Posted on 04/14/2002 4:01:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Chávez and Castro bantered for about 10 minutes on Venezuelan television and radio after Chávez aides telephoned the Cuban president in Havana. Chávez spoke to Castro on a speakerphone live on air.
Chávez announced the expansion of the Inside the Slum program, which began in April with several hundred Cuban doctors in Caracas slums. There are now 10,169 Cuban physicians nationwide, Chávez said.
''Well, Fidel . . . your support and the support of these true heroes of Cuban medicine has been fundamental and essential,'' Chávez said.
Castro, who sounded hesitant and complained about the phone connection, said Chávez had established himself as a leader of the Third World.
''You are leaving an example not only for Latin America but for all of the Third World,'' Castro said. ``I must express the admiration of all our people for you.''
The two leaders have developed a strong friendship rooted in their shared disdain for U.S. economic and political dominance and their conviction that free-market policies have failed to lift millions of Latin Americans from grinding poverty.
Chávez invited Castro to visit Venezuela and tour communities benefiting from Inside the Slum. Castro said a visit ''wasn't immediately possible,'' citing a heavy work load. It would be Castro's fourth visit to Venezuela since Chávez took office in 1999.
Chávez's government has sent more than 4,000 needy Venezuelans to Cuba for free medical treatment. Cuban teachers are training 100,000 Venezuelan volunteers for a national literacy campaign.
Venezuela, meanwhile, provides Cuba with crude oil under preferential financial terms. Critics say Chávez's ties with Castro have antagonized the United States, Venezuela's largest oil customer.
Opposition leaders insist the presence of Cuban doctors and teachers is part of a plan to steer Venezuela toward Cuba-style socialism and authoritarianism. Chávez denies such intentions, insisting he is forging his own balance between socialism and capitalism.
Chávez's government has ignored a court order to suspend the ''Inside the Slum'' initiative until the Cuban doctors take equivalency exams required for foreign physicians to practice in Venezuela. The government says suspending the program would leave thousands of citizens without adequate healthcare. [End]
Left-winger Chavez, who infuriated the United States three years ago by embracing and meeting the former Iraqi dictator in Baghdad, is fiercely contesting an opposition bid to trigger a constitutional vote next year on his five-year rule.
Some Venezuelan opposition leaders and commentators said the dramatic capture of Saddam by U.S. forces on Saturday was a lesson for populist Chavez, who has denounced his opponents' pro-referendum petition as a "mega-fraud" he cannot accept.
"What will the fledgling dictator we have here think of all this? Will he understand this could be his fate if he keeps on trying to destroy democracy?" the anti-government Caracas daily El Nacional said in an editorial headed "Saddam and Co."
Chavez's opponents say he is brazenly trying to torpedo the referendum bid even before electoral authorities have decided if the poll will go ahead in the second quarter of 2004.
Critics of the former paratrooper, who has governed the world's No. 5 oil exporter since he won free elections in 1998, accuse him of ruling like an anti-democratic strongman.
They say he has also delighted in baiting Washington -- Venezuela's biggest oil client -- by criticizing U.S. policies and assiduously courting anti-U.S. leaders like Iraq's Saddam, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.
"These are Chavez's best mates ... the saying goes, tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are," Antonio Ledezma of the opposition Democratic Coordinator said.
Chavez, who survived a brief coup last year, condemns his opponents as rich right-wing "oligarchs" bent on trying to topple him and destroy his self-styled "revolution" he says is aimed at giving a better life to Venezuela's poor.
He also defends his foreign policy as an attempt to extend Venezuela's influence as an OPEC oil producer and to seek a "multi-polar" counterbalance to U.S. dominance in the world. ***
Interior Minister Lucas Rincón announced the inquiry Tuesday just hours after an arsonist's fire heavily damaged a church in Los Teques, a Caracas satellite town, for the second time in two weeks.
Although no one has been arrested in the attacks, Venezuela's leading archbishop has attacked the leftist Chávez and his supporters for turning his ''revolution'' into pseudo-religion, while a pro-government newspaper published a photo montage showing the prelate in a Nazi uniform.
