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Reuters
UPDATE - Venezuela pro-referendum marchers clash with troops
Friday February 27, 12:31 pm ET
By Pascal Fletcher
CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Venezuelan troops firing tear gas and plastic bullets Friday stopped opposition protesters from marching to a summit of Third World leaders to demand a recall referendum against President Hugo Chavez.
The clashes broke out as hundreds of National Guard troops backed by armored vehicles barred the path of the demonstration by thousands of opposition supporters advancing toward the summit venue in Caracas.
A Reuters correspondent said he saw National Guard troops fire round after round of tear gas canisters, scattering the demonstrators, who threw stones. Television footage also showed the soldiers firing shotgun pellets.
Several of the protesters were hit by pellets.
Clouds of tear gas wafted across one of Caracas' main avenues, less than a mile (about one kilometer) from the hotel and theater complex where leaders from 19 nations from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean were gathering.
The demonstrators had planned to try to hand over a message to the foreign leaders explaining their campaign to secure a recall vote against populist Chavez. They say he is ruling the world's No. 5 oil exporter like a dictator.
The heads of state of Brazil, Argentina, Iran, Zimbabwe and Jamaica were attending the summit of the Group of 15 developing nations. When the clashes broke out, Chavez was holding private meetings before the scheduled opening of the meeting Friday.
Opposition leaders accuse the president, who was elected in 1998, of ordering pro-government electoral officials to block and delay their petition for a referendum this year.
"People should take to the streets, not be frightened because this coward (Chavez) has his days numbered. The people are claiming their constitutional rights," one opposition leader, Henry Ramos, said as he marched.
REFERENDUM BATTLE
The battle over the referendum has rekindled fears that the oil-rich South American nation could erupt once again into political violence, as it did in 2002 when a coup briefly toppled Chavez amid clashes between his followers and foes.
Former paratrooper Chavez has condemned the referendum petition as riddled with fraud and accuses his foes of plotting to overthrow him with U.S. support. Washington denies this.
As political tensions rise over the disputed recall vote, international observers and foreign governments have urged the National Electoral Council to guarantee speed and transparency in its check of opposition pro-referendum signatures.
Opposition leaders say they handed in 3.4 million signatures to electoral authorities, well over the 2.4 million legal minimum required to trigger a vote in May or June.
Imposing a 3-2 majority in the National Electoral Council, pro-government electoral officers this week ordered additional checks on more than 1 million signatures.
Furious opposition leaders condemned this as a brazen attempt to stop the referendum going ahead.
The National Electoral Council is planning to ask voters whose signatures are disputed to come forward and reconfirm them, a complex requirement which will delay any final decision on a possible referendum well into March.
Observers from the Organization of American States and the Atlanta-based Carter Center are trying to negotiate a compromise that would involve checking a sample of the disputed signatures to speed up the verification process. (Additional reporting by Patrick Markey, Silene Ramirez and Tomas Sarmiento) |
