Jailed Venezuela protest leader urges resistance

Reuters/CaracasVenezuela’s jailed protest leader yesterday urged supporters to keep demonstrating peacefully against President Nicolas Maduro despite violence that has killed six people and rocked the Opec member nation.“I’m fine, I ask you not to give up, I won’t,” Leopoldo Lopez said to his followers in a handwritten note passed to his wife at Caracas’ Ramo Verde prison then posted on the Internet.The 42-year-old Lopez, a Harvard-educated economist and one of Venezuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar’s few surviving relatives, spearheaded protests against the socialist government that began at the start of February. But he surrendered to the military this week after an arrest warrant was issued accusing him of instigating the violence.Six people have died, five from gunshots, and one run over by a vehicle, as the protests have degenerated into violence in Caracas and other cities around Venezuela, especially in the western Andean region. More than 100 people have been injured. Both sides are blaming each other for murder and brutality.The government says sharpshooters are appearing on the opposition side and radicals are seeking to create chaos by smashing property, attacking police and blocking highways. The protesters, mainly students, accuse Maduro of worsening repression. They say police are firing shots, allowing pro-government gangs to attack the protesters and mistreating some detainees.“To the police, soldiers, prosecutors and judges: do not obey unjust orders, do not become the face of repression,” Lopez said in his note from prison. “To the youth, to the protesters, I ask you to stay firm against violence, and to stay organised and disciplined. This is everyone’s struggle.”Once again, the worst trouble yesterday appeared to be in the western border town of San Cristobal, which residents are calling a “war zone” with running battles between students and security forces on barricaded streets for days. Venezuela’s military has moved into the town in force, residents say, with helicopters and planes flying overhead. Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres is personally leading the operation there. There was also trouble in Merida, another Andean town, and protesters blocked a few streets again in Caracas yesterday.In the biggest challenge to Maduro’s 10-month-old government, the protesters are demanding his resignation over Venezuela’s rampant crime, inflation, shortages of basic products and alleged repression of opponents.Demonstrators bang pots and pans from windows every night. “I recommend they buy some stainless steel pots to last for a good 10, 20, 30 or 40 years,” Maduro mocked them. “Because the revolution is here for a long time!”Maduro says the protests are a pretext for a planned coup, similar to the short-lived ouster of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, in 2002.