A soldier and a motorcyclist were killed in the confusion of a melee at an opposition barricade in Caracas, bringing the death toll in anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela to 21 lives lost since the middle of last month. 

Motorcyclist Jose Cantillo was helping to clear a barricade in the middle-class neighborhood of Los Ruices were attacked by residents from nearby buildings who threw rocks and shot at Cantillo’s group.  Pro-government groups threw the rocks right back, but Cantillo had already been shot in the neck.  Riot police had to break it up.

The location demonstrates the major failure of the anti-government protesters – it took place in a middle-class area, as all of the barricades and fights have.  The conservative anti-government side has failed to reach out of Venezuela’s poor, whose lot has improved in the years since the late Hugo Chavez became president in 1998.  He died a year ago this week, and though President Nicolas Maduro is frequently criticized for not achieving Chavez’s popularity, the poor is sticking with the government that built schools and hospitals and cut poverty by 50 percent.  The protests continue, but they don’t involve anymore than the people who were already opposed to the Bolivarian Socialist government.

President Maduro is also accused of a heavy-handed response to the protests.  The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights wants the Venezuelan government to provide information on the alleged arbitrary detention of opposition figures and excessive use of force. 

Venezuela says it protects human rights.  The national prosecutor says that 1,322 people have been arrested over the course of the protests; only 92 are still in custody; and 15 of them are cops suspected of human rights abuses.