• Violence in Venezuela over constitutional vote kills 9, including candidate
    3 replies, posted
[quote][t]http://www.trbimg.com/img-597e4bb0/turbine/la-fg-venezuela-voting-pictures-016/1550/1550x872[/t] A candidate for Venezuela’s constitutional assembly was one of nine people reported killed amid widespread violence as voters went to the polls Sunday in a hotly contested election aimed at giving greater power to President Nicolas Maduro.Jose Felix Pineda, a pro-Maduro candidate in the election to select members of a constitutional assembly, was reportedly shot to death Saturday night in his home in the Heres township in Bolivar state by two unknown assailants. The shooting took place during a family gathering at which others present were robbed of their belongings, according to a government statement. Although the motive for his death was not known, Pineda was the second candidate to be killed in the run-up to the election, which has further divided the country. Protests, sometimes violent, raged through the country as opposition leaders urged Venezuelans to stay away from the polls. An explosion in the affluent Altamira neighborhood in the eastern barrio of the capital, Caracas, on Sunday morning injured as many as seven national police officers and destroyed four of the motorcycles they were riding, the government said. Video showed the police riding in formation down a broad street when the explosion occurred, creating a large fireball that engulfed some of the officers. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said in an interview broadcast over state-run TV that 100 voting machines had been burned in western Tachira state by opposition protesters.[/quote] [URL="http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-venezuela-voting-20170730-story.html"]LA Times[/URL] [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Inaccurate Threadtitle - Please read the articles you post" - Mezzokoko))[/highlight]
The title is not accurate. The bomb didn't kill anybody. It caused material and physical injury to a group of cops that were driving by, but it seemed to have been just fireworks bundled together. These nine victims (13 by my count) came from different clashes against the government in different states, they're all separate events; the majority of them being protesters killed by gunfire from government forces, however.
[QUOTE=Sam Za Nemesis;52528331]Guess which narrative the Maduro government is going to push though?[/QUOTE] I've been already dealing with people justifying the government openly killing and imprisoning protester through this "bomb" (They call it an IED), because in their mind somebody setting up an explosive makes the entire opposition terrorists. In truth, I'm not surprised at all that there has been an escalation of violence because it has directly matched an escalation in repression. The government uses overwhelming force and cruelty, the people who are sick and tired of them, are fighting back. Government forces clash with protesters every day, and every night, they break into apartment buildings and terrorise neighbourhoods in a sort of sting operation against protesters. When I'm saying protesters, I'm mostly talking people aged 17 to 25, usually college students, who make the bulk of the "Resistance", the regulars who spend most of the day out in the street, bearing shields and wearing gas masks.
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