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Toothpick and Two Generals Helped Venezuela Opposition Leader Survive Jail

Reuters

   CARACAS - During four months in a small military jail cell, Venezuela's
   Congress vice president scratched the days on a wall with a toothpick,
   held a hunger-strike, and made unlikely friends with two generals who
   have fallen foul of the socialist government.

   "It was a pretty tough experience," opposition leader Edgar Zambrano,
   64, told Reuters of his time in Cell 12A at the Fuerte Tiuna base in
   Caracas, where he was held, accused of treason against President
   Nicolas Maduro's administration. "We used a lot of mechanisms to
   survive."

   In one of Venezuela's highest-profile arrests of recent times,
   intelligence agents intercepted Zambrano while he was driving away from
   his Democratic Action party headquarters on May 8.

   A dawn appearance on a bridge beside Congress leader Juan Guaido - who
   invoked the constitution to assume the interim presidency in January -
   during a failed military uprising a week before was the catalyst for
   his detention.

   After Zambrano refused to leave his vehicle, security agents towed him
   away with a truck. His driver, and three Congress workers who he said
   were getting a lift to an underground transport station, remain in
   jail.

   "They are no danger to anyone, They were just obeying my order not to
   open the door," he said.

   Though Zambrano was released two weeks ago after international
   pressure, his case is still open, meaning he has to report to a judge
   every 30 days and is barred from going abroad.

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