Chavistas: Venezuelan street toughs: Helping "revolution" or crushing dissent?*** "Comandante" Lina Ron, who considers herself a modern version of "Tania," a woman who fought alongside Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, says she is a willing martyr for Chavez's cause. She was arrested after leading a violent pro-Chavez counter-protest against demonstrating university students….
Ron and her followers burned a U.S. flag in Caracas' central Plaza Bolivar just after the September terrorist attacks in the United States. The anti-Washington demonstration appalled many Venezuelans.
….Chavez has called Ron a political prisoner. "We salute Lina Ron, a female soldier who deserves the respect of all Venezuelans," he said recently. …Now Ron has become a focal point for debate about Chavez's "Bolivarian Circles," which the government calls self-help neighborhood groups. Chavez opponents call them a violent threat to democracy styled after Cuba's Revolutionary Block Committees. Created after Castro urged Venezuelans to "organize" to defend Chavez's revolution, the committees are forming street tribunals to demand Ron's release - and to symbolically prosecute government opponents as "traitors."***
Chavistas Attack Venezuela's Congress - Bolivarian neighborhood groups inciting wholesale violence