RIOTS IN CARACAS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29102, 14 January 1960, Page 6

RIOTS IN CARACAS

Demonstration By Unemployed

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) CARACAS (Venezuela), Jan. 12. Twenty-one persons were reported wounded today in street clashes in Caracas between young rioters and police. More than 150 rioters were arrested. Police said the disturbances began when they broke up a demonstration by about 1200 unemployed workers demanding jobs. Police denied an earlier report that a 17-year-old youth was shot to death.

The heart of Caracas was quiet early this morning after the day of violence during which some business houses were set afire. But disturbances continued in the suburbs.

The Venezuelan Cabinet was called into emergency session, and President Romulo Betancourt was hurrying back from a trip to the interior. The Secretary General of the Presidential office (Mr Ramon Velazquez) took charge temporarily. One unconfirmed report said the rioters made an unsuccessful bid to take over the police station but police routed them with gunfire. Another said they tried to attack telephone company installations. Gangs roamed the streets, burning two cars and four motor-cycles and looting food shops. Venezuela’s intelligence chief (Mr Martin Marquez) said prisoners in the military gaol had also tried to riot but were subdued. . . ~ Mr Velazquez claimed the rioters were “neither political persons nor workers but merely bad people.” But the President of Congress (Mr Rafael Leoni) called for a thorough Government investigation and said, “There is something back of all this.”