Venezuela’s opposition vowed no letup Tuesday in its bid to remove leftist President Nicolas Maduro from power, even as more protesters were shot dead in an increasingly violent political crisis.
Maduro’s center-right rivals said they would go ahead with new street protests Wednesday, despite a wave of unrest that has seen 26 people killed this month in clashes involving protesters and security forces.
In the latest unrest, prosecutors said a 23-year-old man died from being shot in the head with a shotgun in overnight protests in northwestern Lara state. They did not immediately say who was believed to have been responsible.
Maduro’s own attorney general meanwhile fueled opposition criticism that the authorities are repressing protests.
Luisa Ortega, who has emerged as a rare public critic within Maduro’s camp, said demonstrators were being arrested and tried without due process.
She cited one example where the arrest sheet for a group of people hauled in by the national guard in the northeastern state of Nueva Esparta gave no details on their alleged crimes.
“What were they doing? What behaviour led to their arrest?” she said at a news conference.
“We cannot charge them with a crime when there isn’t the slightest information to do so… I am obligated to guarantee due process.”
Ortega said nearly 1,300 people had been arrested in this month’s protests.
The death toll has now reached 26, including four “adolescents,” she said. More than 400 people have been injured.
Return to streets
The opposition blames Maduro for shortages of food, medicine and other essentials in the oil-rich country.
Maduro says the crisis stems from a US-backed capitalist conspiracy.
He has resisted more than a year of efforts to force him from office, though he said over the weekend that he was willing to hold regional elections that have been postponed indefinitely.
With few options left to get rid of him before the end of his term in 2019, the opposition is urging all-out street rallies to push for elections.
“Let us not surrender. If we manage to keep up this pressure we will achieve change,” said senior opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara.
“On Wednesday we will return to the streets” for a march in central Caracas to pressure state institutions loyal to Maduro, he said.
Fratricidal conflict
Falling prices for Venezuela’s crucial oil exports have slashed its revenues, leading to critical shortages and looting.
The courts and electoral authorities have fended off efforts to remove Maduro since an opposition majority took over the National Assembly in January 2016.
But moves by the Supreme Court to seize power from the assembly and ban senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles from politics galvanized the opposition and drew international condemnation.
The latest criticism came from renowned Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, head of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
In his first comments on the crisis in his home country, the 36-year-old phenom warned Venezuela risked a “fratricidal conflict.”
“Immediate solutions are needed… opening the doors to the most healthy and exemplary democratic game,” he said in a video posted on Twitter.
The Organization of American States meanwhile called an extraordinary meeting on the Venezuelan crisis for Wednesday.
Gunshots at demos
Three people were killed on Monday in the latest day of nationwide protests.
Government officials said some of Monday’s victims were Maduro supporters.
But state ombudsman Tarek William Saab said that “gunshots rained” against a “peaceful concentration” of government supporters in the western city of Merida.
The opposition has in turn accused Maduro of letting state forces and gangs of armed thugs attack demonstrators.
“These acts of resistance which force the dictator against the wall have very serious cost: deaths and prisoners,” Guevara said.
The government accuses the opposition of fomenting unrest.
“How many more deaths will it take for the opposition extremists to abandon violence as a way of doing politics?” asked Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez. (AFP)
