He had just
left his office by car and was passing a nearby church when the state security
vans swooped in on Wilmer Azuaje.
Put on a
military plane hours later on May 3, the 40-year-old regional lawmaker - one of
the best-known opposition figures in the rural home state of former Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez - has not been seen since.
"He's
disappeared. They kidnapped him. There is complete silence," said his
mother, Carmen Cordero, who has been traveling between Barinas state and the
capital, Caracas, to seek information on him at the headquarters of national
intelligence service Sebin.
There has
been no official word on Azuaje's case, and requests to authorities for
information went unanswered.
Azuaje is
one of more than 3,000 activists, mainly young protesters, rounded up since
massive demonstrations began against President Nicolas Maduro and the ruling
Socialist Party at the start of April, according to rights groups.
Nearly half
of those remain behind bars.
Opponents of
Maduro say the 54-year-old successor to Chavez has become a dictator and
unleashed repression to intimidate a population fed up with economic hardship
and demanding general elections.
Maduro casts
the arrests as a legitimate reaction to "armed insurrection" by
violent coup-plotters following a U.S. agenda to take control of Venezuela's
oil wealth. Government officials view Azuaje as a ringleader in a particularly
sensitive region.
A career
politician always courting controversy, he backed Chavez in the early years of
his 1999-2013 rule. But Azuaje later split with Chavez, who died in office, and
accused the president's increasingly wealthy relatives of corruption in
Barinas, a poor agricultural state in the Venezuelan "llanos" or
plains where Chavez was born in a mud hut.
In 2010,
Azuaje was briefly put under house arrest for assaulting a policewoman in a
spat over a vehicle.
An avid
swimmer and prominent member of the opposition party Justice First, he aspires
to run for the Barinas governorship, currently held by a brother of Chavez.
"He's
long been a thorn in the side of the government," added Cordero, wearing a
white T-shirt bearing the face of her son, before driving to Caracas on another
quest to find him.
'TERRORIST
OF BARINAS'
Friends and
supporters say Azuaje, who also helps run the family restaurant and tourism
business, gave energetic encouragement to anti-Maduro demonstrators throughout
April.
He was often
the only mainstream politician at the scene of protests, broadcasting live via
social media, they say.
Officials
and government supporters accused Azuaje of fomenting and financing violence,
and urged an investigation.
On social
media, some dubbed him "the Terrorist of Barinas" and "Captain
Criminal," showing photos of him beside alleged gang members, some in
masks.
"He's
no angel that man, he's behind all of this, so he has to pay," said Maduro
supporter Leonardo Gonzalez, 33, wearing a red T-shirt with Chavez's image, in
the scruffy state capital, also called Barinas.
The city, in
the middle of rural plains, has seen the single worst bout of unrest in 2-1/2
months of often violent protests across Venezuela. Seven people were killed in
the city and hundreds of stores looted in one 36-hour spate of clashes on May
22 and 23.
Nearly 70
people have died nationwide.
Azuaje was
last seen being bundled onto a National Guard plane in the middle of the night
after being arrested and taken to local Sebin headquarters with his assistant
the day before.
Friends and
relatives yelled his name from the perimeter fence. "Seeing the person you
love treated like that is terrible," said his wife, Kelly Garcia, cuddling
their two baby girls at her home. "Wilmer's only crime is to dream and
work for a better Venezuela."
REUTERS
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