(31 Mar 2017) Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles met with OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro in Washington on Friday, and denounced the actions taken when the Venezuelan Supreme Court gutted the opposition-controlled Congress of its vestiges of power earlier this week.
Capriles spoke to media after the meeting, calling the actions a coup d'état.
He said a dialogue with President Nicolas Maduro was nearly impossible, and that all he wanted was for democracy to be restored to the South American country.
"All of the statements point to the same thing and we have to call it what it is - there has been a rupture of the constitutional order; there was a coup d'état and we must return the constitutional thread to my country," he said.
Governments across Latin America have condemned the power grab, which the head of the Organisation of American States likened to a "self-inflicted coup" by a socialist Maduro.
The United Nations' top human rights official expressed "grave concern" and called on the high court to reverse its decision.
In Caracas Friday, national guardsmen in riot gear fired buckshot and swung batons at a small group of students who gathered outside the Supreme Court.
Several protesters were arrested and some journalists covering the demonstration had their cameras seized by the police before the group reassembled elsewhere.
Capriles said he believes fear was the driving force behind the actions, calling this the last stages of the Maduro regime.
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