Venezuela Rejects Amnesty for Opposition as 'Peace Dialogue Advances'

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Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro attends the start of a meeting with key members of the opposition at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on April 10, 2014.

Image: Fernando Llano/Associated Press

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2014-04-16 12:34:26 -0400

Representatives of the Venezuelan government and its opposition met for a second time on Tuesday, reporting some progress in the peace talks aimed at putting an end to more than two months of protests that have resulted in 41 deaths to date.

The government, however, rejected a call to grant amnesty to the 175 people arrested as a result of the disturbances, according to news reports. Leopoldo Lopez, a former mayor and prominent opposition figure, as well as Daniel Ceballos and Enzo Scarano, two opposition mayors arrested in connection to the protests, are still in prison.

See also: Venezuelan Students Protest by Posting Naked Photos Online

Vice President Jorge Arreaza, the head of the government delegation in the meeting, left the possibility of an amnesty open for the future, according to the Agence France Press. But Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, a representative of the opposition coalition called Democratic Unity (MUD), said his group would "seek other ways" to solve the issue of what he defined as "political prisoners," the BBC reported.

Despite this disagreement, both parties said the hours-long meeting was positive.

"The meeting was always held on good terms, with respect and tolerance," said Arreaza. "The peace dialogue is advancing."

Aveledo, for his part, said the opposition is "willing, as shown today, to find windows and try to build paths together," even though he said the process will be "complicated."

The two parties even agreed on three key measures, as reported by the Spanish daily El Pais .

First, the opposition formally condemned violence, something that the government had pushed hard for since the student protests that have swept the country have at times turned violent.

Second, the government agreed to add outside figures to the so-called Truth Commission, a group tasked with probing the violent incidents that occurred during the protests. Initially, the commission only included parliament members (five from the government, four from the opposition). Now it will include external experts, who will be nominated in following peace meetings, as reported by the local newspaper El Universal .

Finally, the opposition accepted the government's request to join the program "Safe Homeland," a government anti-crime plan. Cities controlled by the opposition had refused to join the program until now.

The round of talks on Tuesday was the second formal meeting between the government led by President Nicolas Maduro and an opposition coalition. The groups met for the first time last week on Thursday, in a televised six hours-long event in which Maduro spoke for 45 straight minutes at the beginning.

Not all wings of the opposition are part of the peace talks, however. The party led by Lopez, who launched the movement The Exit earlier this year along with ousted parliament member Maria Corina Machado, refused to take part in it. The group wants Maduro to step down and open a political transition as a first condition, something Hugo Chavez's successor has repeatedly said will not happen.

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Topics: Politics, US & World, Venezuela, Venezuela protests, World