VENEZUELA: Two supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were shot dead during street disturbances in Caracas this weekend as pro- and anti-government protesters stepped up their efforts to win control of the city's streets.
The opposition has refused to re-enter peace talks until President Chavez agrees to resign while an ongoing general strike has entered its sixth week, with no end in sight.
"We outfoxed them [anti-Chavez protesters] during the coup [last April] and outlasted them during the general strike," said Education Minister Mr Aristóbulo Istúriz. "The only card they have left is violence."
Mr Istúriz, a government delegate at recent, failed peace talks, spoke yesterday at a funeral parlour where the remains of the two victims were, and where hundreds of angry Chavez followers demanded that the army retake control of the streets. "We are making a peaceful, democratic, revolution - we are f***ed," Mr Istúriz said, summing up the powerlessness felt by Chavez supporters, who have played by democratic rules despite a violent campaign to unseat the President.
In similar circumstances on April 19th last year, 11 Chavez supporters were shot dead during street protests.
The country's divisions are so sharp that even in the apartment blocks above the funeral parlour, half the neighbours banged pots while the other half waved red flags, symbols of conflicting loyalties.
There were further scuffles when police dispersed the mourners of the two victims. Two officers received gunshot wounds, allegedly from Chavez supporters. "If I had a gun I would have fired back," said Mr Ramiro Gomez, a Chavez loyalist whose son, Mr Oscar Gomez, died during the Friday unrest. Oscar Gomez was a security official at the Education Ministry who joined the fateful protest when he heard that anti-government protesters were trying to reach the gate of an army barracks.
The Chavez administration blamed the deaths on the Metropolitan Police, an anti-Chavez force. Mr Chavez handed over control of this dissident police force to the National Guard last year but the nation's supreme court ruled against the measure, forcing the President to abandon control of the institution.
Meanwhile, Mr Cesar Gaviria, mediator for the Organisation of American States, is holed up in a hotel, desperately trying to find a way to bring the two sides to the negotiating table.