Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

Slowly, Chávez isolates himself from world*** According to Michael Shifter, senior analyst with InterAmerican Dialogue in Washington, Chávez's strong-arm style has unnerved a region that saw more than its share of authoritarian regimes in the '80s and '90s. "You talk about rule of law and institutions, and you have this guy who comes on the scene and shows disdain for that, and says, 'I was elected by the people, and that's enough,' " Mr. Shifter says. "It's a nightmare for people in the region, because they've seen this movie before, and it doesn't have a happy ending."

Venezuela's status as one of the world's largest petroleum producers has allowed Chávez to be recalcitrant when foreign diplomats call for concessions. The US, long accustomed to being the dominant player in the hemisphere, has had to tread lightly in Venezuela ever since it welcomed a coup that temporarily ousted Chávez last April. But some analysts note that the thrust of collective mediation efforts, such as those sponsored by the OAS, are remarkably in line with the diplomatic will of the United States. "The 'international community' is often a euphemism for the 'United States,' and it's not that much different in this case," says Mark Weisbrot, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "Given the United States's hostility to Chávez, I think the [Venezuelan] government has been actually quite friendly and willing to work with everyone."

The government had been meeting with the opposition at talks mediated by the OAS, but last Wednesday government representatives presented a declaration rejecting international interference in Venezuela's crisis. The statement read in part: "No foreign government or institution ... may pretend to guide the Venezuelan people, nor influence the functioning of national public power." Citing security concerns, the government side was a no-show at meetings scheduled for the rest of the week. The messages coming from the Chávez administration are clear: Other countries may not like what they see in Venezuela, but there isn't much that they can do about it. "There's really no arm-twisting going on behind the scenes," says a Western diplomat in Caracas. "The international community has no leverage - there's no foreign aid to cut, and people need the oil."***

Shopping centre bomb kills seven (Colombia) [Full Text] AT least seven people have been killed and 50 injured after a car bomb exploded in the north-eastern Colombian city of Cucuta. The bomb was believed to have been planted by National Liberation Army guerrillas, officials said. The governor of Norte de Santander province, Juan Santaella, called the attack "a real tragedy" for the city, which is near the border with Venezuela.

The car bomb exploded in the parking garage of a shopping centre. Another explosion today killed one soldier and injured three others in the outskirts of Carmen de Bolivar, some 950km north of Bogota, according to military sources. Officials suspected Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels of carrying out that attack. [End]

Despite Brazil's Efforts, Colombian War Likely To Seep Across Border*** Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez will meet with President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva in Brazil on March 7 in an effort to smooth over several recent bumps in bilateral relations. The summit comes when Colombia's ties with some of its neighbors are strained by what the Uribe government perceives as a combination of indifference, lack of cooperation and even hostility on their parts.

Uribe wants an official statement from Brazil's government condemning the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as an international terrorist group. Uribe also will seek a commitment from da Silva to significantly reinforce military and police defenses on Brazil's border with Colombia to prevent the rebels from crossing into Brazilian territory, from whence they can smuggle weapons back to their own country.

However, da Silva likely will deflect Uribe's requests. Brazil is determined to remain neutral in the Colombian conflict, in hopes of minimizing the risks of regional spillover and armed confrontations between Brazilian security forces and Colombian irregular groups. Moreover, a senior Brazilian presidential adviser on foreign policy, Marco Aurelio Garcia, said recently that if Brazil condemns the FARC as a terrorist group, it would nullify Brazil's future ability to act as a mediator in peace talks between the rebels and Bogota.***

Hugo Chávez and the Limits of Democracy*** The 21st century was not supposed to engender a Latin American president with a red beret. Instead of obsessing about luring private capital, he scares it away. Rather than strengthening ties with the United States, he befriends Cuba. Such behavior was supposed to have been made obsolete by the democratization, economic deregulation and globalization of the 1990's.

Venezuela is an improbable country to have fallen into this political abyss. It is vast, wealthy, relatively modern and cosmopolitan, with a strong private sector and a homogeneous mixed-race population with little history of conflict. Democracy was supposed to have prevented its decline into a failed state. Yet once President Chávez gained control over the government, his rule became exclusionary and profoundly undemocratic. Under Mr. Chávez, Venezuela is a powerful reminder that elections are necessary but not sufficient for democracy, and that even longstanding democracies can unravel overnight.A government's legitimacy flows not only from the ballot box but also from the way it conducts itself. Accountability and institutional restraints and balances are needed. The international community became adept at monitoring elections and ensuring their legitimacy in the 1990's. The Venezuelan experience illustrates the urgency of setting up equally effective mechanisms to validate a government's practices.

