Chavistas Open Fire

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Chavistas Open Fire

Submitted by Rob Richards on Fri, 12/07/2007 - 3:23pm.

On 7 October, masked gunmen opened fire on student protestors in Caracas, Venezuela, who were returning from a protest against President Hugo Chavez's proposed Constitutional reforms. Thousands of students marched on the Supreme Court protesting the reforms, which Chavez proposes to pass by referendum and critics say consolidate executive powers, giving the President control of the Central Bank, abolishing presidential term limits, expanding state of emergency powers, and creating new provinces to be governed by centrally appointed officials. These authoritarian changes are paired with populist measures like reducing the voting age and decreasing the hours of the maximum work day.

After the protest, as students were returning to the Venezuela Central University (UCV), they were attacked by an armed group of Chavistas with gas grenades, knives, clubs, stones, and pistols. Anti-authoritarian students who had participated in the protest, though they lacked firearms and all but improvised weapons, counterattacked and forced the “pistoleros” to take refuge in a university building. Shortly, a much larger group of armed Chavistas arrived on motorcycle to rescue the first group. In total, eight student protestors were injured.

What is it going to take to bring back the @ pistoleros?

Rob Richards's blog
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Imagine

Submitted by security_six on Fri, 12/07/2007 - 9:10pm.

If the anti authoritarian protester were better armed and better equipped.

This version of events

Submitted by John Regan on Sun, 12/09/2007 - 4:12pm.

This version of events sounds like the report in the Wall Street Journal. The same article identified a student nameds Stalin and self-identified as a "pro-Stalinist" as in the leadership of what you refer to as anti-Chavista, "anti-authoritarian" students.

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