Venezuela looks to S American leaders as toll hits 20

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro urged a meeting of South American leaders over the growing turmoil facing his country, where the death toll from a month of anti-government protests hit 20.
The under-pressure leader's move yesterday came a day after he broke off relations with Panama, following its call for the rival Washington-based Organisation of American States (OAS) to convene on the crisis.
The latest fatalities were a police officer who succumbed in hospital to a gunshot wound to the chest after clashes in Caracas, and a civilian who was reportedly shot when riding a motorcycle in the capital.
Street protests erupted in Venezuela on February 4 and have continued every day since in the biggest challenge yet to Maduro's nearly year-old, socialist-inspired government.

Public anger over rampant crime, shortages of basic goods and arrests of protesters have fuelled the unrest, which the Venezuelan leader insists is part of a US-backed plot by "fascists" to destabilise his authority.
Protesters have accused government forces of committing human rights abuses.

Yesterday afternoon in Altamira, an affluent Caracas neighbourhood, saw clashes between police and dozens of students who used stones and firebombs. The police dispersed them with tear gas and arrested 15 people, according to the mayor.
Guillermo Aveledo, the executive secretary of the opposition Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD), said Maduro was planting the seeds of civil war.

The presence of pro-government armed civilians who use motorcycles to intimidate or attack opponents has been frequently alleged by anti-Maduro demonstrators, a charge the president's administration has always denied.
Maduro urged that a Unasur (Union of South American Nations) meeting be convened so he could explain "the attacks, the violence, the small groups that have tried to undermine social life and impose a political situation that our country is overcoming."
But in comments that suggested the Venezuelan president's plan was a non-starter, Bolivian leader Evo Morales, a Maduro ally, said "one or two" Unasur presidents did not want to convene an emergency summit because the group's bylaws require that all 12 member states agree.

In Havana, where the communist government depends heavily on Venezuelan aid, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced what he said were "attempts at interference" by the OAS and the United States.
"Venezuela has every right to defend its independence and sovereignty," he said, pledging Cuba's unyielding support for the Maduro government in the face of attempts to overthrow it.
Cuba depends on Caracas for half its energy needs at preferential prices and provides it with 40,000 advisers and healthcare workers.