Venezuela’s Maduro Proposes “Peace Conference” to Resolve Opposition Protests

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has called for a “National Peace Conference” as a means of resolving the on-going violent opposition protests in Venezuela. The opposition has made a set of “demands” for dialogue to begin.

Protests began two weeks ago after opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez called supporters onto the streets to force the “exit” of President Nicolas Maduro. Lopez is currently in custody and being investigated for inciting violent acts.

Some opposition marches have been peaceful, and have incorporated complaints over shortages, inflation and high crime. Meanwhile, an extremist sector of the opposition has engaged in a strategy of street blockades and nightly riots in an attempt to undermine the government.

Last Saturday during a large “march for peace” in Caracas, Maduro suggested that a “National Peace Conference” incorporating “all the social and political sectors of the country” could create the dialogue necessary to resolve the situation.

“It will be a conference for peace. We’ve got to neutralise these violent groups,” he said. The Venezuelan president suggested this conference could be held over several meetings with representatives from different social sectors such as workers, students, and artists and intellectuals.

The government blames far-right groups within the opposition for the violence in the country, and points to the killing of several civilians on street barricades, rioting, and attacks on government infrastructure as evidence of this. President Maduro argues that these actions are part of a “coup attempt” being orchestrated by the conservative opposition.

The opposition rejects the allegation, and says the government and radical chavistas are responsible for repressing “peaceful” protests and causing the deaths of several pro-opposition students.

On Saturday Maduro welcomed the decision of opposition leader Henrique Capriles to attend a meeting with him and the country’s state governors in the Federal Government Council today. However Capriles, who is governor of Miranda state, said this morning he was still not sure if he would attend.

On Saturday the president also said he was open to “dialogue” with the United States, who he accuses of supporting the opposition’s protests. Maduro stated that he was willing to designate an ambassador to Washington, “So that the U.S. hears the truth about Venezuela and respects our people”. On 16 February Maduro expelled three U.S. consular officials from Venezuela for alleged “conspiracy” with the opposition.

However Maduro also told supporters that, “If due to the circumstances of fascist violence [the opposition] take power, I authorise you to go onto the streets and defend the nation, to rescue every millimetre of the homeland”.

Opposition stance

Henrique Capriles made a list of opposition “demands” to the government during a large opposition march in Caracas on Saturday. One of these was that all “students and youths” allegedly arrested during recent protests and violence be released, along with Leopoldo Lopez and Ivan Simonovis, a police captain convicted for his role in the killings during the April 2002 coup.  Simonovis maintains his innocence.

A second demand was “the ceasing of persecution, repression, and so that exiles can return to the country,” and the “disarmament of paramilitaries” that the opposition blames for the violence.

The Venezuelan government denies charges of repression, saying it is maintaining public order against riots and street barricades, while investigating any reported cases of abuses by officials. President Maduro has also publicly warned chavistas not to engage in violent acts.

Capriles on Saturday also made calls to violent opposition sectors to halt their actions, saying that they “make it easy for the government”. “What do you achieve closing yourselves in within your own street? It’s in the government’s interest that the protests are in Altamira [a wealthy area of Caracas] and not Catia [a working class area of Caracas]”.

He exhorted the opposition to have “the same agenda”, and turn the protests into “the greatest social movement in Venezuela”. The opposition leader also made a series of criticisms of Nicolas Maduro, saying that he had an “empty discourse” and telling opposition students not to let Maduro “mess them around”.

Telesur interview

On Sunday President Nicolas Maduro gave an interview to television network Telesur, where he gave his impression of the situation in Venezuela.

“It’s not another conspiracy plan or another day of street barricades, it’s a developing state coup, decided in the circles of power in the United States, conjured with the business elites of Venezuela, and directed and driven in the streets by a sector of the Venezuelan extreme right-wing,” he argued.

According to Maduro the alleged plan to remove the government from power was born before Hugo Chavez died in March last year, and was intensified with an “economic war” and “electricity sabotage”.

The president also referred to Henrique Capriles’ refusal to recognise Maduro’s narrow victory in the April 2013 presidential election, and the eleven pro-government civilians who were then killed after Capriles called on supporters to “drain their rage”.

In his interview Maduro said a national and international media campaign by the opposition was currently being used to “annul” the state’s constitutional right to maintain public order and defend citizens under attack from violent groups.

He also said there are groups in Colombia financing the far-right’s activities in Venezuela in order to create a “civil war” and provoke “U.S. intervention”. Maduro has previously accused former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe of involvement in the alleged plot.