Throughout Venezuela's history, ''Not even members of extremely radical religious groups had expressed so much hatred toward the religious sentiments of the Venezuelan people,'' another church leader, Msgr. Juan María Leonardi, bishop of the western diocese of Punto Fijo, said in a recent statement.
……………………….. Msgr. Baltazar Porras, archbishop of the western city of Mérida and the country's leading prelate, described the events as ''an attack on the deepest and noblest sentiments of all believers in the Catholic faith'' and blamed them on a tendency to ``turn political beliefs . . . into a kind of supreme deity.''
……………………………. Most Venezuelans are Catholic, and Chávez, who also claims to be Catholic, has frequently declared that ''God is with the revolution,'' meaning his policies on behalf of Venezuela's poor majority.
But he has engaged in fierce verbal clashes with church leaders since taking office in early 1999, even crossing swords with the papal nuncio, the Vatican's ambassador in Caracas. He has called the church a ''tumor'' and once declared that the bishops were in need of exorcism ``so that the devil inside comes out from under their vestments.''***
Under military escort, two buses transported 250 boxes with the signatures to the National Elections Council, as residents unfurled Venezuelan flags outside their windows, chanting "He's leaving, leaving, leaving!"
The number of signatures was a million more than the opposition needed to force a referendum. Council director Jorge Rodriguez said they wouldn't start verifying the petitions until after the holidays on Jan. 5. After that, the council has 30 days to decide whether to call the referendum.
If an actual vote is held, the opposition must obtain more votes than the president did in the 2000 elections — almost 3.8 million. Venezuela, with an electorate of 12 million, traditionally has high voter abstention rates.
The Organization of American States and the U.S.-based Carter Center monitored the opposition's four-day petition drive and said they saw no evidence of widespread fraud. OAS and Carter Center officials also plan to observe the verification process. ***
The local El Universal quoted Nelson Ramiz on Friday as saying the visas for pilots subcontracted by the airline were suspended last week without any explanation from the U.S. government.
Ramiz said the airline has requested an explanation from the U.S. consul in Venezuela, but has yet to receive an answer.***
The four soldiers were shot at 6 a.m. local time while patrolling the frontier in Zulia state, about 600 kilometers (370 miles) west of Caracas, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
There were no immediate suspects. A brigade with more than 300 troops was combing the area for evidence, the officer said.
He said the killings could be related to the shooting deaths on Thursday of three guardsmen in western Tachira state, which were blamed on common criminals.
In both cases, the soldiers were robbed of their weapons, the officer said.
The officer said a civilian found the soldiers lying dead on a river bank and rushed to the nearest national guard post to report the incident. He said there were no witnesses to the shooting, however.
The two shooting incidents mark the first time in six years that national guard soldiers have been killed in the border region with Colombia, the officer said.
The 2,200-kilometer (1,400-mile) border is often plagued with violence stemming from Colombia's four-decade civil war between leftist rebels, government troops and outlawed right-wing paramilitary groups. Both countries have accused each other of not doing enough to guard the border, which runs through steep mountains and thick, tropical jungle. [End]
The minister said the government would demand that the elections council check the authenticity of every signature in states where the alleged fraud was most widespread.
For example, there were at least 4,500 duplicate signatures on petitions from the western state of Tachira, Cabello said.
The Organization of American States, which observed the four-day petition drive, said it saw no evidence of widespread fraud.
But Jesus Torrealba, a leader of the Democratic Coordinator, a coalition of opposition parties, said the petitions could have contained several thousand duplicate or ineligible signatures that were orchestrated by the government to sabotage the process.
"An overwhelming percentage of the signatures" are legitimate, said Torrealba, who added that the government is claiming fraud to stall the referendum.
The elections council has said it would begin verifying the signatures on Jan. 5 in a process expected to take up to 30 days.***
Left-winger Chavez, who is resisting opposition efforts to trigger a referendum on his rule next year, today announced the surprise visit by his close friend and political ally during his weekly Hello President television and radio show.
"We'll have lunch and talk for a few hours," Chavez said, adding the 77-year-old Cuban leader would return to Havana the same day.
