VENEZUELA: Hunger striking students reach tenuous accord with President Hugo Chavez

Record ID: 339447

  • Title: VENEZUELA: Hunger striking students reach tenuous accord with President Hugo Chavez
  • Date: 23rd February 2011
  • Summary: EXTERIOR OF OAS HEADQUARTERS IN VENEZUELA VARIOUS OF LORENT SALEH, HUNGER STRIKING UNIVERSITY STUDENT (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) LORENT SALEH, HUNGER STRIKING UNIVERSITY STUDENT, SAYING: "The Venezuelan government is the only country in the OAS that doesn't let the entrance of the Inter-American Committee on Human Rights. This has been happening since 2003. The Venezuelan go
  • Embargoed: 10th March 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
  • Country: Venezuela
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,Education
  • Reuters ID: LVAADYT6YTHLI8IMQ0APK1HP0VJX
  • Story Text: Hunger striking students demand Venezuela's Chavez allow human rights investigators to look into allegations he holds political prisoners, but back away from hunger strike after he gives in to some stipulations.
    Hunger striking students in Caracas, Venezuela demanded on Tuesday (February 22) that President Hugo Chavez allow human rights officials to investigate their accusations he holds political prisoners, but backed off a hunger strike after a tenuous agreement with the government.
    More than 50 students had been on hunger-strikes around Venezuela this month to highlight cases of jailed Chavez opponents. Some said they hoped to sow the seed for a movement against Chavez like those sweeping the Arab world.
    Yet with the president still commanding support among many Venezuelans, and little sign of a mass street movement emerging, analysts say any talk of ending the socialist former soldier's 12-year rule may be wishful thinking.
    In front of the Caracas office of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday, a small group of Chavez backers sought to set up a barbecue in front of a dozen hunger-strikers camped there for three weeks.
    In the ensuing fracas -- with both sides yelling at each other -- the Chavez supporters waved pieces of meat.
    Striker leader, the 22-year-old Lorent Saleh, said Chavez has things to hide from human rights investigators.
    "The Venezuelan government is the only country in the OAS that doesn't let the entrance of the Inter-American Committee on Human Rights. This has been happening since 2003. The Venezuelan government says there are no political prisoners here, that here in Venezuela human rights are respected. If human rights were respected in Venezuela, the government wouldn't be afraid to let the Inter-American Committee on Human Rights in. If human rights were respected in Venezuela, so many people wouldn't die in Venezuelan jails. If human rights were respected in Venezuela, so many people wouldn't die in hospitals," said Sorent, in a wheelchair since fainting Monday.
    Later, the students said they were ending their hunger-strike because the government had answered various petitions, including benefits for some political prisoners, a jail visit, and a committee to study cases.
    Angered by foes' comparisons with authoritarian leaders in the Middle East and North Africa, the Chavez government had condemned the protest as a show encouraged by opponents in the United States to create a "virtual Egypt."
    With a presidential election looming in late 2012, opinion polls and a recent parliamentary vote show Venezuela fairly evenly split between Chavez supporters and foes.
    Opposition parties and rights groups held a march in solidarity with the students on Tuesday. Several hundred demonstrators held banners and chanted anti-government slogans, but it was a far cry from the scenes in the Middle East.
    Chavez supporters accuse the students, who say they have links to a global youth protest movement originating in Serbia called Optor, of being funded by U.S. agencies.
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