• Latin America.Maduro says that today's meeting between Trump and Bolsonaro seeks a war against Venezuela
  • Crisis: Turbas chavistas attack Juan Guaidó on his return to Caracas

"It is time that you side with the people, you also have family. The cowards are the ones who hide, the ones who give orders to you." Juan Guaidó, at the head of thousands of protesters, once again faced the police forces that prevented the peaceful demonstration on Tuesday in Caracas. The answer was not long in coming: a rain of tear gas against those who only wanted to accompany the deputies to sit where they were, in the Federal Legislative Palace.

Although it was the largest protest in months, more than 12,000 people, it was not enough for the march to cross the strong cordon of the National Police, so the deputies held the sessions in a square in the east of the city. There a "national document of conflict" was approved , which is committed to a free and fair presidential election, which must go through the selection of a new National Electoral Council (CNE) and must have independent international observation. "We will not participate in any electoral process that does not have the necessary conditions to be free," Guaidó concluded.

Since Monday, Nicolás Maduro had made it very clear that military and police would apply the script of repression, as almost always during two decades of Chavismo, but this time with a novelty: the deployment of tanks inside and outside the capital with The excuse of some military exercises. Caracas woke up militarized, with soldiers and militiamen representing the revolutionary vaudeville, a dramatic defense of non-existent invaders whose real objective is to intimidate citizens. Distributed in each corner, aiming with their rifles, submachine guns and grenade launchers . The deployment continued during the two days, when even hooded officials of the Military Counterintelligence controlled access to the city. Up to nine closed Metro stations and cuts on the highways that reach Caracas made the protesters' traffic as difficult as possible.

"Maximum combative moral!", The "people president" harangued his military with an official objective: "to make the country impregnable." And it is that everything goes in the terror plan applied by the revolution against the Democrats, including stopping writers like Alfredo Coronil in the days leading up to the march.

"In Venezuela there are always plenty of reasons to go out," Cardinal Baltazar Porras , head of the Catholic Church, the country's most respected institution, protested. Another monsignor, Bishop Enrique Rojas , headed the Via Crucis for Freedom in Mérida to protect protesters, defenseless throughout the country. Thousands of opponents threw themselves into its streets, not only in Caracas, but in the main cities.

A cardboard skeleton with the "We are hungry" sign was especially striking during the march in Caracas. Gustavo Giraud , Professor of Philosophy, dreams of a change of government. His salary of two million bolivars per month (about 23 euros), is not enough for him. "I like to see the streets full of police, military and groups (paramilitaries), that means that the dictatorship is afraid of us. I'm not afraid anymore, I'm 72 years old, I don't mind dying for my country."

On the other side of the police barrier, in the immediate vicinity of Parliament, Chavism moved militiamen and public workers to the "mother of all marches," as Diosdado Cabello , number two of the Bolivarians, baptized the counter-demonstration mounted from the power.

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  • Venezuela
  • Nicolás Maduro
  • Juan Guaidó
  • Venezuela Elections

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