Maduro cited a recent poll by private Venezuelan firm International Consulting Services (ICS), which found that 81% of Venezuelans consider that the protests in Venezuela “have been violent”. The poll was taken last week, with a sample of 1,400.

Also yesterday, pro-government journalist Jose Vicente Rangel revealed the results of another recent poll on attitudes to mechanisms for political change at Venezuela’s current juncture.

According to the poll, undertaken by private consultancy firm Hinterlaces with a sample of 1,400, only 29% of Venezuelans feel that the government should be forced from office through street actions.

Meanwhile 29% feel a recall referendum on Maduro’s presidency should be organised in 2016, and 42% feel that Maduro should be allowed to serve out his full mandate uninterrupted, until 2019.

As such, Vicente Rangel highlighted that 71% of the country feels that Venezuela’s political future should be decided through the constitutional electoral process, and that only 29% support the government’s forced “exit” through street actions. “The vote is [part of] Venezuelan culture and the majority support stability and hope over chaos and uncertainty,” he argued.

Barricades and protests continue

The positioning of Venezuela’s political leaders occurred over a backdrop of ongoing protests and violent street blockades in some parts of Venezuela. Opposition protesters continue to meet in the up-market Chacao area of eastern Caracas.

A total of 13 people have so far been killed in connection with the violence, according to a report by the Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Diaz, today. One of the most recent victims was student Geraldine Moreno, who was reportedly shot in the head with a pellet by a National Guardsman during a protest in Carabobo state. The scientific police investigation body (CICPC) are investigating the incident.

Ortega Diaz also reported that a total of 579 people have been arrested since the protests and barricades began, of which 529 have been released on bail conditions within 24 hours of their arrest. Of the other 50, 45 have been held for longer periods to be charged, and 5 were released after it was determined they had nothing to do with the clashes, she said.

Further, Maduro claimed today that thirty people with respiratory conditions have been killed as a result of opposition street  barricades and the smoke created by the burning rubbish, tires and uprooted trees with which they are built.

A few cities, including parts of the capital Caracas, are currently affected by street barricades, which reduce the circulation of traffic and the normal functioning of urban zones. Several violent deaths have also occurred on the barricades.

In Merida city security forces and pro-government citizens have cleared many barricades, but barricaders have set them up again elsewhere. Barricaders have attacked National Guard forces trying to clear away the barricades with rocks and Molotovs.

Source: Venezuelanalysis
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Repression and harassment night by night

National Guard rushes into demonstrators while collectives shoot from buildings

For the residents of Rómulo Gallegos Avenue, eastern Caracas, the night of Friday, February 21 was one of the worst times they have undergone since the beginning of protests in Venezuela. Particularly in that sector, barricades have blocked the access to the thoroughfare since Wednesday, February 13.

"We took mattresses out from the apartment and had to sleep down the corridor of the building, because in the middle of smoke and bullets we did not feel safe even at home," Ángelo Ávila recounts.

He explained that since Thursday, February 14, barricades are erected after 5:00 in the afternoon. In less than five minutes, residents of the upper sector of urbanization Horizonte assemble a street protest with tires and trash and set the materials to fire.

"They do not suffer because they leave all that in fire and go home afterwards; but those, who live in the avenue are harmed," Ávila mutters.

Others who comment on the situation in the area prefer not to be called by name. They have ascribed the street protest of Friday and the placement of a steel cable that made Elvir Rafael Durán fall down and die to a group of youngsters who refuse to talk about the aim of their protest.

They relate that just before Durán fell down, many bikers came (more than one hundred, they estimate) with long and small weapons and shot at the air.

"They point to apartments as if they were identifying somebody," a resident noted.

Local residents believe that the barricades erected time after time will bring along more problems for the community, as they cause clashes with people who want or need to pass and attract violent, fearsome groups.

One of the residents adds that many in her building are suffering from respiratory distress. Her son, beside her, tells that he would rather swallow the smoke for some days "than living 40 years in communism."

Source: El Universal
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In Venezuela, Protest Ranks Grow Broader

SAN CRISTÓBAL, Venezuela

As dawn broke, the residents of a quiet neighborhood here readied for battle. Some piled rocks to be used as projectiles. Others built barricades. A pair of teenagers made firebombs as the adults looked on.

These were not your ordinary urban guerrillas. They included a manicurist, a medical supplies saleswoman, a schoolteacher, a businessman and a hardware store worker.

