One killed as protesters attack Venezuela airbase
Protesters have attacked an airbase in Venezuela, engaging in clashes with the military police at the site, which led to the death of one protester.
People were throwing rocks as part of a protest just outside the airbase in the Chacao municipality on Thursday when a police sergeant used long firearms through the fence against the protesters.
“The sergeant used an unauthorized weapon to repel the attack, causing the death of one of [the] assailants,” Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said on Twitter.
Reverol said the air force police sergeant faced legal proceedings.
Other security forces had apparently been using rubber bullets against the protesters.
Venezuela has faced months of unrest. The leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro says the protests are incited by the Unites States. Protesters are enraged by an acute economic crisis as well as political decisions by the Maduro government that they find autocratic.
The unrest was aggravated in early April after Venezuela’s Supreme Court decided to annul the powers of the opposition-controlled parliament. The move was regarded as a violation of the country’s constitution. The decision was later revoked, but the protests have only continued.
The United States has been preparing a new list of Venezuelan individuals to impose sanctions on over the crisis.
Maduro is now planning to convene a constituent assembly to write a new constitution aimed at restoring peace.
The Venezuelan opposition, which demands an early presidential election, has refused to participate in the assembly and called the plan “fraudulent.”
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