The often stealthy transgressions of Mr. Chávez have unleashed a powerful expression of what is perhaps the only trend of the 1990's still visible in Venezuela: civil society. In today's Venezuela millions of once politically indifferent citizens stage almost daily marches and rallies larger than those that forced the early resignations of other democratically presidents around the world. This is not a traditional opposition movement. It is an inchoate network of people from all social classes and walks of life, who are organized in loosely coordinated units and who do not have any other ambition than to stop a president who has made their country unlivable. Two out of three Venezuelans living under the poverty line oppose President Chávez, according to a Venezuelan survey released in January.***

Venezuelan central bank director warns against denying dollars to newspapers *** CARACAS, Venezuela - A central bank director warned President Hugo Chavez's government Thursday against using a new foreign exchange system to deprive newspapers of dollars needed to buy newsprint. Domingo Maza Zavala said the government should consider the print media a priority when deciding who can buy dollars under the new system. Chavez, who accuses Venezuela's main newspapers of supporting efforts to overthrow him, has said priority will go to importers of basics like food and medicine. "Everything else will have to wait," he said last week.

Maza Zavala said "it would be irrational" to delay granting dollars to newspapers. "I think newspapers have the right to receive the material they need to function," he told local Union Radio. "Reading the daily press is a primary need for Venezuelans." Newspaper owners - most of whom gave supportive coverage to a failed two-month strike to force early elections - have expressed concern that Chavez will use the exchange controls system to restrict freedom of the press, as past governments have done. ***

Chavez won't do business with enemies of the state***Venezuela declared force majeure soon after the strike, aimed at forcing the leftist leader from office, started on Dec. 2. The stoppage fizzled out by early February and many non-oil sector businesses reopened but the effects have lingered on in the strategic oil sector. Former paratrooper Chavez said the government would revise all of PDVSA's operations, including all of its contracts and investments, to forge a new-look nationalist oil strategy that would seek to put the interests of the country first.

He made clear that private firms which had supported the crippling two-month opposition strike would be not be allowed to participate in the oil industry in the future. "We cannot continue playing the innocent and keep on handing over strategic areas to enemies of the country," the populist president said. He singled out a U.S.-controlled technology company, Intesa -- 60 percent owned by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) -- which he had previously accused of joining in sabotage of PDVSA's central computer network. "We will never again hand over the brain center of the company to transnational powers," Chavez said.

His words appeared to signal a strengthening of his government's state-centered oil policy already expressed in a hotly contested oil law passed at the end of 2001. Critics of the law slammed it as hostile to private business and said it would drive off foreign investment.***

Presidents to confer over isolating rebels - Colombian seeks backing of Brazil - Where's Hugo? *** RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- The presidents of Colombia and Brazil will meet today under heavy U.S. pressure to isolate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the region's cocaine-financed guerrilla movement that is labeled a terrorist organization by the Bush administration. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe wants Brazil's support for Plan Colombia, a joint U.S.-Colombian military effort to quash cocaine trafficking and the guerrilla groups funded by cocaine.

For Brazil, Latin America's largest and most influential nation, that would mean an end to years of neutrality and an unpopular yielding to Washington's will. Brazilians are worried about cocaine trafficking in their country, however, and a leader of the FARC -- the guerrilla's group's initials in Spanish -- is alleged to have protected Brazil's top trafficker until the trafficker was captured in April 2001. Uncomfortable with a growing U.S. presence next door in Colombia, Brazil thus far has balked at branding the FARC a terrorist organization. ***

U.S. ambassador in Venezuela voices concern about terrorist groups in Latin America *** CARACAS, Venezuela - The United States is concerned that international terrorist groups have established bases in Venezuela and other Latin American countries, the U.S. ambassador said Friday. "We are worried about the existence of terrorist groups not only in Venezuela but in all Latin American countries," Charles Shapiro told reporters after meeting with Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel.

