International News

CARACAS, July 11, (APP/AFP) – Pro- and anti-government
groups are battling fiercely for public support over a contested plan by President Nicolas Maduro to have a new body elected this month to rewrite the constitution.
The opposition, energized by the release from jail of one of its
emblematic leaders, Leopoldo Lopez, is leading the charge against the new assembly to be chosen in a July 30 election.
On Monday it organized a demonstration in Caracas, during which
dozens of protesters and some security force personnel confronting them were injured.
On Sunday, the opposition is to hold its own symbolic public vote on
whether the new constitutional assembly should be established.
“This population has decided to continue the fight for liberty,” one
opposition lawmaker taking part, Freddy Guevara, said. “Sunday will be the
biggest act of civil disobedience in Venezuela’s history.”
With Maduro determined to see through the process — which critics
view as a way for him to bypass the opposition-led parliament — there are fears of more violence in the streets. Since April 1, more than 90 people have been killed during protests.
The Venezuelan president, who rules over a once flush oil-rich nation
reduced to penury, has been accused by the influential Catholic Church of
turning the country into a “military dictatorship.”
However Russian President Vladimir Putin, a longtime ally, on Monday
praised Maduro in a telephone call for “his efforts in maintaining stability
and peace in the country,” according to a Venezuelan foreign ministry statement.
Putin also endorsed Maduro’s allegations that he was the victim of a
foreign plot to topple him, the statement said.
Campaigning for Venezuela’s controversial constitutional assembly is
to end on July 27.