CARACAS: Police fired tear gas and water cannon Wednesday to push back scores of rock-hurling students in the capital Caracas, with protests also taking place in at least three other major Venezuelan cities.
About 3,000 students marched in Caracas to mark a month since the first deaths in weeks of anti-government demonstrations that have now killed 22 people. There were similar opposition protests in the cities of San Cristobal, Merida and Valencia.
The demonstrations have been fueled by public discontent over deteriorating living conditions in the oil-rich South American country, where violent crime, shortages and inflation have combined to create the most serious challenge yet for leftist President Nicolas Maduro.
The Caracas march had not been approved by authorities, with Maduro saying the demonstrators were simply looking for trouble.
But the students turned out anyway, chanting slogans and demanding the release of protesters detained in earlier demonstrations.
The students, just outside the gates of the Central University of Venezuela, squared off against about 300 national police officers who blocked their access to the landmark Plaza Espana square.
Their march crossed the campus, and was trying to head all the way to the government ombudsman's offices.
Hilda Ruiz, a student leader from Central University, told AFP the marchers also wanted authorities to respond to allegations of police torture and to punish those responsible for the deaths of demonstrators.
When police lobbed tear gas, marchers largely scattered from the gas cloud. Some threw rocks in retaliation.
Maduro supporters, dressed in "Chavista" red, meanwhile rallied for "peace and life."
The anti-government protests first erupted on February 4 in the western city of San Cristobal, reaching Caracas on February 12 when three people were killed after an opposition protest ended in clashes with security forces.
South American foreign ministers are meeting in Santiago, Chile on the Venezuelan crisis.
"I want to reiterate the Chilean government's wish to support and stand by the Venezuelan people and the government," the country's newly inaugurated President Michelle Bachelet said, pointing out that the "government... was democratically elected."
Wishing Venezuelans "peace" in which to settle their differences, Bachelet, 62, stressed: "We will never support any movement that violently seeks to oust a constitutionally elected government."
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