If Chavez, a 49-year-old populist former paratrooper, was voted out in a referendum, this would deprive Castro of a major source of political and material support in the region.
The Venezuelan leader said they would discuss tomorrow growing bilateral co-operation between the world's No5 oil exporter and the communist-ruled Caribbean island.
This co-operation in energy and social programmes has irritated Washington and provided a vital oil lifeline to cash-strapped Cuba.
Under a three-year-old energy accord, Venezuela sends Cuba up to 53,000 barrels per day of oil – about one third of the island's consumption.
The two leaders, who consult frequently, share "revolutionary" ideologies and are outspoken critics of US policy, even though Venezuela is one of the top suppliers of oil to the United States.
They are sure to discuss the political situation in Venezuela, where foes of Chavez filed with electoral authorities Saturday more than three million signatures requesting a referendum on his rule next year. [End]
Government officials had earlier refused to disclose the site of the meeting. This had shrouded in secrecy the brief visit by the 77-year-old Castro to Venezuela, Communist Cuba's biggest political ally and trade partner in Latin America.
Chavez said he and Castro had discussed growing medical and energy cooperation between their nations. They also reviewed the political situation in Venezuela, where the Populist president is resisting a determined opposition bid to trigger a referendum next year on whether he should stay in power.
State television showed the two leaders embracing. It also broadcast a long, rambling interview with Castro in which he praised Chavez as an influential leader spearheading the fight in Latin America against U.S.-style global capitalism.
"I challenge the world to produce a more generous man," the Cuban leader, who spoke slowly and haltingly, said. ***
A Colombian official said the United States played a role in the capture.
Ecuadorean Police Chief Jorge Poveda confirmed that Simon Trinidad was detained late Friday. He did not give any details about what Trinidad was doing in Ecuador or how long he had been there.
Trinidad is a member of the general staff of the 16,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the largest rebel group in Colombia. He was one of the top negotiators during peace talks with the government that began in January 1999. The talks collapsed in February 2002, and the army resumed operations against the FARC.
"Long live the FARC!" Trinidad shouted while being escorted under heavy police guard to an army helicopter that left for Tulcan, a city on the Colombian border.***
As U.S. officials see it, the alliance combines Cuban President Fidel Castro's political savvy with surplus cash that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez obtains from oil exports.
Venezuelan resources may have been decisive in the ouster of Bolivia's elected, pro-American president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A key recipient of Venezuelan help has been Evo Morales, a charismatic Bolivian legislator who has broad support among his country's indigenous population. He is an avowed opponent of the capitalist system.
Before Sanchez de Lozada was deposed, one official said, Venezuela's military attache in Bolivia was expelled for giving money to Morales, and Morales received money from Venezuelan officials in a visit to Caracas.
There also has been evidence of Venezuelan money and manpower in Ecuador and Uruguay being used in support of anti-government groups, the officials said. Despite Venezuelan denials, they said, Chavez has supported Colombia's FARC and ELN rebels, allowing use of territory in western Venezuela as a springboard for attacks inside Colombia.
In Caracas on Monday, Tarek William Saab, the pro-Chavez head of Venezuela's congressional foreign relations commission, denied that Venezuela was supporting FARC rebels or was meddling in Bolivia's internal affairs. Saab accused the U.S. government of "using slander and defamation to weaken a constitutional government like ours."
"It's false and irresponsible and cowardly," Saab said.
U.S. officials said Castro has been providing training, advice and logistical support to leftist groups in the region, a sign of re-engagement after relative inactivity in the 1990s.
Roger Noriega, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites)'s top aide for Latin America, said Friday that the 77-year-old Castro, in his "final days," appears to be "nostalgic for destabilizing elected governments. From the point of view of his democratic neighbors, Castro's actions are increasingly provocative."***
But Washington has put off the latest round of talks until Havana agrees to discuss issues on the U.S. agenda, the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Tuesday night. Cuba had wanted to hold the talks on Thursday, it said. "The government of the United States is entirely responsible for the cancellation of this round of migration talks," the statement said. "These are merely new pretexts to aggravate tensions between the two countries," the foreign ministry said.
