Soldiers storm Venezuelan protesters' stronghold

Soldiers storm Venezuelan protesters' stronghold
BY ESTEBAN ISRAEL AND DEISY BUITRAGO
CARACAS Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:07pm EDT

(Reuters) - Venezuelan troops stormed a Caracas square on Sunday to
evict protesters who turned it into a stronghold during six weeks of
demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro.

National Guard soldiers fired tear gas and turned water cannons on
hundreds of demonstrators who hurled rocks and some petrol bombs before
abandoning Plaza Altamira, in affluent east Caracas, which has been the
scene of daily clashes.

Some soldiers rode into the square on motorbikes, rounding up a dozen
demonstrators, Reuters witnesses saw. One flashed a "V" for victory as
he was driven away, another shouted "Help!"

The troops then began demolishing protesters' barricades, apparently
carrying out Maduro's vow to retake the square.

"We are going to carry on liberating spaces taken by the protesters,"
the 51-year-old successor to late leader Hugo Chavez said in a speech at
a pro-government rally in a different part of Caracas on Sunday.

Militant opposition leaders and students have been urging Venezuelans
onto the streets to protest issues ranging from crime and shortages of
goods to the presence of Cuban advisers in Venezuela's army and other
state institutions.

Earlier on Sunday, thousands marched towards the Carlota military air
base in the latest daily demonstration against the socialist government.
The protests began in early February.

"I spend five or six hours in a queue just to buy two packets of flour,
or two bottles of cooking oil," said pensioner Pedro Perez, 64, in the
opposition rally.

"Also, I'm protesting over insecurity and the lies this government tells
Venezuelans, bringing Cuban soldiers here ... This is an ungovernable
country, we can't carry on like this."

'VENEZUELAN-CUBAN BROTHERHOOD'

In another day of rallies around the nation, thousands of government
supporters also marched peacefully in Caracas to praise the government's
food welfare policies.

"We are going to strengthen the brotherhood between the Venezuelan and
Cuban peoples," Maduro told that rally in response to the opposition
march's anti-Cuba slogans.

Venezuela supplies more than 100,000 barrels per day of oil to Cuba, for
which it is partly paid by the presence of more than 30,000 medics,
sports trainers and others from the Communist-ruled Caribbean island.

Outside Caracas, opposition party Popular Will said that members of the
armed forces had stopped and beaten several politicians trying to visit
imprisoned protest leader Leopoldo Lopez at the Ramo Verde jail about an
hour from the capital.

Lopez, who heads the Popular Will party, was arrested last month on
charges of fomenting violence.

In a handwritten interview with pro-opposition newspaper El Universal,
Lopez, 42, said he had developed a strict regime of exercise, studies
and writing from his prison cell.

"I try to be disciplined because I'm aware that in jail, the main tools
of my struggle are my mind and spirit," he said.

Despite the turbulence in Caracas and other cities around Venezuela,
Maduro seems in little danger of being toppled by a "Venezuelan Spring."

The armed forces seem firmly behind him, the numbers of protesters are
far fewer than a wave of demonstrations against former president Chavez
a decade ago, and opposition leaders are divided over the wisdom of
street tactics.

However, Maduro has come under pressure from some foreign governments
and rights groups over excessive use of force from his security forces.
Some 21 officers have been arrested for brutality allegations.

A prominent local pollster and analyst, Luis Vicente Leon, said on
Sunday that both the government and the opposition's approval ratings
had suffered from the recent troubles.

"Many people have asked 'who's winning?' My answer is: 'no one,'" Leon
wrote in a local newspaper, saying the social and economic crisis had
hit Maduro's popularity while the opposition's credibility was also
suffering.

Leon referred to data that he said proved that, but did not give
numbers. Most pollsters are preferring to keep findings private at the
moment due to the tense political situation.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas; Writing by Andrew
Cawthorne; editing by Matthew Lewis)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/17/us-venezuela-protests-idUSBREA2F0XZ20140317?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews