Crystallex International

(Refiles to fix wording in 8th paragraph) * Student protests led to two deaths, scores of injuries * Youths vow more action in run-up to September vote * President Chavez mocks them as "old before their time" By Andrew Cawthorne CARACAS, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Relaxed on a bench on a placid, sunbathed university campus, student Roderick Navarro hardly looks a menace to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But the 22-year-old languages student has emerged this year as one of the most visible faces of a protest movement that has brought a new wave of unrest to Venezuela's streets and irked Chavez in the run-up to a national election. Despite the calm of a Monday morning at the Caracas Central University, the bullet holes and burn marks at the office of the pro-opposition student federation that Navarro leads are a reminder of the volatile role played by Venezuela's youth. "The more they repress us, the more we will stay out on the streets," Navarro, in T-shirt and jeans, said between taking calls to organize a new round of student marches and to order hundreds of shirts for his fellow demonstrators to wear. Last week's student-led, anti-Chavez protests led to skirmishes with pro-government groups and security forces that killed two Chavez-supporting youths, and wounded scores of people. The largest protest drew about 3,000 people. The student protesters say Chavez is turning Venezuela into a dictatorship under the guise of his 21st-century socialist revolution. Chavez says they are pawns, agitators and cannon fodder for rich "oligarchs" seeking to return to power. But with opposition parties sensing an opportunity to cut or overturn Chavez's majority in the National Assembly at September elections, the stakes are rising. The next presidential election also looms in 2012. Chavez has quashed numerous opposition campaigns against him during 11 years in power but his foes now believe his support base is being hurt by new factors such as unpopular electricity and water rationing, combined with chronic crime. "They blame it on the past government but they forget that they've been in power for 11 years," Navarro said. "The indignation levels at the moment are extremely high." Chavez remains popular in poor areas for his social policies, including free health clinics and schools. Analysts say electoral districts and legislation are skewed heavily in his party's favor, meaning the opposition will have a difficult time taking power in the legislature come September. "CREATIVITY AND SURPRISE" With the idealism of youth, Navarro thinks differently. "The democratic sector is going to win the National Assembly and we are going to recover an important space," he said, pledging students would be at the vanguard of monitoring voting booths and counting centers. His university is one of Venezuela's oldest and most politically active and the student body takes a central role in coordinating protests nationwide. He says the damage evident at his office is from an attack by a pro-Chavez group last year. With opposition parties in frequent disarray over the years, failing repeatedly to dent Chavez's power base, the students have emerged in the past three years as an important factor in the South American nation's volatile politics. They played an important role in defeating a 2007 referendum that would have ended presidential term limits. That was Chavez's sole electoral defeat since taking power and he managed to win a similar referendum in 2009. "We decided to turn ourselves into the protagonists of change and stop being spectators of the crisis," Navarro said. "We cannot criticize and criticize but not propose." Navarro said he and colleagues were hoodwinking authorities by pretending to organize gatherings on phones they know are being monitored but then using other means of communication to turn up elsewhere. "Creativity and surprise are our weapons," he said, laughing as he recounted how security forces filled a Caracas square last week for one march that never took place. Chavez, however, is convinced he will again have the last laugh. At the weekend, he mocked the opposition students for allying themselves with "reactionary" forces. "Most of the young people are with the Revolution," he said. "Not these young people who grow old before their time." (Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)