Venezuela | Opposition leader arrested after anti-Maduro protest

(Caracas) Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who appeared Thursday for the first time in public since the end of August, was arrested after the demonstration against the inauguration of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas.

An opposition source told AFP that the leader was arrested while leaving the demonstration.

A few minutes earlier, her team had announced on X that she had been “violently intercepted as she left the demonstration” on a motorcycle. According to the message on X, shots were fired at the procession of motorcycles that accompanied him.

She had considered a possible arrest, confiding to AFP on Monday: “If something happens to me, the instructions are very clear […]no one will negotiate the freedom of Venezuela for my freedom.”

She also assured that she did not want to “miss for anything in the world [le] historic day” of the demonstration.

During the last major demonstrations in August, M^me Machado, 57, would suddenly appear on a street corner to climb onto a podium truck, harangue the crowd then quickly disappear on a motorcycle to escape arrest. The police seem to have countered this modus operandi on Thursday.

On Thursday, she once again arrived in a truck dressed in white and brandishing a Venezuelan flag and gave a short speech in which she said: “All of Venezuela is in the streets, we are not afraid!” From today we enter a new phase. Venezuela is free, we will continue! »

The authorities had massively deployed law enforcement in the country, particularly in the capital.

“I will leave my skin on the asphalt for my children, but it will be worth it, because Venezuela will be free!” », Said Rafael Castillo, 70, before the arrest.

Concluding an international tour in Santo Domingo, the opponent Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who claims victory in the presidential election, demanded the “immediate release” of Mr.^me Machado. “We will all see each other very soon in Caracas, in freedom,” he said.

“The only president-designate in this country is Nicolas Maduro, the people elected him and the people support him,” said Noeli Bolivar, 28, who is participating in the “peace” march in favor of the president. , organized by the government, which like that of the opposition brought together thousands of supporters.

Waving Venezuelan flags and often wearing red clothes, supporters of power, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, left eastern Caracas to reach the city center.

Similar marches took place across the country, according to public television footage.

The opposition claims the victory of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in the presidential election. She assures that the minutes of the polling stations that she collected prove that the former diplomat won the vote hands down – more than 67% of the votes – in the face of “a regime which knows it is beaten” and isolated on the international level.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed the outgoing president the winner of the vote with 52% of the votes, but without publishing the minutes, claiming to be the victim of computer hacking. A hypothesis considered implausible by many observers.

The CNE’s announcement provoked demonstrations throughout the country, which were harshly repressed. The post-election unrest resulted in 28 deaths, more than 200 injured, and 2,400 people arrested for “terrorism”.

Security forces have made numerous arrests in recent days: some 150 people, including an alleged FBI official [police fédérale américaine] and an American soldier, according to Mr. Maduro, who spoke of an “aggression” financed by the United States.

Washington, which does not recognize Mr. Maduro’s victory, described as “categorically false” any accusation of participation “in a plot to overthrow Maduro,” according to a State Department spokesperson.

The UN said it was “deeply concerned” on Thursday about the detention of political opponents and in particular that of Mr. Correa, wrote Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The respected Carlos Correa, director of a renowned human rights NGO, Enrique Marquez, a Venezuelan opposition figure, and the son-in-law of Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia are among those arrested.

Exiled in Spain since September, Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia is finishing a tour in the Dominican Republic which notably took him to the White House.

He had planned to go to Caracas on Friday to take the oath of office in place of Mr. Maduro, a project deemed “unlikely” by observers. The arrest of M^me Machado will undoubtedly lead him to review his plans.

Venezuelan authorities, who have promised a $100,000 reward for Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia’s arrest, have threatened those who accompany him with prison, saying they would react as if they were facing an “invading force.”