antigovernment protests that have left five dead. Jose Sanchez and Alejandro Sanchez were arrested “for organising terrorist acts and assaults against the peace of the country,” Interior Minister Nestor Reverol wrote on Twitter.
The two are youth leaders of the Justice First party, one of the main groups in the centre-right opposition coalition pushing for President Nicolas Maduro to be removed from office.
Venezuelan authorities drew international criticism last week for banning the party’s most prominent figure, Henrique Capriles, from public office for 15 years. Reverol said the two detainees “confessed taking part in this week’s violence.”
Justice First rejected Reverol’s allegations. It wrote on its Twitter account that the two youth leaders were “abducted” by military intelligence forces.
“Nestor Reverol, the real terrorism is the one you are leading by repressing the people,” it wrote.
Maduro is fighting off efforts to oust him as Venezuela, once a booming oil-exporting nation, struggles with shortages of food and medicine.
The next major organised rallies called by opposition leaders are set for Wednesday next week.
That is expected to be the next big showdown in an increasingly fraught crisis that has raised international concerns for Venezuela’s stability.
The opposition is demanding the authorities set a date for postponed regional elections.
It is also furious over moves to limit the powers of the legislature and ban Capriles from politics.
Those moves have raised international condemnation including from the United States and the European Union.
Maduro has resisted opposition efforts to hold a vote on removing him, vowing to continue the “socialist revolution” launched by his late predecessor Hugo Chavez.
Maduro says the economic crisis is the result of what he calls a US-backed capitalist conspiracy.
More clashes erupted on Thursday between police and protesters. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters in Caracas, AFP reporters saw. It was the latest in a week of clashes over a mounting crisis driven by food shortages.
A 32-year-old man died from a gunshot wound suffered during clashes on Tuesday night in the northwestern town of Cabudare, a spokesman for the public prosecution service who asked not to be named said.
Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina on Twitter identified the latest death as Antonio Gruseny Calderon and called him “another victim of the dictatorship.”
Marquina and officials earlier said a 13-year-old boy was shot dead in protests on Tuesday in the western city of Barquisimeto.
Marquina blamed that killing on so-called “colectivos,” armed supporters of the government whom the opposition accuses of attacking them during demonstrations.
A 36-year-old man was killed the same night in Barquisimeto, prosecutors said.
Two 19-year-old students were shot by police in earlier unrest, one on April 6 and one on April 11, according to authorities.
Also on Thursday, opposition lawmaker Jose Manuel Olivares said police fired tear gas “point-blank” at demonstrators in the state of Vargas.