Talks to end weeks of political strife in Venezuela are making some progress.  Negotiators for the government and the opposition are agreeing to broaden membership in a truth commission that is to investigate who is to blame for 41 deaths during the violence surrounding opposition street demonstrations.

But the Venezuelan government is rejecting amnesty for the jailed protest leaders it says fomented and encouraged that deadly violence.  The overwhelming majority of those arrested during the protests, which began in February, were booked and released from jail. 

uraged that deadly violence.  The overwhelming majority of those arrested during the protests, which began in February, were booked and released from jail. 

Among those still in jail are right-wing extremist Leopoldo Lopez, who has been charged with inciting violence, and two opposition mayors who disobeyed rulings from the Supreme Court to remove opposition barricades from streets and allow residents to get back and forth to their jobs.  The opposition negotiators say they will “seek other ways” to address the problem of “political prisoners”.

And we’re learning more about some of the ways the hardline opposition conducted their protests.  Paramedic Wilbany Leon “almost died” when he sped away from an attack by protesters, straight into a nylon rope they had stretched across the exit from a tunnel.  He was clothes-lined on the neck. 

Leon is asking the opposition to stop “terrorist acts”, and reminding them that when paramedics attend to people injured at a protest, “We don’t ask them if they are government or opposition supporters”.