Page 33 - 072817

Groton Daily Independent
Friday, July 28, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 028 ~ 33 of 54
Opposition leaders are urging Venezuelans to boycott the vote, saying the election rules were rigged to guarantee Maduro a majority and arguing that a new constitution could replace democracy with a single- party authoritarian system.
The mounting deaths of demonstrators have now become a separate source of outrage for the young people who march during the day and assemble nightly to ght police of cers and national guardsmen at improvised barricades across the country.
“The ones who have fallen ghting repression motivate us to keep ghting,” said Sandra Fernandez, a 21-year-old university student.
The country’s chief prosecutor reported Thursday on Twitter that a 16-year-old was killed at a protest in the capital overnight and a 23-year-old man died at a demonstration in Merida state. A 49-year-old man in Carababo, west of Caracas, was reported killed during a protest Thursday afternoon, and a 16-year-old died from a head wound suffered Wednesday at a protest in the capital.
The four killings pushed the death toll of the political crisis to 102. The oil-rich South American country, which was in the second day of a two-day general strike that shuttered businesses nationwide, has also seen thousands of injuries and arrests.
The chief prosecutor’s of ce has released little information about the victims of the unrest, but at least 44 are believed to have been shot while participating in protests. Many of those deaths are blamed on armed motorcycle gangs of government supporters known as “colectivos” who are often seen shooting indiscriminately at protesters while police and soldiers stand by.
“The level of impunity is extremely high, and that continues on to a situation like this,” Smilde said.
Compared to a spate of protests that left 43 dead on both sides in 2014, Smilde said, “This time around most of it is coming from government forces, either National Guard and police or ‘colectivos’ that are aligned with the government.”
Security forces have been accused of excessive force but have used mostly non-lethal arms, a tactic that has kept protest deaths relatively low in comparison with the overall level of violence in a country with one of the world’s highest homicide rates. An average of 78 people a day died violently last year in this country of 31.5 million, according the non-governmental Venezuelan Violence Observatory.
According to an Associated Press review of prosecutors’ reports, the victims of the political unrest have overwhelmingly been male, with only six women killed. They are also mostly young, averaging 27 years old. The youngest was 14 and the oldest 54. At least 22 were students. A handful were police or soldiers. Sixty-nine of the deaths were from gunshots.
Just 21 of the killings have resulted in an arrest or orders for apprehension issued, with nearly half those coming against security forces.
Lander’s mother, Zugeimar Armas, who has kept her son’s room intact since his death in early June, said that regardless of whether her son was killed by the National Guard or an improvised bomb, she blames the government.
“What need does a 17-year-old boy have to be in the streets?” she asked.
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Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez reported this story in Caracas and AP writer Christine Armario
reported from Bogota, Colombia. AP writers Jorge Rueda in Caracas and Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.
Rust Belt Wisconsin looks to ll high-skill jobs at Foxconn By IVAN MORENO and SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Rust Belt state that built a manufacturing legacy through assembly-line jobs will have to quickly transition to a more highly skilled workforce now that Foxconn has selected Wisconsin as the site of its coveted U.S. electronics plant.
“This will not be your grandfather’s factory,” said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. “This will be a high-tech facility that will attract workers of various skill levels to produce products that will