- Title: VENEZUELA: Venezuelans play dead to protest violent crime
- Date: 23rd April 2006
- Summary: PROTESTERS LYING STILL ON GROUND AS IF THEY WERE DEAD PROTESTERS LYING ON THE STREET PROTESTORS LYING IN CHALK OUTLINES CLOSE UP OF PROTESTOR LYING DOWN PROTESTORS LYING DOWN HANDS OF PROTESTORS LINKED PROTESTORS LYING IN CHALK OUTLINES (GOOD SHOTS OF UNUSUAL PROTEST)
- Embargoed: 8th May 2006 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA93ATH8EHPSVPMLU6HD9C23NA9
- Story Text: Venezuelans who say they are not going to take violent crime lying down staged duel protests in Caracas on Saturday (April 22)-- one protest blaming leftist President Hugo Chavez and the other supporting government efforts to curb crime.
Thousands of President Hugo Chavez's opponents lay down on the main avenue of an upscale area to protest violent crime they say has shot up under his rule.
Several thousand demonstrators drew chalk silhouettes evoking murder scenes around themselves and lay across the street in the latest opposition protest sparked by the recent high-profile kidnapping murders of three schoolboys and the subsequent murder of a local newspaper photographer covering the kidnappings.
The execution-style killings this month of the three young brothers has heightened fears over violent crime, especially among middle- and upper-class opponents of leftist president Chavez.
In protests that followed the killings, local newspaper photographer Jorge Aguirre was shot and killed by an unknown assailant who sped away on a motorbike.
"The Venezuelan government needs to realize once and for all that the problem of crime in Venezuela is not just a trivial matter," said protester Eugenia Pita. "This is a national emergency."
Venezuelan security experts estimate that in this country of 26-million, at least 60-thousand have died because of crime in the past 6 years.
Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist who survived a brief coup in 2002, has won over much of the No. 5 crude exporter's poor by channeling cash from oil exports into social programs.
But critics say he has become more authoritarian and not tackled basic issues including crime and corruption.
Although Chavez is likely to win a landslide victory in December elections, the country's splintered opposition is homing in on crime as a potential Achilles heel.
While Chavez's government has moved quickly to arrest suspects in the brothers' murders, it accuses the opposition of playing up violent crime for political motives.
A smaller group of pro-Chavez students dressed in red staged a rival march, many blaming high crime rates on poverty they said was generated by the capitalist system which Chavez, a friend of Cuba's Fidel Castro, has vowed to move away from.
The protesters marched to the Interior Ministry, demanding Chavez enact greater security measures including a more centralized police force.
"We're marching today, giving the government our support in the fight we are waging against crime," said protester Oscar Rodriguez.
Some protesters held a massive poster with Aguirre's photograph and threw flowers in the spot where he was killed. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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