Shapiro was responding to questions about statements made by Gen. James Hill, commander of the U.S. Southern Command. Hill told a military conference in Miami on Tuesday that organizations such as militant Lebanese group Hezbollah were operating in the tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay and Venezuela's Margarita Island, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

Hill said the groups were taking advantage of smuggling hotspots and weak institutions in those areas to channel funds to international terrorist groups. "I don't want to accuse anybody but we are on alert," Shapiro said. "We are ready to collaborate with the Venezuelan government to seek out terrorism that may exist in this country." ***

Chávez's Bolivarian Circles in South Florida - 17 around U.S. - Spreading around world *** Circle leaders draw strength from what they say is a growing Bolivarian international network. The U.S. circle members will hold their first national assembly in New York in March, and Chávez representatives from Venezuela plan to attend.

The Venezuelan government also will host an international Bolivarian Circle meeting in April in Caracas. ''There are circles in Bilbao, Madrid, Denmark -- all over the place. It's really neat,'' said Guillermo García Ponce, Chávez advisory committee coordinator, in an interview with The Herald in Caracas. He acknowledged that South Florida has become an anti-Chávez stronghold. ''I suppose [the Miami circle] will have to keep a low profile,'' García said.

Anti-Chávez activists say they do not oppose the presence of a Bolivarian Circle in Miami as long as it doesn't instigate the violence they allege the circles have caused in Venezuela -- a claim Soto and others deny. ''The government has allowed the Bolivarian Circles to attack the newspapers, attack the reporters,'' said Raúl Leoni, a Venezuelan opposition leader who lives in Weston. ``The fact that you win an election doesn't make you eternal if you're not doing your job correctly.''

……………..The Bolivarian Circles -- along with Chávez's controversial 1999 ''Bolivarian constitution'' -- are part of his overarching ``Bolivarian Revolution.'' Some 70,000 circles exist in Venezuela, made up largely of the working class. Typically, they meet weekly and engage in humanitarian projects such as providing food for the poor -- with military financing -- and building schools. Critics compare the circles to Fidel Castro's Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.***

Brazil blocking conference to deal with Latin crises*** Judging from the speeches and the talk in the hallways I heard at a top-level conference on military affairs earlier this week, there is a big bad boy who is blocking plans to solve Latin America's multiple crises -- Brazil. It's not that Brazil has done anything dreadful since the Jan. 1 inauguration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said several participants at the meeting on ''Building Regional Security'' organized by the University of Miami's North-South Center. On the contrary, da Silva has proven to be more level-headed than many Washington conservatives had anticipated.

Rather, the problem is that Brazil, the biggest country in South America, is sitting on the sidelines while the neighborhood is afire, several of the speakers said. Brazil is still paralyzed by 19th century fears of U.S. imperial designs, which have long driven it to instinctively reject almost anything coming from Washington or supported by Washington, regardless of its merits, they said. These days, Brazil is effectively blocking a Canadian-sponsored proposal to hold an emergency summit with President Bush and 33 other elected leaders in the hemisphere, aimed at doing something about the escalating crises in Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Haiti and several other countries.

Such a presidential summit would, among other things, force the Bush administration to pay some attention to Latin America, which fell off White House radar screens after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But while the United States, Mexico, Caribbean nations and most South American countries support the emergency summit, which would be held in September in Mexico, Brazil is stone-walling the proposal, Canadian and U.S. officials say. ''Everybody is mystified as to why Brazil doesn't go along,'' says Paul D. Durand, Canada's ambassador to the Organization of American States.***

Anti-Chavez leader gives the slip- CASTRO stocks CHAVEZ'S state-run stores *** CARACAS, Venezuela -- Secret police swooped in on an anti-government demonstration Saturday in a failed attempt to arrest a national strike leader who emerged from hiding to address the rally. The police fired shots into the air and launched tear gas canisters to disperse anti-government protesters, who smashed police vehicle windows with sticks and stones, the television station Globovision reported. There were no immediate reports of injuries or arrests. Police rushed to the rally trying to seize former oil executive Juan Fernandez, one of several leaders of a failed two-month general strike aiming to force President Hugo Chavez's resignation or early elections. The strike ended Feb. 4.

Fernandez warned Chavez to "pack his bag because we are going to get rid of him" and then was whisked away by supporters as protesters applauded wildly. Thousands of protesters waving placards reading "No to judicial terrorism!" blocked a Caracas highway to demand justice in Venezuela and show support for opposition leaders. One of the leaders, businessman Carlos Fernandez, is under house arrest, and several others are in hiding. At an International Women's Day event Saturday, Chavez accused his foes of committing high-profile crimes -- including last month's bombing of Colombian and Spanish diplomatic missions in Caracas -- in an attempt to smear his government. No one has been arrested for the blasts.

