[NYTr] Opposition Students Reschedule Their Next Anti-Reform March
 
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 15:36:18 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
VHeadline - Nov 24, 2007
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=77065

Opposition students demonstrate degree of maturity 
calling off their march

by Jeremy Morgan
Caracas Daily Journal

Students opposed to the proposed constitutional reform demonstrated a
degree of maturity by calling off their plan to march to the Miraflores
Presidential Palace, and announced they would instead assemble on
Avenida Bolivar next Thursday.

The change of plan came after Communication & Information Minister
Willian Lara fired a verbal shot across the students' bows by
questioning why they wanted to march to Miraflores.

In doing so, he had invoked memories of the violence that marred an
opposition march as it tried to reach the palace in April 11, 2002. On
that day, 17 people were killed after shooting broke out near a bridge
carrying Avenida Urdaneta over Avenida Baralt.

Lara asked out loud if it was the students' intention this time to
repeat that sort of incident. But hardly had the student leaders
unveiled their revised plan to meet on Avenida Bolivar than that plan,
too, came under question.

This time, the doubts came in the form of a sudden statement by Vice
President Jorge Rodriguez. He announced that supporters of
constitutional reform would hold a mass meeting in Avenida Bolivar on
the same morning.

Speculation about what would happen next was abruptly overshadowed by a
vicious incident on the Cota Mil highway along the north of the
capital. Officers from the Metropolitan Police were filmed on live
television beating up a young man when a group of students from the
private Universidad Monte Avila tried peacefully to hand out pamphlets
against the reform plan.

The officers hit and kicked the young man to the ground and then
dragged him to the side of the highway. He did not appear to be
resisting and held up his hands in an evident attempt to plead with the
officers to desist, which they did not. The identity of the young man
wasn't disclosed. His whereabouts in the wake of this incident were
just as unclear. So, too, was the identity of the over-zealous
officers. Afterwards, a student spokesman claimed the Interior and
Justice Ministry had ordered the police to repress the protest. Police
officers had also tried to enter the university campus, apparently
without prior permission, it was alleged.

In the meantime, Rodriguez' announcement had the effect of immediately
casting the student's second plan into limbo. Whether or not this was
his intention was unclear, but it had that effect anyway.

In private, opposition student representatives admitted they did not
know what to do, and much less when or where. Also in doubt was whether
they would secure the necessary prior permit to stage an anti-reform
rally in a public place.

Whether or not a permit for the pro-reform rally announced by Rodriguez
had been authorized or granted before his announcement remained
unclear. 
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