As the National Guard roared around the corner on motorcycles and in an armored riot vehicle, the people in this tightly knit middle-class neighborhood, who on any other Monday morning would have been heading to work or taking their children to school, rushed into the street, hurling rocks and shouting obscenities. The guardsmen responded with tear gas and shotgun fire, leaving a man bleeding in a doorway.

“We’re normal people, but we’re all affected by what’s happening,” said Carlos Alviarez, 39, who seemed vaguely bewildered to find himself in the middle of the street where the whiff of tear gas lingered. “Look. I’ve got a rock in my hand and I’m the distributor for Adidas eyewear in Venezuela.”

The biggest protests since the death of the longtime leader Hugo Chávez nearly a year ago are sweeping Venezuela, rapidly expanding from the student protests that began this month on a campus in this western city into a much broader array of people across the country. On Monday, residents in Caracas, the capital, and other Venezuelan cities piled furniture, tree limbs, chain-link fence, sewer grates and washing machines to block roads in a coordinated action against the government.

Behind the outpouring is more than the litany of problems that have long bedeviled Venezuela, a country with the world’s largest oil reserves but also one of the highest inflation rates. Adding to the perennial frustrations over violent crime and chronic shortages of basic goods like milk and toilet paper, the outrage is being fueled by President Nicolás Maduro’s aggressive response to public dissent, including deploying hundreds of soldiers here and sending fighter jets to make low, threatening passes over the city.

On Monday, the state governor, who belongs to Mr. Maduro’s party, broke ranks and challenged the president’s tactics, defending the right of students to protest and criticizing the flyovers, a rare dissent from within the government.

Polarization is a touchstone of Venezuelan politics, which was bitterly divided during the 14-year presidency of Mr. Chávez, Mr. Maduro’s mentor. But while Mr. Chávez would excoriate and punish opponents, he had keen political instincts and often seemed to know when to back off just enough to keep things from boiling over.

Now Mr. Maduro, his chosen successor, who is less charismatic and is struggling to contend with a deeply troubled economy, has taken a hard line on expressions of discontent, squeezing the news media, arresting a prominent opposition politician and sending the National Guard into residential areas to quash the protests.

Two people were killed on Monday, including a man here in San Cristóbal who, according to his family, fell from a roof after guardsmen shot tear gas at him. There is disagreement on whether all the deaths nationwide cited by the government are directly associated with the protests, but the death toll is probably at least a dozen.

In this neighborhood, Barrio Sucre, residents said they were outraged last week when a guardsman fired a shotgun at a woman and her adult son, sending both to the hospital with serious wounds. In response, the residents built barricades to keep the guardsmen out. On Monday, after guardsmen made an early sortie into the neighborhood, firing tear gas and buckshot at people’s homes, the inflamed and sometimes terrified residents prepared to drive them back.

Across town, Isbeth Zambrano, 39, a mother of two, still fumed about the time two days earlier when the National Guard drove onto the street, where children were playing, and fired tear gas at residents. Now she sat in front of her apartment building, casually guarding a beer crate full of firebombs.

“We want this government to go away,” she said. “We want freedom, no more crime, we want medicine.” Around her neck, like a scarf, she wore a diaper printed with small teddy bears. It was soaked in vinegar, to ward off the effects of tear gas, in case of another attack.

Unlike the protests in neighboring Brazil last year, when the government tried to defuse anger by promising to fix ailing services and make changes to the political system, Mr. Maduro says the protesters are fascists conducting a coup against his government. He has largely refused to acknowledge their complaints, focusing instead on violence linked to the unrest. Here in Táchira State, he says the protests are infiltrated by right-wing Colombian paramilitary groups, and he has threatened to arrest the mayor of San Cristóbal.

Mr. Maduro’s stance is mirrored by the intensity among the protesters. While he has called for a national conference on Wednesday and some opposition politicians have urged dialogue, a majority of protesters here, most of them longtime government opponents, rejected that option.

Residents of San Cristóbal, Venezuela, built a barrier in an area where repeated clashes with National Guardsmen have occurred.
“They’ve been mocking us for 15 years, sacking the country,” said Ramón Arellano, 54, a government worker, while a burning refrigerator in the street behind him blotted out the sky with a cone of black smoke. “A dialogue from one side while the other turns a deaf ear, that’s not fair.”

Like most of the protesters here, Mr. Arellano said he wanted a change of government. Protesters say that could be achieved by having Mr. Maduro resign, or be removed through a recall election or changes to the Constitution.

Mr. Maduro says he will not leave office, and he continues to have wide support among those loyal to Mr. Chávez’s legacy.

This state, and especially San Cristóbal, the state capital, are longtime opposition strongholds. The opposition presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles, received 73 percent of the vote in San Cristóbal when he ran against Mr. Maduro last April.

A city of 260,000, San Cristóbal was almost completely shut down on Monday. Residents had set up dozens of barricades all around town. In many areas, residents set out nails or drove pieces of rebar into the pavement, leaving them partly exposed, to puncture tires.

In Barrio Sucre, Escarlet Pedraza, 19, showed two motorcycles that she said had been crushed by National Guard troops, who drove armored vehicles over them. She recorded the event on her cellphone camera.

Later, residents burned tires and threw rocks at guardsmen, who advanced and entered a side street, firing tear gas and shotguns directly at the houses.

The guardsmen broke open a garage door in one house and smashed the windshield of a car inside. The house next door filled with tear gas and the family inside, including two young children, choked in the fumes. “I’m indignant,” said Victoria Pérez, the mother, weeping. “This is getting out of hand. It’s arrogance, it’s a desire for power.”

A student, his face covered with a cloth, kicked angrily at a house where a pro-government family lives, shouting at them to join the protest. Other residents rushed in to stop him.

Nearby, a neighbor, Teresa Contreras, 53, flipped through the channels on her television, showing how there was no coverage of the violence, a sign, she said, of the government control over the news media.

Earlier, Andrea Altuve, 38, a teacher, watched the preparations for the coming battle, with people adding to barricades and children pouring gasoline into beer bottles for makeshift bombs.

“It looks like a civil war,” she said. “They are sending the National Guard into the neighborhoods out of fear.”

Source: NY Times
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Russia makes an appeal not to meddle in Venezuela's affairs

Moscow deems it "unacceptable any foreign meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign State"

Russia made an appeal on Monday not to interfere in Venezuela's internal affairs, observe the Constitution and show respect for the country's democratically elected president, Nicolás Maduro.

"The key is respect for the Constitution and democratically elected authorities of Venezuela headed by President Nicolás Maduro," the Russian Foreign Office said in a notice, Efe reported.

Moscow deems it "unacceptable any foreign meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign State."

"We have learned with concern about alarming reports coming from friendly Venezuela. We make an appeal to find a solution of problems by means of peaceful dialogue," the communiqué reads.


The official notice further demanded to renounce foreign attempts at instigating anti-government actions and acts of violence and provoking destabilization in the Latin American country."

Source: El Universal

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US urges Maduro to pursue dialogue with Venezuelans rather than Washington

Last Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry avoided making any comments about President Nicolás Maduro's call for dialogue and reappointment of ambassadors to each country made last week.

The White House on Monday urged Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to pursue dialogue with the Venezuelan people rather than Washington, and to stop issuing false statements against the United States.

The remarks came during a press briefing of White House's Spokesperson Jay Carney, EFE reported.

Last Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry avoided making any statements relative to President Nicolás Maduro's call for dialogue and reappointment of ambassadors to each country made last week. Further, Kerry described as "unacceptable" the use of force against Venezuelan demonstrators.

On Monday, Carney commented that the United States was worried about the situation in Venezuela and pointed out that it was working along with the Organization of American States (OAS) and allies in the region to bring calm to the country and true dialogue among Venezuelans.

Moreover, the United States said the Venezuelan government should immediately release detained demonstrators, allow independent journalists do their jobs, and stop restraining information via television, radio, or Internet, Carney added.

Source: El Universal
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Maduro urges Congress to create a Truth Commission

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced he would send a formal written request to Speaker of the National Assembly (AN) Diosdado Cabello asking him to establish "a truth commission and investigate all fascist crimes. I hope the day justice is made against this fascist siege."

He asked his foes not to avoid their responsibility and join the truth commission.

Mercenary arrested

Additionally, Maduro informed that authorities caught a "foreign mercenary" who came to the country to ignite violence.

"Today we have caught in Aragua state (central Venezuela) a mercenary brought from the Middle East. We seized 11 international phones from him. He was captures while acting in upper middle class areas in Maracay (the capital city of Aragua state). They were preparing for planting car bombs and fuel violence in the country, trying to push us to the same situation as Libya or Syria."

Source: El Universal
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