"By God and my mother, there will be justice!" Chavez roared. ***

*** As the protesters gathered, Chavez told a meeting of supporters in a Caracas theater that Venezuela had received donations of sugar and beans from communist Cuba to help his government fight food shortages caused by the recent strike. Chavez thanked his political ally and friend, Cuban President Fidel Castro, for the cargoes of 10,000 tonnes of sugar and 5,000 tonnes of black beans. He said these were being sold cheaply to the poor in the government's food program. "The Cubans gave up 10 million kilos (10,000 tonnes) of sugar from their own reserves ... they didn't want to accept payment, they said we could pay for them whenever we could," the president said. Cuba receives oil from Venezuela on preferential terms under a bilateral energy deal.

Chavez's opponents, who include private business leaders, union bosses and dissident military officers, accuse him of ruining the economy with his anti-capitalist rhetoric and left-wing, statist economic policies. They say he is trying to recreate Cuban-style communism in Venezuela. The president condemns his opponents as a rich, resentful "oligarchy" opposed to his self-styled "revolution."

Chavez announced the creation of a state-run network of shops which would sell cheap food to the poor. The idea appeared to be a replica of a similar system existing in Cuba. ***

General: Islamists find Latin America funds - fastest-growing religion in Latin America*** Latin America is becoming a major fundraising base for radical Islamic groups in the Middle East, which are getting between $300 million and $500 million a year from various criminal networks in the region, a top U.S. military commander told The Herald. Gen. James T. Hill, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees U.S. military relations in Latin America, said much of this money comes from drug trafficking, arms dealing and other illegal activities. He said the funds are sent abroad from several Latin American areas with large Middle Eastern populations, such as the triple frontier between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, and Margarita island off the coast of Venezuela.

''The fastest-growing religion in Latin America today is Islam,'' Gen. Hill said during an interview at his office. ``We think that there are between 3 and 6 million people of Middle Eastern descent in Latin America. There are radical Islamic groups associated with that population that are using it to create lots of money for their organizations.'' Hill said that about ``$300 million to $500 million a year, easily, goes [from Latin America] to groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Gamaat.''***

Latest U.S. worry: 'ungoverned spaces' in Latin America*** A new security threat is capturing the attention of top Bush administration officials in charge of Latin American affairs: the proliferation of ''ungoverned spaces'' or ''lawless areas'' in the region. I heard these terms for the first time recently, when U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a passing reference to ''ungoverned zones'' during a speech at a regional meeting of defense ministers in Santiago, Chile, in November. Rumsfeld mentioned such areas as one of several threats to hemispheric security. At the time, I didn't know what he meant, and -- quite frankly -- I didn't care much. I have long given up on trying to keep up with every new term of Pentagon jargon: With its increasingly complicated acronyms and techno-slang, it has become a new language that is almost impossible to understand by normal English-speaking civilians.

A THREATENING WEED But last week, Gen. James T. Hill, head of the U.S. Southern Command in charge of U.S. military relations in Latin America, spent a sizable part of a speech to a Miami security conference talking about the issue, and explaining what it is all about. ''Today, the threat to the countries of the region is not the military force of the adjacent neighbor, or some invading foreign power. Today's foe is the terrorist, the narco-trafficker, the arms trafficker,'' Hill said. ``This threat is a weed that is planted, grown and nurtured in the fertile ground of ungoverned spaces, such as coastlines, rivers and unpopulated border areas.'' In the new U.S. military doctrine, one of the biggest dangers to Latin America no longer comes from foreign armies or urban guerrillas taking over capital cities and expanding their reach to the interior. Rather, it comes from criminal forces occupying empty spaces in jungles, mountains and other remote areas, and expanding their reach from there to big cities and centers of power.

REMOTE FRONTIERS

Among Latin America's biggest ''ungoverned spaces,'' according to U.S. military thinkers, is the triple frontier between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, which has long thrived on smuggling and is a major fundraising base for Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. In addition, the Tabatinga-Leticia corridor on the Brazil-Colombia border, the Lago Agrio area on Ecuador's border with Colombia and the Darien jungle in Panama are places where Colombian drug traffickers, narco-terrorists and arms dealers roam about freely, and often control large territories, U.S. officials say. And Surinam, a small country with a large Middle Eastern community, is becoming a major center of Russian, Turkish, Nigerian and Colombian arms trafficking and drug smuggling rings, security experts say.

