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SAN CRISTOBAL — The National Guards rolled in under the cover of darkness, firing tear gas and rubber bullets as they advanced with bulldozers and armoured vehicles towards the makeshift barricades.

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After weeks of protests that have rocked his government, Venezuela’s Left-wing president Nicolas Maduro had ordered his security forces to regain control of San Cristobal, the birthplace of the unrest.

Their mission was to destroy the hundreds of barricades that have paralyzed life in the Andean city, an opposition stronghold of 650,000 in Venezuela’s “wild west” near the Colombian border.

The student-led protests that erupted here in early February over violent crime, food shortages and price rises quickly spread across Venezuela and there were fresh clashes in the capital Caracas this weekend.

Close to the capital, Leopoldo Lopez, a charismatic opposition leader, is languishing in a military prison on charges of arson and instigating violence in connection with the protests that have now claimed at least 39 lives. Armed pro-government groups have also been accused of a string of attacks on opponents.