Americas

Americas

One dead in violent Venezuela protests: witnesses

13 February 2014 01:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. One person was killed during standoffs at the end of an anti-government rally in Caracas on Wednesday, witnesses said, escalating the worst bout of unrest in Venezuela since protests against President Nicolas Maduro's April 2013 election, APA reports quoting Reuters.

A Reuters cameraman and a photographer heard shots and saw one protester had fallen to the ground. The man was then carried away dead, the witnesses said, apparently shot in the head.

With both pro- and anti-government demonstrations underway in the city, neither the identity of the man nor the gunman were immediately clear.

But National Assembly head Diosdado Cabello said he was a government supporter. "He's a comrade assassinated by the right-wing fascist hordes," he said in a speech.

The fatality came at the end of rival demonstrations to support and denounce Maduro's government after several weeks of opposition street protests.

The raucous and colorful competing rallies in the Venezuelan capital had passed off largely peacefully, until some 100 young opposition supporters began burning tyres in the streets, witnesses said.

Police responded with teargas and rubber bullets.

Under the banner "The Exit," meaning Maduro's departure, hardline opposition groups have been holding mostly small protests around the country for the last two weeks, to complain about rampant crime, corruption, and economic hardships.

Some have degenerated into rock-throwing skirmishes with security forces in the first sustained unrest since last year's post-election riots that killed half a dozen people.

Maduro, a 51-year-old former bus driver and union activist who has pinned his presidency on maintaining the legacy of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, says right-wing "fascists" are seeking to destabilize his government and topple him.

"A Nazi-fascist current has emerged again in Venezuela, they want to lead our nation to violence and chaos," Maduro told pro-government demonstrators clad in the red colors of the ruling Socialist Party at their rally.

"Do not fall for their provocations!" he said in a speech just minutes before the violence.

A few blocks away, thousands of opposition supporters had gathered in a square and marched toward some government buildings, chanting and blowing horns and whistles.

"We don't want a Cuban dictatorship," some chanted, in a reference to accusations that Maduro is a stooge of Cuba's President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel.

"You need therapy to live in Venezuela!" read one banner, held up by members of a university psychology department.