Venezuelan security forces and demonstrators faced off in streets blocked by burning barricades in several cities yesterday in an escalation of protests against President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government, witnesses said.
At least five people have died since the unrest turned violent last week, with scores of injuries and arrests. The demonstrators, mainly students, blame the government for violent crime, high inflation, product shortages and alleged repression of opponents.
In affluent east Caracas overnight, security forces fired teargas and bullets, chasing youths who threw Molotov cocktails and blocked streets with burning trash, witnesses said.
Residents in middle-class neighbourhoods banged pots and pans at windows in a traditional form of protest, and demonstrators were out again from early yesterday.
“I declare myself in civil disobedience,” read one banner held up by demonstrators spread across a Caracas road.
There were similar scenes in the western Andean states of Tachira and Merida that have been especially volatile since hardline opposition leaders called supporters on to the streets in early February demanding Maduro’s departure.
Change depends on every one of us
In San Cristobal city, which some residents are describing as a “war zone”, many businesses remained shut as students and police faced off in the streets again yesterday.
Maduro said “special measures” would be taken to restore order in Tachira. “We won’t let them turn it into a Benghazi,” he said.
Tensions have risen since Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated economist, turned himself in to troops this week. He is being held in Caracas' Ramo Verde jail on charges of fomenting the violence.
“Change depends on every one of us. Don't give up!” Lopez’s wife Lilian Tintori has tweeted.