Venezuela university officials decry attacks on students

[MADem]

They ask President Nicolas Maduro to help, calling the attack at the Central University of Venezuela a bid to quash opposition.



Pro-government assailants beat a student at the Central University of Venezuela on Thursday. A university official said the campus, in Caracas, had been invaded by motorcycle-riding vigilantes at least 10 times since student-led government protests began sweeping the country in early February. (Fernando Llano / Associated Press / April 5, 2014)

....Victor Marquez, president of the faculty association at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, said the attack Thursday on a group of about 1,200 students was carried out by men armed with metal pipes and wooden rods as national guard members stood by. Witnesses said the assailants also had pistols, but no shots were fired.
Students held a march Friday afternoon to protest the attacks, which Marquez and other university officials described as an attempt to intimidate government opponents.
Marquez said the campus had been invaded by motorcycle-riding vigilantes at least 10 times since student-led protests began sweeping the country in early February. The university, which was founded in 1721, has become a rallying point for students and others to protest Venezuela's high crime rate, food shortages and struggling economy.

"The problems we are experiencing stem from a government policy of not allowing peaceful public protests," Marquez said. "We have had several students and professors arrested for exercising their rights."
On March 14, a group of 16 masked men entered the university's science building and beat several students, witnesses say, provoking university Rector Cecilia Garcia Arocha to demand that pro-government forces stop "attacks on our university."
Five days later, vigilantes attacked and robbed 11 students in the architecture building, forcing several to disrobe.....

On Wednesday , the head of Venezuela's Roman Catholic bishops, Archbishop Diego Padron, issued the group's harshest criticism of Maduro to date, saying the president aimed to impose a "totalitarian government" on Venezuelans. The comments came days after Maduro said he would be open to mediation by the Vatican to help negotiate peace between government supporters and protesters.
"The government is wrong to try to resolve the crisis with force," Padron said in a statement. "Repression is not the way."


http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-venezuela-university-protests-20140405,0,4774872.story#ixzz2y0KRjyJF

[Bacchus4.0]

1. chavismo in action n/t