Updated Feb. 20, 2014 11:38 p.m. ET
Amateur video from Caracas appears to show a shooting on Avenida Panteon Wednesday night, as Venezuela's National Guard and quasiofficial motorcycle shock troops confront protesters. Via The Foreign Bureau, WSJ's global news update. Photo: AP
CARACAS, Venezuela—Protests against President Nicolás Maduro's government escalated Thursday, with thousands of demonstrators burning tires and cars and security forces fighting back to gain control of the streets in the capital and in other cities.
At least five people, four protesting the government, have died since protests by university students over high crime and a crumbling economy turned violent last week. Dozens of others have been injured or jailed, including opposition leader Leopoldo López, a former mayor whom the government has accused of instigating the violence.
Objects placed by opposition protesters block a road in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday. Associated Press
Leonardo Velasco, 25 years old, said dozens of national guardsmen and other armed supporters of the government swept down on demonstrators in a protest in which he participated on Thursday. "I heard a bunch of shots and hit the ground." Mr. Velasco said he and other demonstrators fought back with Molotov cocktails, as tear gas spread and people ran in different directions. "I was half blind, stumbling and running," he said.
One protester in Caracas was shot by what appeared to be members of the National Guard, according to a video posted on several Venezuelan media sites. The incident couldn't be independently verified. The protester remained in critical condition on Friday, according to El Nacional newspaper.
Other videos online showed dozens of armed men on motorcycles entering areas held by protesters during the night, amid sounds of gunfire and fireworks.
"The government came out to kill people, to try to shut up people with lead,"
Henrique Capriles, a leading opposition figure, said in a news conference on Thursday. Calls seeking comment over the past week to government officials haven't been returned.
The chaotic scenes across the country represent the biggest challenge faced so far by President Maduro since he took over from the late
Hugo Chávez last year.
Members of a pro-government "colectivo," or "collective," march in downtown Caracas, Venezuela on Thursday. Associated Press
Mr. Maduro accused what he called "fascist leaders" financed by the U.S. of using highly trained teams to topple his socialist government from power. In a lengthy speech televised Wednesday night, he charged that the demonstrators were trying "to fill the country with violence and to create a spiral of hatred among our people."
He said his foes were hoping to generate chaos to justify a foreign military intervention. "In Venezuela, they're applying the format of a coup d'état," he said.
In a speech Thursday, Mr. Maduro also accused U.S. cable channel CNN of producing skewed coverage of the protests and said he had begun an administrative process to kick the channel off the air in Venezuela unless it moved to "rectify" its coverage.
"They want to show the world that in Venezuela there is a civil war," Mr. Maduro said. "In Venezuela the people are working, studying, building the Fatherland."
A CNN spokeswoman declined to comment.
While Mr. Maduro remains firmly in power, the level of violence has taken Venezuela on a new, uncertain path of instability that has no easy solution, said Cynthia Arnson, the director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Latin America program in Washington.
"Precisely when people are killed is when movements get radicalized and there is then a level of emotion that makes these movements especially volatile and difficult to predict," Ms. Arnson said.
Protests have spread beyond the capital to far-flung states over the past couple of days, in the Andean city of Mérida and in the state of Táchira bordering Colombia to the west, where power and Internet went out, local media reported.
In Táchira, the government's Russian-built Sukhoi fighters screamed overhead, local reports said. In Valencia, west of Caracas, another protest was mounted but was quelled by soldiers using water cannon.
Interior and Justice Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres said in a televised address on Thursday that a battalion of paratroopers has been deployed around San Cristóbal, the capital of Táchira. He said they would secure highways and prevent Colombians, who are often blamed of fomenting trouble here, from bringing in weapons for the student demonstrators. Possession of guns was banned in the state.
"They can't say the government is shooting people," said Mr. Rodríguez, who blamed antigovernment officials in San Cristóbal of triggering the violence.
In Caracas, meanwhile, the president also leveled responsibility on Mr. López, an opposition leader who surrendered to authorities on Tuesday after being accused of instigating violence on Feb. 12, when three people died in two demonstrations. He warned that other opposition leaders could follow him into prison.
"One of them is in jail," Mr. Maduro said of Mr. López, adding: "The others will, one by one, end up in the same jail cell."
Shortly after midnight, Mr. López was arraigned in the military jail outside of Caracas where he is being held on charges of setting fire to a building, instigating crimes and conspiracy to commit a crime, according to the newspaper El Universal. If convicted, Mr. López could still face 10 years in jail.
Lawyers for Mr. López couldn't be reached for comment on Thursday.
More serious accusations of homicide and terrorism leveled at him by government officials weren't filed, one of Mr. López's lawyers, Juan Carlos Gutierrez, told Union Radio.
Opposition leaders and witnesses, have said uniformed state security agents, as well as pro-government motorcycle gangs known as colectivos have cracked down violently on unarmed demonstrators.
The protesters say that the government is failing to control soaring inflation and rampant crime or resolve a serious shortage of basic goods. The economy, hamstrung by a 56% inflation rate and weighed down by foreign debt, may slip into recession this year, economists say.
The arrests of demonstrators, some of whom opposition leaders say have sat in jail for days without being charged, has only led more people into the streets.
One demonstrator, Jose Roche, 20, a university student, said that the trouble in the east side plaza of Altamira in Caracas this started Wednesday afternoon after traffic was blocked by protesters. That prompted the arrival of the National Guard and police, who confronted a crowd he estimated to number 1,000 people.
"They wanted to surround us, to beat us down," said Mr. Roche. "They don't stop until they catch you or until you drop." He said he ran as shots were fired.
Across much of Caracas on Thursday, residents banged pots and pans from windows and yelled obscenities at policemen and men on motorcycles as they rode through the streets, firing off tear gas and weapons.
In the video that captured an injured protester in Caracas, the person shooting the images or others near him can be heard shouting "dirty assassin" to uniformed agents several floors below. The agents are pictured walking alongside the wounded man as he lies writhing on a sidewalk.
Mr. Capriles, who narrowly lost to Mr. Maduro in an election last April to determine who would succeed the late Chávez, scoffed at the president's claim that a coup was taking place.
"Civilians don't launch coups," he said, "the military does." He suggested instead that a weakening administration would benefit the National Assembly president, Diosdado Cabello, a former military officer with close ties in the army who is seen as a rival of Mr. Maduro. A coup, opposition leaders say, would most likely come from inside the army.
"That would be the worst thing that could happen to the country," said Mr. Capriles.
There is no sign, though, that the military's support of Mr. Maduro is softening. The armed forces were purged of dissident officers in recent years, with many of them fleeing the country and others placed under arrest.
