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| A pro-government counter-demo. Venezuela has been hit by many anti-Chavez actions recently |
Special to Rebel Youth
I am currently in a remote area of Venezuela and have been for the last week and a half. It is somewhat difficult to imagine all these events going on outside of the towns of San Simon and Pregonero, where I am based. Here people say these are the biggest protests since the 2002 CIA-backed coup against the government of then leader Hugo Chavez.
Originally the centers of the protests were San Cristobal (Tachira state) and Merida (Merida state). I was in San Cristobal when they started and I rather unexpectedly happened to stumble (almost literally) across what may have been the very first of these protests. A group of opposition members were throwing rocks at the house of the state Governor, who is with the PSUV (or Socialist Party founded by Chavez). There was a small security force inside the walls of the house which was not responding to the attack; so unprovoked violence played a part right from the beginning.
