CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela yesterday gave three US diplomats 48 hours to leave the country, accusing them of conspiring against the government to incite protests that were the OPEC nation’s most serious violence since President Nicolas Maduro’s April election.
Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said the three consular staff used visa visits to universities as cover for promoting student-led protests.
The demonstrations, which have energized the opposition but show few signs they can oust Maduro, continued yesterday with rowdy protests around Caracas and various provincial cities. On Wednesday, the protests turned deadly and three people were fatally shot.
“They have been visiting universities with the pretext of granting visas,” said Jaua, who often faced off against police during his own days as a student demonstrator.
“But that is a cover for making contacts with (student) leaders to offer them training and financing to create youth groups that generate violence,” he told reporters.
The US State Department called the allegations “baseless and false,” adding that Washing-ton supported free expression and peaceful assembly in Venezuela and around the world.
Venezuela has routinely expelled US diplomats in recent years as the relationship between the two countries frayed during the 14-year rule of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
Critics dismiss such moves as theatrics used in times of national commotion to distract from more serious issues.
Student demonstrators have vowed to stay in the street until Maduro resigns, though the 51-year-old former bus driver has vowed not to cede even a “millimetre” of power.
The Caracas protests have been limited to mostly upscale areas, and there has been little evidence that Venezuelans will join them en masse. Even so, thousands were out across the nation of 29 million people again yesterday.
Police fired teargas at student protesters near the office of the Popular Will party, whose leader, Leopoldo Lopez, has been a main instigator of demonstrations.
Party workers said armed men presumed to be military intelligence officers burst into their premises seeking national coordinator Carlos Vecchio.
Vecchio’s current whereabouts were not clear.
Videos sent to media by Popular Will, which could not be independently identified, showed men entering the premises waving guns and trying to kick down a door.
The government has issued an arrest warrant for Lopez, a 42-year-old, US-educated hardline opposition leader, on charges including murder and terrorism.
His whereabouts were unknown, though in an online video he promised to hand himself in today and called on supporters to march with him to the Interior and Justice Ministry.
“Let’s all go dressed in white to one place. Then, I will walk alone. I will not put any Venezuelan’s life at risk,” he tweeted yesterday.
In other demonstrations yesterday, students blocked several avenues in affluent neighbourhoods of Caracas.
Elsewhere, protesting students in the Andean city of San Cristobal burned tyres, while residents reported trouble in Merida and on the island of Margarita.
“I’m not sure we’re going to gain from this. But we have to do something,” said dentistry student Rita Moreno, 19, among about 500 protesters in Caracas’ affluent Altamira district.
The Andean Development Corporation suspended its popular annual marathon scheduled for this weekend in Caracas.
Venezuela’s highly traded global bonds, which fluctuate sharply on civil unrest or political tension, remained near 18-month lows, though trading in US markets was generally light due to the President’s Day holiday.
Bank of America said in a research note yesterday that the protests were unlikely to result in a change of government, recommending that investors take advantage of attractive yields on bonds that mature in coming years.
Only 13 students were still detained after nearly 100 arrests in the past week. Complaints about violent acts by both sides have piled up over six consecutive days of confrontations between police and demonstrators.