According to U.S. officials, the economic crises in most Latin American countries have worsened the problem. Because of weak central governments, military budget cuts and migration of rural middle-classes to the big cities, most countries in the region have spaces with little or no government presence, where international criminal organizations are flourishing. What should be done about it? One proposal that is circulating in U.S. military circles, authored by a U.S. Army War College professor, Col. Joseph R. Nuñez, calls for creation of an elite 6,000-troop ''multinational regional force'' that would help fight trans-national narco-terrorism, and cope with natural disasters and border disputes.***

Chavez Claims Anti-Venezuela Campaign***Last week, local media published a letter signed by seven U.S. congressmen calling on Chavez to refrain from persecuting his opponents and investigate the recent murders of dissident soldiers. Days later, Caracas police arrested a man in connection with the killings of three dissident soldiers and an anti-government activist whose bound, tortured bodies were found last month. Detectives said the deaths were not politically motivated.

Chavez said the letter was drafted by foes using their "great lobbying power" backed up by "unethical" Venezuelan media outlets to fool U.S. legislators. "They don't know this land or anything about what is really happening here," Chavez said. "Some lobbyists go there, write them a letter and get them to say some lies that make them look ridiculous in front of the whole world. But everyone is free to look ridiculous."

U.S. officials could not be reached for comment Sunday. Two weeks ago, Chavez strongly criticized the United States, Spain and Colombia for allegedly meddling in Venezuela's domestic affairs. Within days, bombs ripped through the Spanish and Colombian diplomatic missions in Caracas.***

Comandante Chavez's Friends*** LATE LAST YEAR, 16 U.S. congressmen voiced their approval for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Representatives Barney Frank, John Conyers, Chaka Fattah, Jan Schakowsky, Jose Serrano, and others complained in a letter to President Bush that the United States was not adequately protecting Chavez against a groundswell of internal opposition to his increasingly authoritarian rule--an upsurge that might lead to his ouster. Elected to power in 1998, Lt. Col. Chavez has hijacked democracy in Venezuela and is openly moving the country toward totalitarianism. Beyond Venezuela's borders, he celebrates, protects, and does business with terrorists.

A day after the September 11 terrorist attacks, President Chavez declared that "The United States brought the attacks upon itself, for their arrogant imperialist foreign policy." Chavez also described the U.S. military response to bin Laden as "terrorism," claiming that he saw no difference between the invasion of Afghanistan and the September 11 terrorist attacks.

While the United States considers Saddam Hussein a threat to world peace, Chavez has hailed Saddam as his "brother" and business "partner." In the past two years Chavez has continued to cultivate relationships with the governments listed in the State Department's roll of state sponsors of terrorism--he has been particularly vocal in his support for the Iranian regime.

Last December a high-level Venezuelan military defector gave sworn testimony that terrorist links exist between al Qaeda and the Chavez government. The defector, President Chavez's personal pilot, alleges that one operation involved the transfer of close to $1 million in cash to Osama bin Laden.

In January, Judicial Watch, a public-interest legal organization based in Washington, filed a $100 million suit against Hugo Chavez on behalf of a victim and survivor of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The lawsuit alleges that Chavez provided material, financial, and other support and assistance to the al Qaeda terror network.

In February, a Venezuelan Muslim, Hasil Mohammed Rahaham-Alan, was detained in London's Gatwick airport for stashing a grenade in his luggage. He was apprehended after disembarking from a British Airways flight that originated in Caracas. The British Mail reported that al Qaeda operates a training camp on the Venezuelan island of Margarita. The Venezuelan ambassador in London has obtained a "legal stop" preventing the newspaper from commenting on the article.

Also, the congressional signatories turn a blind eye to mountains of hard evidence--most supplied by U.S. allies in the Colombian government--confirming Chavez's support for the FARC and ELN terrorist networks. The Colombian government declared that the head of the FARC terrorist group, Manual Marulanda, is hiding in Venezuela, and the Colombian embassy in Caracas was bombed a day after Chavez made a blistering speech attacking Colombia. The Financial Times reported last week that the perpetrators of the bombing may be FARC terrorists or even members of the Venezuelan secret police. Yesterday in Colombia, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton gave a press conference where he unequivocally stated that the Chavez government will not refer to the FARC Colombian terrorists as "terrorists," because the Chavez government wishes to remain "neutral."

