Mr. Ledezma was accused by President Nicolás Maduro of plotting with the United States to overthrow him. The State Department issued a statement saying, “Venezuela’s problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent.”CreditCarlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
The abrupt arrest of the mayor of Caracas on accusations that he had plotted an American-backed overthrow of the government threatened to plunge Venezuela into new political convulsions on Friday, as his supporters rallied in the capital and pockets of protest erupted elsewhere.
The arrest of the mayor, Antonio Ledezma, on Thursday evening by intelligence agents who fired weapons in the air, was viewed by the opposition as the kidnapping of a political rival to President Nicolás Maduro.
Mr. Ledezma’s backers called it another assault on democracy in Venezuela, the oil-endowed nation that has been reeling from a severe economic decline under the watch of an increasingly unpopular president.
[. . .]
Mr. Estacio and other witnesses described the method of arrest as disproportionately severe. They said Mr. Ledezma had been working calmly in his office when a dozen armed officials burst in, fired into the air and dragged the mayor away to the intelligence agency’s headquarters.
Mr. Maduro confirmed that the mayor would be dealt with by Venezuela’s judicial system on what he described as charges committed against the country’s “peace, security and constitution.”
[. . .]
Venezuela is the fourth-largest provider of crude oil to the United States.[. . .]
“This government has lost all perspective,” she said. “This isn’t democracy. We’re suffering a dictatorship.”
María Martínez, 68, a retiree, said the government was trying to put a stranglehold on the opposition. “The opposition has been kidnapped, and so the people have been kidnapped,” she said. “We’ve all been kidnapped. I don’t know if this is a dictatorship, communism or what. But it’s not a democracy.”
Mr. Ledezma’s arrest came nearly a year after the detention of Leopoldo López, a popular hard-line opposition figure who remains in jail on charges of inciting nationwide unrest.
New York Times
By GIRISH GUPTA
FEB. 20, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment