Protests Swell in Venezuela as Places to Rally Disappear

Banging pots in protest in Caracas as Leopoldo López, an opposition politician, passed by in a car after surrendering. Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

CARACAS, Venezuela — The only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government was sold last year, and the new owners have softened its news coverage. Last week, President Nicolás Maduro banned a foreign cable news channel after it showed images of a young protester shot to death here.

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Venezuela guards kill young man

Opposition legislators have been barred from debates and stripped of committee posts in the National Assembly. And when an opposition leader called for a protest this week, Mr. Maduro scheduled his own march to start at the same spot and dispatched the National Guard to try to block protesters from rallying elsewhere.

Venezuela is being convulsed by the biggest protests since the country’s longtime president, the charismatic Hugo Chávez, died nearly a year ago.

And while the demonstrators condemn a wide range of perennial problems, including rampant crime, high inflation and shortages of basic goods like sugar and toilet paper, the intensity of the protests has been fueled by something more subtle and perhaps stronger — a sense that the spaces to voice disagreement with the government are shrinking and disappearing.

Backers of Mr. López were hit by a police water cannon. Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

“You have a government that increasingly, since the time of Chávez but even more with Maduro, has practically closed the channels of communication,” said Margarita López Maya, a historian who studies protest movements. “If you have a society that has no institutional channels to raise its complaints, make demands, form policy, the tradition in Venezuela and in Latin America and I think throughout the world is to take to the streets.”

Of the opposition she said, “They feel choked, penned in.”

Since last week, four people have been shot to death in protests, dozens have been wounded and scores have been arrested. A local newspaper said some of the shots fired in one killing appeared to have come from a group that included uniformed security officers and men accompanying them in civilian clothes.

In the most recent death, a beauty queen, Génesis Carmona, 22, a student who was crowned Miss Tourism 2013 for the state of Carabobo, died Wednesday, a day after being shot in the head during a march in Valencia, the country’s third-largest city. Protesters said attackers on motorcycles had fired on the march.

But the government has been quick to blame protesters for the worst violence, and on Thursday the interior minister, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, said that one of her fellow demonstrators fired the shot that killed Ms. Carmona. “This girl died from a bullet that came from her own ranks,” he said.

Many protesters are calling for Mr. Maduro to resign, but beyond that, the rallies seem to be general expressions of outrage, often with few specific demands. Even some opposition activists admit to being bewildered about how to direct the anger into concrete political objectives.

So far, Mr. Maduro’s response has been to crack down, but that has only fanned the flames. This week, he expelled three American diplomats, accusing them of recruiting students to take part in violent demonstrations. Then he arrested an opposition politician, Leopoldo López, saying that he had trained gangs of youths to sow violence in the country as part of a coup to overthrow the government.

Génesis Carmona was taken away after being shot on Tuesday. She died the next day. Mauricio Centeno/Diario Notitarde, via Associated Press

Thousands of people turned out in Caracas on Tuesday to accompany Mr. López as he surrendered to the authorities. And on Wednesday night, as demonstrators in several cities clashed with the riot police, Mr. Maduro threatened to declare a form of martial law known as a “state of exception” in the western state of Táchira, on the border with Colombia, a traditional opposition stronghold where protests have been particularly intense.

“If I have to declare a state of exception in Táchira, I’m ready to declare it and send in the tanks, the troops, planes, all of the military force of the country,” the president said. He also threatened to jail other opposition politicians and protest leaders.

Parts of the capital, Caracas, and some other cities have become battlegrounds. National guard soldiers on motorcycles patrol Caracas at night, using tear gas and rubber bullets to drive off protesters who block streets with barricades of burning trash.

On one night, a group of soldiers fired rubber bullets at apartment buildings where people were banging pots to protest the crackdown. During a melee after a rally in downtown Caracas on Feb. 12, the police, enraged that some of their vehicles were set on fire, beat and kicked protesters, news photographers and cameramen.

Mr. Maduro belittles the protesters and has largely ignored their complaints, trying to focus attention on smaller groups involved in violent clashes. “These aren’t students. They’re fascist vandals,” he said on Thursday.

The United States has voiced concern. 

“In Venezuela, rather than trying to distract from its own failings by making up false accusations against diplomats from the United States, the government ought to focus on addressing the legitimate grievances of the Venezuelan people,” President Obama said on Wednesday during a meeting in Mexico. He called for Mr. Maduro’s government to release jailed protesters and engage in dialogue.

 A demonstrator blocking the highway outside La Carlota airport. Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press

The current round of protests began this month when students in Táchira and other cities demonstrated against violent crime. Several students were arrested and a march was called in Caracas to demand their release. After that march ended peacefully, a few hundred youths rioted, throwing rocks at the police and breaking windows in a government building. A protester and a government supporter were shot to death, and another protester was gunned down that night.

Venezuela became a bitterly divided country during the 14 years of Mr. Chávez’s presidency, which ended with his death in March. He fostered a cult of personality and dominated all aspects of political life, pushing the country, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, toward his vision of socialist revolution.

Mr. Chávez reviled and insulted the opposition, but since his death, there is a sense that there is even less room for criticism — despite Mr. Maduro’s promises that he is open to dialogue.

In a psychological blow to many in the opposition, a stridently antigovernment television station, Globovision, was sold last year to investors believed to be close to the government. Since then, the station has toned down its programming and ceased to be a counterweight to the relentlessly pro-government tone of several government-run television stations.

Last week Mr. Maduro ordered a Colombian news channel, NTN24, removed from cable because of its coverage of the demonstrations.

Now, there has been little live news coverage of the wave of protests, while government television has relentlessly vilified the demonstrators.

“There are very few outlets where the opposition can make itself heard,” said Cedomir Mimia, 27, a lawyer at a recent protest, who said his top concern was “the information blackout.” 

Many protesters say they are simply fed up with the country’s bitter divide. “I’m here because I’m tired of the crime, of the shortages, tired of having to stand on line to buy anything,” said María Luchón, 21, at a recent rally. “I’m tired of the politicians of both sides.”

Via:NYtime