Venezuela legislature stormed
Pro-government militias injure four opposition lawmakers
CARACAS, Venezuela — Pro-government militias stormed the National Assembly on Wednesday and began attacking opposition lawmakers during a special session coinciding with Venezuela’s independence day.
Four lawmakers were injured and blood was splattered on the neoclassical legislature’s white walls. One of them,americodegrazia,hadtobe taken in a stretcher to an ambulance suffering from convulsions.
“This doesn’t hurt as much as watching how every day how we lose a little bit more of our country,” Armando Arias said from inside an ambulance as he was being treated for head wounds.
The attack, in plain view of national guardsmen assigned to protect the legislature, comes amid three months of often-violent confrontations between security forces and protesters who accuse the government of trying to establish a dictatorship by jailing foes, pushing aside the opposition-controlled legislature and rewriting the constitution to avoid fair elections.
Tensions were already high after Vice President Tareck El Aissami made an unannounced morning visit to the National Assembly, accompanied by top government and military officials, for an event celebrating the nation’s independence day.
After he left, dozens of government supporters set up a picket outside the building, heckling lawmakers with menacing chants and eventually invading the legislature themselves.
Despite the violence, lawmakers approved a plan by the opposition to hold a symbolic referendum on July 16 that would give voters the chance to reject President Nicolas Maduro’s plans to draft a new political charter.
Later Maduro condemned the violence but complained that the opposition doesn’t do enough to control “terrorist attacks” by anti-government protesters.
“I will never be an accomplice to acts of violence,” said Maduro during a speech at a military parade.
The clash followed Tuesday’s appearance of a 5-minute video posted by a former police inspector who allegedly stole a helicopter and fired on two government buildings last week.
Oscar Perez, repeating a call for rebellion among the security forces, saidthathewasreadyforthe“second phase” of his campaign to free his homeland from what he called the corrupt rule of Maduro.