Venezuela prepares to send more troops to region seeing clashes

CARACAS, Venezuela – The Venezuelan military planned to send additional troops to a border region where unrest has been particularly fierce, officials said Thursday, as the government faced growing criticism for its heavy-handed attempt to subdue a protest movement with nighttime sweeps that have turned many parts of the country into dangerous free-fire zones.

A battalion of paratroopers would be dispatched to the state of Tachira, on the western border with Colombia, where protesters have clashed with police and National Guard units, bringing the capital city, San Cristobal, to a halt, Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres said.

“These units will enable the city to function, so food can get in, so people can go about their normal lives,” Rodriguez said. “It’s simply meant to restore order.”

Members of the opposition have charged that the government of President Nicolas Maduro is leaning too heavily on the military as well as police and civilian militias to squash opposition to his socialist government.

San Cristobal Vice Mayor Sergio Vergara, a member of the opposition, said the government had already cut off vital services, including public transportation and the Internet, to crack down on what had been peaceful protests against the government of a country that is rich in oil but struggling with inflation above 56 percent and one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

The presence of some 3,000 troops in a city of 600,000, Vergara said, is “effectively part of an effort at repression being played out by the government across the country.”

Violence has been escalating across Venezuela since a Feb. 12 opposition rally that turned violent and left three people dead. Since then, there have been at least three more deaths as well as dozens of injuries and arrests.

Police, National Guard troops and members of private militias have swarmed through streets in the capital and elsewhere, firing volleys, at times indiscriminately, in repeated spasms of nighttime violence in recent days.