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Violence in the Streets

Plaza Venezuela.

My taxi driver refused to take me there. I was scheduled to meet my interpreter there before we headed deeper into downtown Caracas to interview a government official. Instead, the driver said, he could take me to a subway station a few stops away, and I could go to Plaza Venezuela at my own risk.

That was before I knew that nine students, all who had participated in a peaceful march of opposition to a proposed constitutional reform, were injured when gun-toting Chavez supporters infiltrated the campus of the Central University of Venezuela and fired into the crowd.

The university is very near Plaza Venezuela.

The tension is palpable here. And as the Dec. 2 referendum on a proposed constitutional reform nears, the violence is likely to increase.

Even in grocery stores, where Venezuelans were once able to commiserate about the lack of milk, sugar and other basic food supplies, frustration is building. A Venezuelan woman yesterday shared with me the story of her recent grocery shopping trip: it was a rare occassion in which a few cartons of milk were for sale. Shoppers began pushing and shoving one another to grab a carton before it disappeared. Mothers with small children were frantic.

"I've never seen this before," she said.

These days, it seems just one question matters on the streets of Caracas: do you wear red, or not?