Maduro's random murderers in Venezuela

AP/Miami Herald:

The masked gunmen emerged from a group of several dozen motorcycle-mounted government loyalists who were attempting to dismantle a barricade in La Isabelica, a working-class district of Valencia that has been a center of unrest since nationwide protests broke out last month.

The barricades' defenders had been hurling rocks, sticks and other objects at the attackers, who included perhaps a dozen armed men, witnesses told The Associated Press.

Lisandro Barazarte, a photographer with the local newspaper, Notitarde, caught images of several of the men shooting into the crowd while steadying their firearms on their palms.

"They were practiced shooters," Barazarte said. "More were armed, but didn't fire."

When it was over, two La Isabelica men were dead: a 22-year-old student, Jesus Enrique Acosta, and a little league baseball coach, Guillermo Sanchez. Witnesses told the AP the first was shot in the head, the second in the back. They said neither was at the barricades when he was killed.

Similar shootings across Venezuela by gunmen allied with the socialist-led government have claimed at least seven lives and left more than 30 people wounded since the anti-government protests began in mid-February.

President Nicolas Maduro has done nothing to publicly discourage the violence by armed pro-government militants, loosely known as "colectivos," which are also blamed for scores more cases of beatings and intimidation in multiple cities. That includes a March 19 incursion into the architecture academy at the Central University of Venezuela in the capital in which some 40 masked men and women identifying themselves as government defenders bloodied at least a dozen students.

In fact, since the protests began, Maduro and his vice president have each welcomed pro-government "motorizados," or motorcyclists, to separate events at the presidential palace — a Feb. 24 rally and a "peace conference" on March 13.
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These are tactics the government learned from their allies in Iran which also used gangs for random acts of violence against their on general uprising.  When this government is toppled by its own failures, those responsible for these killings should be brought to justice.  There is little chance of justice while Maduro remains in power.