CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday accused Washington of plotting with anti-government protesters and expelled three US diplomats in retaliation.
Maduro’s order came on the same day that fugitive opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez re-appeared and called for a mass rally on Tuesday and challenged the government to arrest him at the event.
Nearly two weeks of anti-government protests spearheaded by students have become the biggest challenge to Venezuela’s socialist rulers since the death of longtime leader Hugo Chavez in 2013.
Maduro said the US diplomats, who have not been named, had met with students involved in anti-government protests under the pretense of offering them “visas to the United States.”
A foreign ministry statement also said that Maduro’s government ‘flatly rejects’ remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday voicing alarm at the violence during the marches and criticizing the arrest of protesters.
Kerry’s statement is “yet another maneuver” by Washington to “legitimise attempts to destabilize the Venezuelan democracy unleashed by violent groups in recent days,” the ministry said.
As Maduro focused his ire on Washington he received a provocative challenge from Lopez, the man he blames for violence during last week’s protests in which three people died.
“This Tuesday the 18th, I would like to invite you all to march together from Plaza Venezuela … to the Justice Ministry,” said Lopez, head of the Popular Will party, in a video posted on his Twitter account.
“If anyone has decided to illegally arrest and jail me, you know I will be there,” he said. “I have nothing to fear; I have not done anything illegal.”
An estimated 3,000 people took part in an opposition rally in Caracas on Sunday, and a fresh rally is planned for Monday. — AFP