Another proxy war
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.de/2013/03/us-plots-conquest-of-venezuela-in-wake.html

Lots of chatter today in alternative news (talk and websites) regarding Ukraine and Vz - any independent state that will not submit to the globalists with be taken one way or another.   They like do it with lots of blood.

Security forces and protesters fought around Venezuela on Thursday in streets blocked by burning barricades and a supporter of socialist President Nicolas Maduro was shot dead, the sixth fatality from more than a week of violence.

Maduro said a "fascist bullet" killed Alexis Martinez, a brother of a ruling Socialist Party legislator, in the central city of Barquisimeto. A local journalist said Martinez was shot in the chest while passing an opposition protest.

There have also been scores of injuries and arrests since the violence broke out eight days ago, the most serious unrest since Maduro was narrowly elected in April 2013.

The protesters, mostly students, want Maduro to resign, and blame his government for violent crime, high inflation, shortages of goods and alleged repression of opponents.

The most sustained clashes on Thursday were in the western Andean states of Tachira and Merida, which have been especially volatile since hardline opposition leaders called supporters onto the streets in early February.

In Tachira state capital San Cristobal, which some residents are describing as a "war zone," many businesses remained shut as students and police faced off again in barricaded streets.

With some residents saying they dared not leave their homes because of the violence, the government said it was taking "special measures" to restore order there.

"This is not a militarization," Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres said on state television from San Cristobal. "We are here to work for the great majority of people in Tachira. ... Before we have dialogue, we must have order."

Maduro says he will not let his rivals turn Tachira into "a Benghazi," referring to the violence-racked Libyan city.

On Wednesday night, Caracas saw one of the worst bouts of violence since the protests began nearly three weeks ago.

Around a square in the wealthier east of the city, security forces fired teargas and bullets, chasing youths who hurled Molotov cocktails and blocked roads with burning piles of trash.

'DON'T GIVE UP!'

Caracas was much calmer on Thursday, though knots of opposition demonstrators gathered again in the same square, Plaza Altamira. Some businesses stayed closed, a further drag on the already ailing economy.

The government said a funeral parade for deceased folk singer Simon Diaz, a beloved figure who died on Wednesday aged 85, was held up due to "violent groups" blocking roads.

Tensions have escalated since opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated economist, turned himself in to troops this week. He is being held in Caracas' Ramo Verde military jail on charges of fomenting the violence.

"Change depends on every one of us. Don't give up!" Lopez's wife, Lilian Tintori, said on Twitter on Thursday.

Local TV channels are providing almost no live coverage of the unrest, so Venezuelans are turning to social media to swap information and images. Falsified photos are also circulating.

Both sides rolled out competing evidence of the latest violence on Thursday. Ruling Socialist Party governors showed photos and video of charred streets and torched vehicles, while the opposition posted footage of brutal behavior which they said was by National Guard troops.

Protest leaders say soldiers and pro-government armed community groups known as "colectivos" are sometimes shooting at demonstrators, while officials say sharpshooters are targeting pro-Maduro rallies from rooftops and elsewhere.

Maduro, elected last year to succeed socialist leader Hugo Chavez, says Lopez and "small fascist groups" are in league with the U.S. government and want a coup.

He has been sharply critical of international media coverage, and on Thursday he warned CNN it risked being kicked out of the country if it did not "rectify" its ways.

U.S. President Barack Obama has criticized Maduro's government for arresting protesters and urged it to focus on addressing the "legitimate grievances" of its people.

'GROSS INTERFERENCE'

That brought a typically scathing response from Caracas. Obama's comments were "a new and gross interference" in its internal affairs, the government said in a statement.

"Independent governments and the people of the world want the U.S. government to explain why it funds, encourages and defends opposition leaders who promote violence in our country."

Street protests were the backdrop to a short-lived coup against Chavez in 2002 before military loyalists and supporters helped bring him back. There is no evidence the military, which was the decisive factor in 2002, may turn on Maduro now.

Countries around Latin America are watching closely. Political allies such as Cuba, which receives Venezuelan oil on preferential terms, have denounced an opposition "coup attempt," while other nations have called for dialogue between the two sides.

Lopez's defiant stance has won him admiration among opposition supporters frustrated by 15 years of electoral losses, first to Chavez and then to Maduro.

But detractors call him a dangerous hothead. He has frequently squabbled with fellow opposition leaders and was involved in the 2002 coup, even helping arrest a minister.

Though the majority of demonstrators have been peaceful, an increasingly prominent radical fringe has been attacking police, blocking roads and vandalizing buildings.

While the Caracas protests began in middle-class neighborhoods and are still strongest there, sporadic demonstrations have also spread to poorer areas of the city, residents say.

Rights groups say the police response has been excessive, and some detainees say they were tortured.

Venezuela's main opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, who lost to Maduro in last year's presidential election, disagrees with Lopez's street tactics but backs protesters' grievances and has condemned the government response.

"How many more deaths do they want?" he said to reporters on Thursday, urging opposition activists to avoid violence.

http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-protesters-troops-clash-death-toll-six-025214058.html

 The violent protests that have roiled Venezuela's major cities and challenged its socialist government have their roots in a little-known incident on a college campus in a city far from the capital.

Just over a week before the Feb. 12 opposition rallies across Venezuela, students at the University of the Andes in San Cristobal in the border state of Tachira were protesting an attempted rape of a young woman on campus.

The students were outraged at the brazen assault on their campus, which underscored long-standing complaints about deteriorating security under President Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.

But what really set them off was the harsh police response to their initial protest, in which several students were detained and allegedly abused, as well as follow-up demonstrations to call for their release, according to students and people who live in the city of San Cristobal.

