Security & Strategic Review - June 2014 (ISSN 1741-4202)

The government of President Nicolás Maduro has insistently portrayed the wave of protest actions launched by the opposition earlier this year as a ‘continuing coup attempt’, while the latter have maintained that they were initially provoked by public insecurity, rampant inflation and the widespread shortage of essential goods, which escalated in response to the government’s brutal repression — though the most radical members of the opposition have said that they intend to continue until the Maduro government collapses. Both sides have been marshalling figures (often the same ones with differing slants) in support of their cases.