Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Caracas on Saturday to oppose a constitutional amendment that could allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely.
Marchers waved the nation’s flag and peered through glasses framed by the word “No” to encourage people to vote against ending term limits for all elected officials in a referendum next Sunday backed by Venezuela’s socialist leader.
“Everything’s gotten worse,” said Yraiber Davila, a 24-year-old mechanical engineer who complained of rampant crime, a lack of government services and the difficulty of buying a house with annual inflation running at 31 percent. “I have a 10-year-old daughter and she’s never seen another president.”
One protester carried a sign depicting Chavez as TV tough-guy Mr T — complete with a Mohawk hairstyle and long, feathery earrings — beneath the phrase: “Indefinite Aggression.”
Marchers chanted and wore emblems saying “No is no,” a reference to a failed 2007 referendum that would have scrapped term limits and expanded Chavez’s power. Chavez was first elected in 1998 and is barred under the current Constitution from running again when his term expires in 2012.
Polls show Chavez gaining momentum before the vote.
Approval for the amendment stood at 51 percent last month — up from 38 percent a month earlier — the independent Venezuelan firm Datanalisis reported. The poll of 1,300 likely voters had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
Chavez’s supporters say he needs to stay in power to oversee the completion of his socialist project, which they say has given the poor access to affordable food, education and healthcare.
But Ignacio Martinez, a 19-year-old economics student at the Metropolitan University in Caracas, said he believes allowing one person to stay in power for too long breeds corruption.
“A just and efficient democracy can’t develop,” Martinez said.
While the march was largely peaceful, a group of four or five Chavez supporters attacked some straggling protesters as they began to march — punching them and burning their protest signs.
On Saturday, Chavez disowned groups of violent supporters, lamenting that they have enabled critics to accuse him of condoning violence.
Chavez has positioned himself as the alternative to widespread violence, while accusing opposition leaders and student groups of trying to throw the country into chaos and planning riots if he wins.
“We are the guarantee of peace,” he told backers in a poor neighborhood.
But some of his supporters, including a group called “La Piedrita,” have claimed responsibility for recent violent attacks — including tear gassing the offices of opposition-aligned media and the Vatican.
On Friday, the Venezuelan weekly newspaper Quinto Dia published an interview with the group’s leader, Valentin Santana — which was posted on the paper’s Web site, but could not be accessed without a subscription.
The article quoted Santana as saying he would “pass through the opposition with arms,” including Marciel Granier, head of opposition-aligned television station RCTV.
Santana also claimed responsibility for recent tear gas attacks on broadcaster Globovision, a Caracas cultural center, offices of the Vatican and at least one journalist’s house, the posting said.
“Nobody here can threaten anybody with death and take justice in their own hands,” Chavez said on Satruday.
“I called on the attorney general of the republic to take action,” he said, referring to Santana. “This person needs to be detained.”
Representatives for La Piedrita could not be reached for comment on Saturday.
Chavez’s government has condemned the group’s actions in the past. But Saturday’s announcement was the first time Chavez has personally threatened them or called for legal action.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia