UNREST BEGAN MONTH AGO

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28475, 3 January 1958, Page 7

UNREST BEGAN MONTH AGO

(Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, Jan. 1. Political unrest in Venezuela became evident about a month ago when university and other students openly protested against the Government’s decision to hold a plebiscite rather than a presidential election.

The plebiscite gave voters only the choice of voting “yes’* or “no” on the continuance of the Government headed by General Marcos Perez Jimenez. Censorship prevented disclosure of the student demonstrations by normal means, but travellers from Venezuela said that the police resorted to tear gas and sabres to break up the student groups. Venezuelan political exiles in New York said at the time that two students were killed and others were gaoled. The same sources reported that the police also used force to break up a demonstration by women protesting against the arrest of the students.

Student demonstrations in Caracas spread to the important oil centre of Maracaibo and to Merida in western Venezuela, which long has been a hotbed of opposition to the central Government. General Perez Jimenez has maintained a tight control of Venezuela since he became provisional President on December 3, 1952. He was a leader of the army officers who overthrew Venezuela’s most recent constitutional Government—that headed by Romulo Gallegos. As expected, the Government announced an overwhelming majority of votes in the December 15 plebiscite in favour of continuing the Perez Jimenez regime. There has been no open political opposition by Venezuelan parties for a number of years. The leaders of the Accion Democratica Party, led by Gallegos, are either in exile abroad, dead, or in prison Jovito Villalba, head of the Republican Democratic Union Party, is in exile in New York. The leader of the Social Christian Copei Party is in gaol in Venezuela.