Anti-government protesters, police clash in Venezuela
Police and demonstrators clashed in the streets of Venezuela’s capital Monday as an intensifying protest movement opposing the socialist government entered its second month.
Opposition leaders calling for President Nicolas Maduro’s ouster had urged supporters to converge on government buildings in downtown Caracas, but police blocked the marchers’ path — just as they have more than a dozen times during four weeks of near-daily protests. Officers launched tear gas and chased people away from main thoroughfares as the peaceful march turned into chaos.
Opposition lawmaker Jose Olivares was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and was led away with blood streaming down his face. Some demonstrators threw stones and gasoline bombs and dragged trash into the streets to make barricades.
A separate governmentsponsored march celebrating May Day went off without incident.
Between the two demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of people filled central roads and highways of the city. Authorities set up checkpoints that snarled traffic on main highways and closed the city’s subway system.
At least 29 people have died in the unrest of the past month and hundreds have been injured.
People of all ages and class backgrounds are participating in the protests. The unrest started in reaction to an attempt to nullify the opposition controlled-congress, but has become a vehicle for people to vent their fury at widespread shortages of food and other basic goods, violence on a par with a war zone, and triple-digit inflation. Maduro accuses his opponents of conspiring to overthrow him and undermine the country’s struggling economy.
Protesters have begun showing up for demonstrations with medical masks and bandanas to protect from the clouds of tear gas that police often deploy without warning. Gas masks are hard to find in the shortage-plagued economy, and the government is limiting people bringing them in from abroad.
Many protesters vowed Monday to keep pressuring the government.
“We’re ready to take the streets for a month or however long is needed for this government to understand that it must go,” said Sergio Hernandez, a computer technology worker.