Venezuela has arrested several opposition activists accused of plotting violence during an anti-government rally scheduled for Thursday, President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday and opposition leaders slammed the arrests as intimidation.
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Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (R) greets supporters while he arrives to a meeting in Caracas, Venezuela August 30, 2016.
“It has become clear the brand and authorship of the coup d’etat planned for this coming September 1, 2016, in Venezuela in complicity with the anti-democratic opposition and the global right”, Maduro’s Foreign Ministry, through Venezuela’s Office of the Deputy Minister for North America, said in a statement.
Opposition leaders called his arrest an effort to quash dissent and describe Ceballos as a political prisoner.
Earlier in the day, Vice President of the ruling United Socialist Party Diosdado Cabello said: “All of those participating in the coup will go to jail”. “Shriek, weep or scream, but you’re going to jail”.
“The threat is coming directly from American imperialism”, he said.
The Foreign Ministry’s North America agency issued a statement protesting a U.S. State Department spokesman calling for the release of the jailed former mayor of San Cristobal.
Intelligence agents raided opposition party Popular Will’s offices on Tuesday and arrested long-time street activist Carlos Melo. Popular Will activist Yon Goicoechea was arrested on Monday on charges of carrying explosives. He was accused of trying to escape his home to plot violence during the march.
The protests are the first since electoral authorities indicated it was too late to organize a recall vote this year – infuriating the opposition, which wants a referendum by January in order to trigger new elections. Maduro’s approval rating in July fell to a nine-month low of 21%, according to pollster Datanalisis.
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With shortages of food, medicine and basic goods, the opposition coalition behind the referendum drive – the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) – insists that ditching Maduro’s socialist government is the only way out of the crisis.
