“I’m telling you, you’re a coward, Maduro. You won’t break either me or my family.”
So Leopoldo López tweeted on Feb. 15 after Venezuelan police raided his home. The unofficial head of Venezuela’s newly active opposition movement, López, 42, was addressing President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in office since April 2013, following the cancer-related death of his mentor, Hugo Chávez. Three days before, Maduro issued an arrest warrant for López, charging him with terrorism and murder after gunmen opened fire on a thousands-strong antigovernment demonstration as it was dispersing in Caracas. Maduro’s people say protesters, led by López, initiated the violence. The demonstrators say the authorities opened fire to scatter the crowd, and killed three. After that, López went into hiding and took to Twitter and YouTube to rally Venezuelans fed up with shortages of basic goods, from toilet paper to cooking oil. Then, on Tuesday, he reemerged to lead another opposition march in Caracas, and was arrested. Before he was detained, López tweeted again: “The change we want is in every one of us. Let us not surrender. I will not!”