"It was shocking not just to students but to all of San Cristobal," said Gaby Arellano, a 27-year-old student leader who has been involved in the national opposition campaign. "It was the straw that broke the camel's back."

The protests expanded and grew more intense, drawing in more non-students angry about the dismal economy and crime in general, which led to more people being detained. Students at other universities decided to march in Caracas and the protest movement became a nationwide campaign when prominent opposition leaders decided to get involved.

The main rally on Feb. 12 in the capital turned violent, resulting in three deaths from gunshots and then the jailing of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. Now, protests that continued throughout the country Friday, and are particularly fierce in San Cristobal, rarely, if ever, mention the attempted rape.

"I'm protesting because of the insecurity, for the scarcity and the abuse of power that we have been experiencing," said Maria Garcia, a 30-year-old mother in the Los Agustinos neighborhood of San Cristobal, where patrolling soldiers have strung coils to control protesters who lob rocks and Molotov cocktails. "I'm tired of waiting five or six hours in line for a kilo of flour."

Today, as the anti-government movement has snowballed into a political crisis, the likes of which Venezuela's socialist leadership hasn't seen since a 2002 coup attempt, San Cristobal remains a hotbed of unrest. Protest rallies are expected throughout the country on Saturday.

The government on Thursday said it would send paratroopers to aid hundreds of soldiers already in place to restore order and the president has said he would consider imposing martial law in the area.

Maduro, it should be noted, has a very different version of events in San Cristobal, which is in the western state of Tachira that borders on Colombia.

Maduro says the city is under siege by right-wing paramilitaries under orders from former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who dismisses the allegation as an attempt by the Venezuelan leader to distract people from an economy beset by shortages of basic goods and inflation of more than 56 percent.

Maduro said Friday that San Cristobal Mayor Daniel Ceballos, a member of the same party as Lopez, would soon join the jailed opposition leader behind bars for fomenting violence. "It's a matter of time until we have him in the same cold cell," Maduro said.

Residents on Friday tried to resume their normal activities as the smell of burnt trash still lingered. Public transportation has yet to be restored, many stoplights are out and students are gearing up for what they promise will be an extended fight. As warplanes buzz the sky, there is also widespread resentment of the heavy troop presence.

"Why is the president sending these troops here? As far as I know, the military is supposed to protect Venezuelans, not attack them," said Jose Hernandez, a 31-year-old construction worker.

San Cristobal, a rural city 400 miles (660 kilometers) from Caracas, would seem an unlikely place to be at the center of a national crisis. But with its disproportionately large student population and longstanding cultural and economic ties with its more conservative neighbor, it has long been an opposition stronghold.

The state of Tachira, of which San Cristobal is the largest city and capital, was only one of two where opposition candidate Henrique Capriles defeated Hugo Chavez in 2012 presidential elections. Last April, residents of San Cristobal voted nearly 3 to 1 in favor of Capriles in the race against Maduro to elect Chavez's successor.

Its independent streak may have to do with its isolation, said Arellano, who grew up in Tachira.

"I think people in Tachira have always stood against abuses and being trampled," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelan-violence-roots-obscure-incident-014737295.html?vp=1

A few hundred Venezuelan's had a protest in London at the weekend.I came across their protest whilst out walking.

The Church in Vz is just as novus ordo awful as the rest of the world.  Masses in South America are especially unrecognizable as Catholic. I lived there.  
Vz and the rest of the world is disintegrating because the Church became a prot/ʝʊdɛօ/masonic influenced cabal and abdicated it's responsibilities to the salvation of souls.

The wages of sin is death.

 Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas, Venezuela, called on the faithful to intensify their prayers during Lent for God to rid Venezuela of violence, as the death toll from recent protests continues to rise.

“I want to ask you to pray a lot for Venezuela this Lent, that Venezuelans can resolve our problems peacefully, with everyone seeking the common good,” Cardinal Urosa said in his Lenten message.

“Regardless of the political sympathies of each person, Catholics need to banish hatred, bitterness and revenge from our hearts.”

Student protests began across the nation's cities early in February but escalated when three people were killed. The National Guard has been criticized for an unnecessarily strong response to demonstrators, who are urging greater protection of freedom of speech, better security and an end to goods shortages. The current reported death toll stands at 29.

The cardinal noted that the Venezuelan bishops have made continuous calls to stop the escalation of violence.  

“We reject violence, wherever it comes from,” he said. “We call on the government to respect the right of citizens to protest, and we ask that it respond to the requests of those who are protesting and provide solutions to the root of the problems.”

Cardinal Urosa added that the bishops have called for sanctions against those who have broken the law during protests.

He also exhorted Venezuelans to fulfill their civil duties “in accord with our consciences, but let us do so keeping in mind what the Lord says in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father’.”

“Let us remove hatred and bitterness from our hearts and let us truly live in love. No to violence!” he emphasized.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-encourages-lenten-prayers-for-venezuela/

A Venezuelan archbishop has said that the arrest of a leading political figure is evidence of dictatorial control, and the destruction of democratic rule in Venezuela.

Archbishop Roberto Lückert spoke out after Mayor Antonio Ledezma was taken into custody by police. President Nicolas Maduro claimed that Ledezma had been involved in an attempted coup.

Ledezma had signed a statement calling for the installation of a transition government to address a growing economic crisis in Venezuela. He had been joined in that statement by Leopoldo Lopez, the head of the political opposition—who is now also in prison.

Archbishop Lückert told the Fides news service that the Maduro government, which inherited its power from the late Hugo Chavez—is “trampling every rule of law.”

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=24107