Venezuelan university students will march on President Nicolás Maduro on Thursday, amid fears of a new outbreak of violence that left 32 dead in just over a month of opposition protests.
Yesterday, the wave of violence increased, while the population’s discontent over Maduro’s decisions grew. The repression increases, so much so that a tank truck struck a crowd.
Watch Venezuelan National Guard run over a crowd with a tank
Both sides are out of control. A young demonstrator ended up catching fire after trying to burn down a motorcycle belonging to a Venezuelan national police guard.
International media
The students, who are the most confronted in the demonstrations, will hold assemblies and marches from different autonomous and private education centers, to reject a National Constituent Assembly called by Maduro and demand their departure from power.
We have been holding on for more than a month, this is not a race of speed, but a race of resistance. Venezuela is in the street to fight against this dictatorship,”
said Daniel Ascanio, from the Simón Bolívar University.
According to the leadership of the student movement, opposition members, trade unions and other sectors will also participate.
The student protest will take place after a day of strong disturbances experienced in Caracas when of thousands of opponents, who demonstrated against the Constituent, were dispersed by the security forces with a barrage of tear gas pumps.
A group of young people, many of them students, some hooded and with masks, responded with stones and Molotov cocktails. An 18-year-old boy died and about 300 people were injured, according to preliminary reports.
Maduro is determined to carry out a Constituent Assembly that stifles the opposition offensive in the streets, and, according to him, installs “peace” and halts a “coup d’état.”
The opposition, meanwhile, assures that the Constituent Assembly consolidates a coup, which it says began when the highest court of justice temporarily took over the functions of Parliament, the sole power of the state it controls, at the end of March.
We will continue in the street, despite the strong repression of the regime,”
said Santiago Acosta, a leader of the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB).