Two men have been arrested for the shootings on Saturday where at least two members of the opposition were killed in Barinas during a campaign for opposition leader Henrique Capriles. President Hugo Chávez has condemned the killings and has begged people to avoid violence.
Chávez yesterday commented on the incident in a public speech saying that “we need to be very sorry for the deaths of these two people”, begging his sympathisers to “avoid falling into violent provocations” during election time. He further announced that “violence is not the right way to face the elections”, and pointed out that “what matters are the votes, the ideas and peace”.
On the same day, deputy of the opposition Julio Borges confirmed that a third person was killed in the incident.
On Sunday, before knowing about the third victim, Interior Minister Tareck El Aisami confirmed the capture of the “perpetrators of the double murder” on his Twitter account. He said in an interview with national TV channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) that “we are not asking for impunity, what we want is justice”.
Borges claimed that the accused men were employees of The Ministry of Environment and of the Barinas regional police force. However, president of The National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, denied that the detained suspects are linked to any official organisations and deemed “irresponsible” those launching such accusations “without waiting for investigations”.
In his last speech of the campaign rally Capriles addressed the deaths as a symbol for the violence issues the country has since long suffered from: “I want to tell their families, and those angels in heaven, that we are going to defeat violence on the 7th of October.”
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