Rights group says 4 dead in Venezuela clashes; calm restored

CARACAS, Venezuela — A Venezuelan human rights group says at least four people died in two days of protests after opposition leader Juan Guaidó called for a military uprising.

The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict says the dead from the unrest on Tuesday and Wednesday include two people who were shot in the city of La Victoria and two others hit by gunfire in Caracas, the capital.

The streets of the capital were calm on Thursday.

Human rights activists say at least 230 people were injured and 205 were detained during the clashes between protesters and police.

Guaidó’s call on Tuesday for an uprising by the armed forces to oust President Nicolás Maduro went unheeded.

Pompeo calls Russians

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has characterized a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the crisis in Venezuela as having elements of the surreal.

Lavrov made his comments Thursday in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, a day after he spoke with Pompeo about protests against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“Pompeo phoned, called for us to refuse to support Maduro, called for Cuba and us not to interfere in the internal affairs of Venezuela. The whole story sounds quite surreal,” Lavrov said.

“If you count up all that official representatives of the American administration say about Venezuela, then you can pose questions endlessly and to all these questions the answer will be, to put it diplomatically: it’s untrue,” he said.

Pompeo claimed earlier that Maduro was ready to flee the South American country, but that unspecified Russians persuaded him to stay.

Spain’s acting foreign minister says a Venezuelan anti-government activist has not asked Spanish authorities for political asylum.

Activist at Spanish embassy

Josep Borrell, who is foreign minister in Spain’s caretaker government, says Leopoldo López is staying as a guest at the Spanish embassy in Caracas.

Borrell says Thursday that, under Spanish law, requests for asylum can be made only in Spain.

He tells Spanish media during an official trip to Jordan that López is staying at the embassy until his next steps become clearer.

López was detained in 2014 for leading protests against Maduro’s rule and placed under house arrest before appearing in public on Tuesday.

Spain has in recent years become a destination for thousands of Venezuelans escaping the country’s political and economic crisis.

Maduro has called for military unity in an appearance with soldiers at the air base where Guaidó called for an uprising two days earlier.

Maduro seeks unity

Flanked by commanders, Maduro said Thursday that the military must be prepared to combat “traitors” and the opposition had sought to provoke bloodshed in Caracas since security forces failed to respond to Guaidó’s bid to take power.

He spoke from the Carlota air base in the opposition’s stronghold of eastern Caracas that was the epicenter of the short-lived uprising.

Guaidó, backed by a small contingent of security forces, called for the military to turn against Maduro on Tuesday. But police dispersed the crowds in clashes that raged for hours.

Thousands of Venezuelans heeded the opposition’s call to fill streets around the nation a day later.