……………. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega told reporters in New York the Cuban leader was lending increasing support to anti-government groups in Latin America. On Monday, a State Department spokesman expressed concern over reports that Castro and Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez were working together to promote and finance anti-government groups in the region. ***
The left-wing populist president has waged a noisy two-month public campaign to pressure the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) to free the funds for his government, which has clashed with the bank in the past over economic policies.
Central bank directors have so far resisted the president's repeated public threats, arguing that the country's laws do not allow them to use international reserves to finance the government's current spending.
"Well, we'll see. If the Central Bank of Venezuela has to be taken over, then it will be," Chavez said at a rally in the western oil state of Maracaibo.
As he spoke, around 100 of his supporters demonstrated outside central bank headquarters in Caracas to back his demand for the $1 billion handout to finance food production.
Chavez said it was "illogical and absurd" that the bank should be holding international reserves of more than $21 billion, while the government was spending millions of dollars to import basic food staples like beans, milk and chicken.***
[Vheadline.com reaction to Reuters report LINKED at article.]
The third problem related to the request is that Chavez obviously needs the money to throw it around in yet another show of paternalistic generosity, in order to buy the votes he will need to continue his systematic efforts of national destruction and his regional political messianic dreams. No matter how we look at this attempt by Chavez to lay his paws on the money (which belongs to all of us, Venezuelans) there is no doubt that he has to be stopped.
The Board of the Venezuelan Central Bank includes several Chavez followers, but even they are shocked at the arrogance of the ultimatum they have been delivered by this insensitive and ignorant man: "Fork over the money or you will be intervened," he has told the Board. All members of the Board with red blood flowing through their veins are probably thinking: "F*** you. Man!"
There is a moment in the life of every person where he has to live up to his creed ... for the members of the Board of the Venezuelan Central Bank that moment seems to have arrived. Personally, I think Hugo Chavez is in for a big surprise ... he does not longer seem to scare anyone ... he is starting to look like the echo of a shadow of a shade, in the words of the great science fiction writer Dan Simmons.***
On September 29 alone, six flights brought 950 Cubans, mostly males in their 30s and 40s. These "Cubans travel without caring about their belongings, which are loaded directly from the planes to the trucks of the mayor's offices," reported the journal El Universal on November 18. "The load is guarded by National Guard officers."
In this nation that once had a free press, the tightening grip of the Chavez dictatorship has forbidden the photographing of this airport influx of operatives from his friend Fidel Castro's Communist police state.
"The use of TV cameras as well as the presence of journalists from any mass media is prohibited," reported El Universal. "Nevertheless, a few photojournalists have managed to catch images from landings, defeating security controls."
Between September 26 and October 27, this journal reports from its sources that 11,530 Cubans arrived in Venezuela on 76 such flights. Chavez's seizure of one television station and threats against the rest of the press have reduced such critical news coverage of his regime.***
I was delighted, therefore, when I traveled with others from the TransAfrica Forum to celebrate King's birthday in Caracas, Venezuela. We went with Minister of Education Aristobulo Isturiz to open a school named after King. It's among more than 3,000 "Bolivarian" schools created since Hugo Chavez became Venezuela's president in 1999. The schools, open all day, provide two meals and a snack to poor children.
There's also a new Bolivarian University, which increases higher education's availability, especially to poorer students. Further, more than a million adults have taken literacy classes in the past two years.
Chavez has taken his message of economic justice from Venezuela to the whole of Latin America. He opposes a free-trade agreement for the Americas and suggests that a development fund be established to help poor Latin American countries withstand economic oscillations and eliminate poverty.
Not surprisingly, Chavez and George W. Bush have clashed because of their different views of Latin American economic development. Chavez, for instance, appropriately described national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as "illiterate" about Latin American politics and economics.***
"Clearly, an axis can be seen ... -- and it's not an axis of evil as some people say -- .. that passes from Caracas, through Brasilia and reaches Buenos Aires," the left-wing Venezuelan leader said in a state of the nation speech to parliament.
