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Venezuela’s president chased by angry, pot-banging protesters

The protesters at Venezuela’s Margarita island sent Maduro running for his life.

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Grainy cell phone videos said to be of the Friday night encounter have been picked up by Venezuelan news sites and are trending on social media.

There was no way to independently confirm the veracity of the footage.

“Preventive action of the national government prevented a slaughter”, Rodriguez said during a meeting with the diplomats in Venezuela.

Popular Will, the party of jailed opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez, said that more than a million people took part in the “Takeover of Caracas.”.

The rare confrontation with the president, who succeeded President Hugo Chavez, came just days after hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters demonstrate in Caracas on Thursday.

Many Venezuelans blame Maduro for the nation’s food shortage and economic crisis.

“Right now, there are more than 30 people detained.as a result of the incident in Villa Rosa”, Alfredo Romero of Penal Forum rights group said on Twitter.

Videos published by activists, purportedly from the Margarita locality of Villa Rosa on Friday night, show scores of people banging pots and pans and jeering their president during a visit to inspect state housing projects.

“What you didn’t see in the videos manipulated by the right wing”, Marcano wrote.

“Neither Maduro, bodyguards, nor the Casa Militar (security agency) nor the ministry can avoid the sound of pot-banging in a town that wants a recall election”, tweeted Henrique Capriles, a former opposition presidential candidate.

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The president, whose poll ratings have dropped to just over 20 percent, says the opposition is seeking a coup against him with the connivance of the United States.

Venezuelan Oppositions Vows to Keep Up Pressure on Maduro