Crackdown ... riot police dismantle a students' encampment set up in front of the UN headquarters in Caracas. Source:AFP
VENEZUELAN authorities have demolished four protest camps and detained 243 people, striking at the remaining bastions of a months-long and at times deadly anti-government protest movement.
Riot police swept through the camps on Thursday in surprise raids that began at 3pm, Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres said, claiming the sites occupied by students were “being used by more violent groups to commit terrorist acts”.
He said 243 people were apprehended and would now be questioned to determine whether they should be prosecuted.
Lawyer and human rights activist Elenis Rodriguez said “very few young people were able to escape the onslaught”.
At least 41 people have died and more than 700 have been injured since students and other opponents of the government took to the country’s streets in February to protest rampant crime, runaway inflation and shortages of basic goods.
Over the past month, the protest movement has largely been concentrated in Occupy-style encampments in Caracas, with the main one set up opposite the office of the United Nations Development Program in an upscale part of town.
Deadly protests ... at least 41 people have died and more than 700 have been injured since students and other opponents of the government took to the country’s streets in February. Source: AFP
That site, which consisted of hundreds of tents and blocked three of six lanes of a major thoroughfare, was left in shambles by the raid.
Rodriguez Torres said police seized drugs, weapons, explosives, mortars, grenades and gas canisters during the raids, “everything you would use to confront the security forces on a daily basis”.
Forensic teams have been sent to the sites “to collect all the evidence and present it in court in order to prosecute all those that should be prosecuted,” the minister added.
Student leader Juan Requesens vowed the demonstrations would continue despite the pre-dawn raid and detentions.
“The students will pursue their fight for rights,” he said.
The police action came just hours before an announcement that a hearing for jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, set for Thursday, had been postponed.
The Harvard-educated economist, arrested in the midst of a massive opposition rally, has been in custody at a military jail since February 18 for allegedly inciting deadly violence during the anti-government protests.
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