Venezuelan pro-government supporters wielding sticks and pipes on Wednesday stormed into the Venezuelan National Assembly and beat lawmakers, leaving seven hurt, including three with blood streaming from their heads.
Later, about 100 government supporters at the gates of the legislature blocked 350 lawmakers, staffers and other people from leaving as a special Independence Day session of congress turned into a violent, nine-hour siege in which police avoided intervening.
In the end, police and soldiers with shields formed a cordon to keep the government supporters at bay as the lawmakers were eventually allowed to leave.
Photo: AP
The armed group broke through the gates of the only state institution still nominally controlled by the opposition, in another episode of political violence following three months of chaos in the oil-rich, but now poverty-stricken country.
The US Department of State condemned the attack as “an assault on the democratic principles cherished by the men and women who struggled for Venezuela’s independence 206 years ago today.”
It also criticized what it called the increasing authoritarianism of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
The attackers were supporting Maduro, who faces opposition demands for elections to remove him from office — although he promptly denounced the violence.
“I absolutely condemn these deeds. I will never be complicit in any act of violence,” Maduro said in a speech at a military parade in Caracas.
He did not acknowledge that those who stormed congress were supporters of his side.
“I have ordered an investigation, and may justice be done,” he added.
Military police guarding the site stood by as about 100 intruders brandishing sticks and pipes, and one of them a gun, broke through the front gate of the National Assembly and into the interior gardens and then the building itself, reporters said.
The mob reached the corridors of the congressional building, striking and injuring lawmakers and ordering journalists to leave the premises.
The intruders, some wearing masks, set off percussion bombs, triggering scenes of panic and chaos as police stood by and watched.
Lawmakers barricaded themselves inside rooms with furniture and rugs.
When it was all over, there were blood stains on walls.
The opposition said seven lawmakers were injured and five of them had to be hospitalized.
“This does not hurt as much as seeing every day how we are losing our country,” Venezuelan Legislator Armando Armas told reporters as he got into an ambulance with his head wrapped in bloodied bandages.
Later, government supporters gathered at the gates screamed “killers” and “terrorists” at the opposition lawmakers inside.
At one point, Legislator Williams Davila of the foreign affairs commission told reporters: “We have been kidnapped.”
Police with shields protected them as they finally filed out of the building.
Three months of protests have left at least 91 people dead in clashes with police.
Protesters blame Maduro for a desperate economic crisis that has caused shortages of food, medicine and basics such as soap.
He has said the chaos is the result of a US-backed capitalist conspiracy by the opposition.
The opposition-controlled legislature was holding a special session to mark Independence Day when the government supporters burst in.
“We will not be intimidated by these acts of violence. No one here will surrender to this dictatorship,” senior opposition Legislator Freddy Guevara said.
Earlier, Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami had made an impromptu appearance in the congress along with Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez and other ministers.
El Aissami made an address, in which he called on supporters of Maduro to go to the legislature to show support for the president.
The crowd of Maduro supporters held a rally outside the building for several hours before breaking into the grounds during a recess.
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