VENEZUELA: CAMPESINOS PROTEST PARAS

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On June 17 some 4,000 Venezuelan campesinos, most of them from the eastern plains region, marched in Guasdualito, Apure state, against paramilitary attacks and in support of the “Bolivarian revolution” led by President Hugo Chavez Frias. (Frente Nacional Campesino Ezequiel Zamora, June 17 via Colombia Indymedia)

On June 3, some 15,000 students from universities, high schools and technical schools throughout Venezuela marched in Caracas to call for elimination of the proof of academic aptitude (PAA) test, a mandatory university entrance exam. The marchers, many wearing red t-shirts to symbolize support for the “Bolivarian revolution,” also rejected the actions of right-wing campus groups like the March 13 Movement, which led violent protests over several days in late May at the University of Los Andes in Merida. During those protests, armed provocateurs fired at police and National Guard members, leaving dozens wounded, some seriously. The Merida protests were prompted by a court decision to delay elections for the university’s student union on the grounds that opposition-controlled university authorities had exerted undue influence. (Green Left Weekly, June 7, 14)

On June 4, more than 10,000 Venezuelans marched from Catia, a poor suburb in western Caracas, to the center of the capital in support of the demands of homeless people and those lacking housing security. The march was called by the National Foundation of the Homeless, which held an even larger march on May 21. The marchers support Chavez; “The intention is to pressure the government to appropriate for us some land that was expropriated in [the suburbs of] La Vega and Antimano to construct houses,” said Wilma Alejo, according to the May 22 edition of the Ultimas Noticias newspaper. (Green Left Weekly, June 14)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 17

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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html