ACTIVITIES IN VENEZUELA
A fresh flare-up in guerrilla activities in Venezuela has occurred in recent weeks,
The government has repeatedly boasted about successfully stamping out the guerrilla forces, but the "victories" have proved to be exaggerated.
The latest outbreak occurred in western Venezuela. Some forty deaths were reported in battles between government troops and the freedom fighters,
An August 2 dispatch from Caracas said that José Carmelo Mendoza, a member of the Venezuelan Communist party, had been killed and two soldiers wounded when the troops were ambushed in the Barba~= coas > region in the state of Lara.
‘on July 31 the ministers of defense and the interior met with police officials and the secretary general of the presidency to con-=sider new repressive measures. According to the press, it was decided to apply these on a far more intensive scale than at any time in the past.
The university council at Caracas decided to suspend four student leaders for three months, including Julio Escalén, president of the student union. This was the first time such a measure has ever been taken,
It followed incidents on July 31 which the school authorities frowned on. During a presentation of a_ballet by artists from the Ukraine, students belonging to the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revo-= lucionaria] and the Communist party appeared on the stage and denounced the attitude of the government during the funeral services for Luis Emiro Arrieta, a former Communist senator.
The police were guilty of dispersing the funeral cortege, transporting the body themselves to the cemetery and burying. it. The Communist leader died in prison July 27 after being held behind bars since 1963 on charges of "conspiracy,.'
Meanwhile petroleum installations held by U.S. oil sompantes
suffered considerable damage froma series of bombings.
The Leoni government decided as a result to reinforce the
number of police and members of the national guard charged with pro= tecting the sacred property of the monopolists. And it was decided to provide the police in Caracas with automatic weapons,