‘Volcano of Energy’ Lopez Who Rode Shot-Up Car Roils Venezuela
‘Volcano of Energy’ Lopez Who Rode Shot-Up Car Roils Venezuela
Compared to opposition leader Henrique Capriles, Leopoldo López has been more confrontational at rallying against the government, explains COA’s Eric Farnsworth on the growing street protests in Venezuela.
What stuck most in Timothy Towell’s memory was the car. When the former U.S. diplomat met with Leopoldo Lopez in September 2006, the Venezuelan opposition leader showed up in an SUV riddled with bullet holes.
“The car had been machine-gunned, with a dozen holes going right up the side, and all the old senior American diplomats and their wives were looking at it and sticking their fingers in the bullet holes,” Towell, who was in Caracas on a trip organized by the Council of American Ambassadors, said in a phone interview. “It made the dramatic point that people were being shot at for being in favor of a push for democracy.”
Last week, Lopez, 42, found himself in another SUV. He was shoved into a police vehicle and hauled to Ramo Verde, a military prison two hours away from Caracas. The former mayor of a Caracas municipality and founder of two political parties was accused of arson and inciting crimes for his role in protests that started Feb. 12 and led to the death of at least eight people. He can face 10 years in jail, according to Bernardo Pulido, his lawyer....
‘More Confrontational’
“Capriles has shown himself more interested in the same approach that had been used, which is organizing, contesting elections, but not aggressively going to the streets,” said Eric Farnsworth, head of the Washington office of the Council of the Americas. “Lopez has been more confrontational.”
Tintori, Lopez’s wife, posted a note from him on Twitter calling on protesters to reject violence and stay united.
“To the Venezuelan people, more strength and more faith,” wrote Lopez, who is being held in the military prison on charges of inciting violence. “We’re going to achieve change in Venezuela.”
Lopez attended Kenyon College in the U.S. and received a degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Kenyon, in Gambier, Ohio, he would wake up at 5 a.m. to run, said Jay Sullivan, his roommate in freshman and sophomore years....