Chavez spoke a day after returning from a summit of regional leaders in Monterrey, Mexico in which he, President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva sharply criticized Washington's plans for a hemisphere-wide free trade zone.
U.S. President Bush tried to rally Latin American support at the summit for the U.S. project to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas by Jan. 1, 2005.
Chavez, an outspoken former paratrooper elected in 1998, on Thursday hailed Kirchner and Lula as like-minded leaders spearheading a Latin American continent that is increasingly shying away from U.S. polices.
"There is a new America present, a new voice," he said.
He has campaigned vehemently against the proposed FTAA, arguing that Latin America's weaker economies cannot compete with powerful U.S. corporations. He says the region should first strengthen its own trade ties.
Chavez, who held talks with Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana on the way back from Mexico, also called for communist-run Cuba to be allowed to participate in any future Summit of the Americas.
Castro is barred from these summits because the United States shuns his one-party government as undemocratic.
"I think it would be good if we consulted all the countries of Latin America about whether it's right that Cuba should be excluded. Yes or no?" Chavez said.
The Venezuelan president said the growing cooperation between Cuba and Venezuela, in which more than 10,000 Cuban doctors are participating in Venezuelan government health projects, was a model of social and economic collaboration.
"Yes, we are de-stabilizers ... Fidel and Chavez ... against death, against injustice, against hunger, sickness and inequality," Chavez said. He faces a bid by foes to hold a referendum this year to try to vote him out of office.
"The U.S. Embassy has received information of a possible threat against U.S. interests in Caracas sometime between Sunday, January 18, and Tuesday morning," said the advisory on a U.S. State Department Web site. "U.S. citizens are advised to maintain security awareness."
The embassy warning also said that "the risk of encountering explosive devices in Venezuela, particularly in Caracas, appears to be on the increase. These appear to be related with recent political unrest."
Officials at the U.S. Embassy could not immediately be reached for comment.
Several bombings in this South American capital of 6 million last year have raised tensions in this city, though none of the attacks targeted a U.S.-owned business.
Venezuela has been steeped in a political crisis for two years, which has included a short-lived 2002 coup and crippling two-month strike against President Hugo Chavez last year.
Government opponents accuse him of becoming increasingly authoritarian and are pushing for his recall. Chavez claims his adversaries are conspiring to grab power by any means possible. [end]
Supreme Court Judge Alejandro Angulo Fontiveros said the so-called "famine theft" clause should be part of a broad penal code reform measure for humanitarian reasons. "This is a guide for judges to avoid injustice," said Mr Fontiveros, who is in charge of drafting the reforms. "They lock up for years a poor person who lives in atrocious misery and what they need is medicine."
But critics say the initiative will fuel crime in a country mired in a recession and where police last year reported an average of 25 murders a day and thousands of robberies a month. Two thirds of Venezuela's 25 million people are poor and a third of those cannot afford their basic food needs despite the nation's huge oil wealth, according to government figures. [end]
Approval of the bill would allow the leftist populist president to get his way in the courts, including blocking or delaying the referendum by filing any number of appeals against the process, without having to violate the constitution to remain in power.
''The judicial system is pyramidal and centralized,'' said Gerardo Blyde, a constitutional lawyer and legislator for the opposition Justice First party, ``The Supreme Court is at the top. Political domination of the court would result in political domination of the entire judiciary.''
The 20-member Supreme Court appears almost evenly divided between Chávez supporters and critics. The justices have occasionally ruled in favor of an opposition movement that claims to have collected some 3.4 million signatures demanding a recall vote against the president.
The Chavistas' push for new rules that would speed up consideration of the bill came at an extremely sensitive time. Venezuela waits on tenterhooks for the National Electoral Council to rule whether the opposition has enough valid signatures in December to force a referendum.
The new rules proposed for the legislative National Assembly, the seventh reform of procedures since Chávez supporters won control of the assembly in 1999, would limit severely the number of speakers in any debate and further hobble the opposition's ability to use procedural delaying tactics.
The new rules can be approved by a simple majority in the 165-member assembly where Chávez's supporters have a five-seat majority.***
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