Venezuelan opposition marches during break to keep momentum

Unrest continues despite declaration of seven-day Carnival holiday

Thousands of anti-government activists marched peacefully on Sunday to an upper-class Caracas district shaken by more than two weeks of unrest, trying to maintain the movement's momentum during a long holiday break.

Afterward, several hundred protesters erected barricades, burned tires and threw rocks and fireworks at National Guard troops, who responded with tear gas in what has become a nearly nightly ritual of clashes since mid-February. Two people were wounded by shotguns, district mayor, Ramon Muchacho, tweeted.

President Nicolas Maduro had sought to dampen protesters' spirits by declaring a seven-day holiday coinciding with Carnival and historical commemorations and by promoting the Sunday sale of subsidized food at government-run markets.

"Happiness will conquer the embittered," Maduro said in a TV appearance at a recreation center. "The Venezuelan people have won because happiness and peace have conquered."

Whether they headed for balmy beaches or joined the barricades in anti-government protests, many people are fed up with crippling inflation, shortages of food and medicine, unchecked violence and government mismanagement of the economy in a nation with the world's largest oil reserves.

In an increasingly common sight across the country, hundreds lined up at one central Caracas market, where coffee, flour, cooking oil, toilet paper and other staples have been in short supply for a year.

The unrest is Venezuela's worst since president Hugo Chavez died of cancer a year ago, and the opposition came within a hair of winning the presidency in April's election. But it remains to be seen if the dissent will spread to include the lower classes, which benefited from Chavez's generous social welfare programs.

Most of the marchers on Sunday, whether students or their gray-haired elders clad in white shirts and hats with the Venezuelan flag's colors, hailed from the upper classes. But there were some from poorer sectors.

"We have nothing to celebrate at the beach," said Carlos Torres, 34, an engineer. "Going on vacation would give credence to the government's version that there's nothing going on."

Saturday night had been the first evening in 16 days when the wealthy, opposition Chacao district where Sunday's march ended was not shrouded in tear gas from pitched battles between young protesters and security forces.

But the confrontations resumed on Sunday. Protesters, many of them teens, showed up with beer boxes full of Molotov cocktails and shields made of aluminum siding and handles fashioned from garden hoses.

National Guardsmen protected themselves with plastic shields and semi-permanent chain-link barricades. Protesters wore heat-resistant gloves to hurl tear gas canisters back at guardsmen.

Elsewhere in Venezuela, protesters have similarly maintained burning barricades in cities from Valencia in the industrial heartland to Merida and San Cristobal in the west.

By government count, 18 people have been killed and more than 260 injured in the unrest since Feb 12.

Early on Sunday, the government released 41 people arrested on Friday in Caracas' wealthy east. It said they had all been ordered to appear in court within 30 days.

Others were still in custody, including a top opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez.

Reuters-AP