Opposition demonstrators run away from tear gas during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro’s government in Caracas.

AFP/Caracas


Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused Washington of plotting with anti-government protesters and expelled three US diplomats in retaliation.
Maduro’s order came on the same day that fugitive opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez re-appeared and called for a mass rally today and challenged the government to arrest him at the event.
Nearly two weeks of anti-government protests spearheaded by students have become the biggest challenge to Venezuela’s socialist rulers since the death of longtime leader Hugo Chavez in 2013.
The oil-rich country is mired in a deep economic crisis critics blame on policies that Maduro largely inherited from Chavez.
Strict controls on currency and prices have created huge bottlenecks that have fueled inflation and emptied store shelves.
“I have ordered the foreign ministry to proceed with declaring those three consular officials persona non grata and expelling them from the country. Let them go conspire in Washington!” Maduro said in a nationally broadcast address.
Maduro said the US diplomats, who have not been named, had met with students involved in anti-government protests under the pretense of offering them “visas to the US.”
In late September Maduro kicked out three other US diplomats, including the charge d’affairs, Kelly Keiderling, on accusations of conspiring with government opponents.
The two countries have had no ambassadors since 2010. A foreign ministry statement also said that Maduro’s government “flatly rejects” remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday voicing alarm at the violence during the marches and criticising the arrest of protesters.
Kerry’s statement is “yet another manoeuvre” by Washington to “legitimise attempts to destabilise the Venezuelan democracy unleashed by violent groups in recent days,” the ministry said.
During a failed two-day coup against Maduro’s predecessor in 2002, the US showed support for an interim leader - and not staunch US critic Chavez, who had been elected - a move that undermined US credibility in the region. With supporters and opponents of Maduro’s leftist government staging rival rallies in Caracas, following protests over soaring inflation and basic goods shortages, Kerry had voiced alarm at the “senseless violence” that has broken out. He said he was particularly concerned over an arrest warrant issued for opposition leader Lopez.
As Maduro focused his ire on Washington he received a provocative challenge from Lopez, the man he blames for violence during last week’s protests in which three people died.
“Tomorrow, I would like to invite you all to march together from Plaza Venezuela... to the justice ministry,” said Lopez, head of the Popular Will party, in a video posted on his Twitter account. “If anyone has decided to illegally arrest and jail me, you know I will be there,” he said. “I have nothing to fear; I have not done anything illegal.”