It is unthinkable that congressmen who enjoy access to detailed intelligence reports are willing so blithely to disregard the Chavez government's track record on matters that directly affect the national security of the United States.***

LulaWatch - Focusing on Latin America's new "axis of evil" - Brazil - Vol.1,No.4***2. Lula Wheels in the Brazilian Left's Historic Trojan Horse - Land Reform: Nowhere is this purposeful ambiguity of President Lula da Silva and his administration clearer than in the realm of Land Reform. For decades, a socialist and confiscatory land reform policy has been the pet project of the Brazilian left, including progressives inside the Catholic Church, many of whom follow Liberation Theology, and Lula's own Workers' Party (PT). The Brazilian left was never able to apply land reform on a grand scale.

Subversive movements like the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) apply pressure by promoting illegal farm invasions and land squatting. Now that the PT is in power, President Lula da Silva is introducing land reform initiatives that target two pillars of Brazilian economy - agriculture and cattle ranching. His measures spell trouble for the country's economic and social stability and may well shake the very foundations of the rule of law.

a) Lula realizes his land reform dreams: 497,000 acres expropriated - Although he is presented as a moderate, President Lula da Silva has always wanted (or "dreamed of," as he recently affirmed at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre) a Land Reform program in the leftist mold. As a first step toward realizing his dream, Lula appointed Miguel Rossetto as Minister of Land Reform. Mr. Rossetto is a member of the PT's most radical wing and a supporter of illegal land invasions.

President Lula just signed a decree expropriating nearly half a million acres of land for land reform. In announcing that he will seek international aid for the project, Land Reform Minister Miguel Rossetto said the President's move sent a message to "the sectors historically closer to PT, including the MST, that Lula will carry out his campaign promise to implement the nation's largest land reform."***

Chavez Foes in Limbo After Failed Venezuela Strike *** The opposition umbrella group, Coordinadora Democratica, is an alliance of interest groups ranging from unions and civic groups to a business federation. Their divided aims range from throwing out Chavez with military help to having a referendum, "We need to refresh the movement," said Miranda State governor Enrique Mendoza, an opposition leader.

WAIT AND SEE Meanwhile Caracas is in wait-and-see mode. Its inhabitants still talk about latent class hatred between the poor western and posh eastern halves of a city that may explode in unrest. Rich districts store arms and chains to mount barricades. Chavez-loyal soldiers have confiscated the heavy weapons of the opposition-run Caracas metropolitan police. Soldiers stand guard outside police stations. Downtown Caracas is a Chavez stronghold of street peddlers, run-down buildings, graffiti and garbage. The presidential palace is a heavily guarded mansion surrounded by troops and road blocks. But nearby his supporters seem confident. "The people are with Chavez. They know he's fighting the rich who are responsible for all this mess," said Antonio Lopez, selling children's toys on a street corner.

A few miles away to the east the atmosphere is different. "Don't Despair" reads one banner on the windows of an expensive dried flower shop in an upmarket Caracas mall. "We feel hemmed in now," said Flor, a retired woman who said she was too worried about recriminations to give her full name. She strolled by the flower shop, her neck laden with jewelry. "But don't count us out. We'll be back."***

Venezuela wants Russia, France in Group of Friends - I bet he does! [Full Text] BRASILIA, Brazil - Venezuela renewed an appeal to add Russia, France and Caribbean nations to the Group of Friends of Venezuela seeking a solution to the country's political and economic crisis.

Jorge Valero, Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States, said his country wants to expand the group, which now includes the United States, Brazil, Chile, Spain, Mexico and Portugal.

Foreign Ministry officials from those countries met privately in Brazil's capital Monday to discuss ways to ease tensions in Venezuela following the arrest of business leader Carlos Fernandez in February and warrants issued against eight other opposition leaders.

The nine opposed President Hugo Chavez during a general strike that lasted two months. Valero said the strike has cost Venezuela some US$5 billion in damages and lost revenue.

The meeting was led by OAS General-Secretary Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and included Timoteo Zambrano, a representative of the Democratic Coordinator opposition movement.

Zambrano said Chavez was "inventing excuses" to avoid calling early elections, which he refuses to accept. He said Gaviria should have a more decisive role in the meetings.

In January, Chavez met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and suggested expanding the Group of Friends, citing France, Russia, Cuba and China as possible new members. Brazil led opposition to changes, on grounds they would upset the political balance of the group. [End]

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