Death toll rises to 37 amid continuing clashes in Venezuela
By
Bill Van Auken
6 May 2017
The death toll rose to at least 37 Thursday in the nationwide protests and street clashes that have gripped Venezuela over the past month.
The identity of the latest victims reflects the violent and provocative character of the campaign being waged by Venezuela’s right-wing opposition, as well as the increasingly repressive crackdown being carried out by the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Parallel to this political confrontation playing out in the streets of Caracas and other major cities, the country’s desperate economic crisis has unleashed a growing wave of looting by sections of the oppressed, driven to desperation over the lack of food and declining real incomes.
Hecder Lugo Perez, 22, died Friday after being hit in the head by a projectile in the northwestern city of Valencia, a center of Venezuela’s moribund auto industry and other manufacturing plants that have seen mass layoffs. The city of 1.8 million has been one of the major flash points in the looting that has swept the country, with some 70 stores sacked on Tuesday.
Killed on Thursday was Juan Lopez Manjares, 33, the student federation president at the Instituto Universitario Tecnologico Jose Antonio Anzoategui in the northeastern city of El Tigre. The student leader, a supporter of the government, was gunned down after leading a student assembly, with his assassin fleeing on a motorcycle.
Also reported Thursday was the death of a policeman, Gerardo Barrera, 38, who died from gunshot wounds suffered the day before in a confrontation with demonstrators in the northwestern town of San Joaquin.
The wave of demonstrations was touched off on April 1 after Venezuela’s Supreme Court issued a ruling…