Police and soldiers fired water cannons and plastic bullets Thursday as thousands of students protested against a law passed by Venezuela's congress that increases the government's powers over the country's universities.
At least three people were injured, including a news photographer who was treated for a cut to the head after being hit with an object.
The students had planned to march to the National Assembly but were turned back. Later, hundreds of students managed to continue the march through Caracas on another route, evading authorities who were firing plastic bullets and a water cannon, and shouting: "People, listen! This is a dictatorship!"
"If the government is going to expel our ambassador there, let them do it!," Chavez said in a televised speech Tuesday night. "If they're going to cut diplomatic relations, let them do it!"
"Now the U.S. government is threatening us that they're going to take reprisals. Well, let them do whatever they want, but that man will not come," Chavez said.
"The president is only interested in maintaining power, but he doesn't take his responsibilities seriously," said Julio Borges, a newly elected opposition lawmaker. Borges told reporters that the opposition will propose a law aimed at getting guns off the streets because the government has failed to address gun violence.
The law governing universities was approved by the National Assembly early Thursday, and students denounced it as an attempt by President Hugo Chavez to clamp down on autonomous state universities that have been a bastion of opposition to his government.
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