[Excerpts from LINKS in this thread]
April 2001 - Mr. Chávez has described the subsequent purge of Ms. Imber and others as the start of a "Bolivarian cultural revolution," a reference to Venezuela's national hero, Simón Bolívar. But that term has generated apprehension here, especially in view of Mr. Chávez's declaration "I am a Maoist," made during the visit this month of President Jiang Zemin of China, and the agreements he has signed to bring Cuban advisers and exchange programs to Venezuela. Cultural affairs in this oil-rich nation of 24 million people are supervised by the same ministry that is responsible for education and sports. Last year Mr. Chávez made Manuel Espinoza, 64, a former Communist Party member and painter whose work has been exhibited, among other places, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the country's top cultural official by appointing him director of the National Council of Culture. [Castro has sent Chavez over 600 teachers, doctors and sports advisors.]
May 2001 - ``We're described in the world in a similar way,'' Chavez told Putin later, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. ``We're called people of democracy, with our own vision of democracy.''
June 2001- "Foreigners who come here and say something that offends the country or the government or the president or the people will be expelled from Venezuela. Starting today," Chavez said Sunday at a business forum.
Chavez recently warned he would declare a "state of emergency" to give himself more power to combat poverty and crime. He has yet to do so and accused the news media of exaggerating his remarks.
June 2001 - ``We count on you comrades,'' Chavez told communist supporters. ``The goal is clear: smash the conspiracy and promote the revolution.''
June 2001 - ``We are going to defeat the counter-revolution and push forward with the revolution,'' Chavez told cheering Communist militants who chanted ``Unity, unity'' in a theater decorated with revolutionary slogans and pictures of Argentine guerrilla icon Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara.--- During his fiery speech, Chavez announced ``revolutionary laws'' were being prepared, praised Russia, China and Cuba. While few leaders can sustain high ratings two years after taking office, Chavez enjoys continued high popularity marks. But recent polls give him poorer grades for job performance.
June 2001 - Chavez addressed the issue (declining popularity) during his homecoming speech, insisting that his popularity ``would never fall because Chavez is no longer Chavez. Chavez is the people.''
July 2001 - Chavez, who won a landslide election victory in 1998 six years after leading a failed coup bid, said those critics who accused his government of restricting freedoms were acting in ''bad faith'' or were ignorant about the reality of Venezuela. ``We still keep hearing this sort of thing ... and it makes one think, a bit like Jesus of Nazareth, 'Forgive them Lord, because they know not what they say or do,''' he said, citing a phrase attributed to Jesus Christ when he was crucified.
July 2001 - Chávez announced a plan to form "Bolivarian circles," neighborhood clubs that would instill the principles of the 19th-century hero such as moral character, love of country, and solidarity. That plan immediately stoked fears that Chávez, feeling besieged, really wants a network similar to Cuba's Revolutionary Defense Committees.
July 2001 - Earlier this year cattlemen proposed forming private militias to fend off local criminals and rebels from neighboring Colombia. The idea was abandoned as President Hugo Chavez suspended the issuance of new gun licenses and threatened to jail would-be militiamen.
August 2001 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he was ``worried'' by rising capital flight from his South American nation and warned unnamed ``capitalists'' he said were trying to derail his government: ``We are watching you.''
August 2001 - The veteran Cuban leader, clad in his trademark olive-green military uniform and cap, was greeted at Maiquetia airport with full military honors, a 21-gun salute and a hug from Chavez. ``We welcome this 75-year-old youngster, the same Fidel as ever,'' the Venezuelan leader said. He hailed the Cuban president as a ``brother, friend and revolutionary soldier''…….In a radio and TV broadcast before Castro's arrival, 47-year-old Chavez hailed the Cuban president as the ``leader of noble and just causes in the continent and in the world''.
August 2001 - A former army paratrooper who led a failed 1992 coup - Castro tried the same in a 1953 attack against troops loyal to dictator Fulgencio Batista - Chavez has said that Venezuela is sailing in Cuba's ``sea of happiness.'' But energy and trade pacts with Cuba and China buttress the fears of Chavez's fragmented opposition.
August 2001 - The four-day visit, the first by a Chinese defense minister to oil-rich Venezuela, followed signs that Chavez' left-leaning government wanted to broaden its military ties and move away from a traditional past alliance with the United States. This month, Venezuela asked the U.S. military mission in Caracas to vacate its rent-free offices and seek alternative premises in a move that seemed to signal a cooling of relations between the U.S. and Venezuelan armed forces.
September 2001 - In a speech on Wednesday night opening a bilateral cooperation meeting in Caracas, Chavez heaped praise on veteran Cuban President Fidel and his communist-ruled island and hailed a year-old economic accord between the two countries. ``Now we can talk of a single team. This isn't two teams any more, this is a single Cuban-Venezuelan, Venezuelan-Cuban team,'' he told high-level delegations from both countries.
September 2001 - "I take this opportunity to call on all those who have a lot of land and are not using it to voluntarily put it at our disposal. And if they do not, we will have no alternative but to turn the screw on them,'' said Chavez, wearing his trademark military fatigues.
September 2001 - President Hugo Chavez urged the United States on Friday not to start the ``first war of the 21st century'' in responding to terrorist attacks.
October 2001 - President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has sparked a new tiff with the United States by holding up photos of dead children and telling his countrymen that the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan has left a wake of atrocities. ``See this baby? What fault did it have?'' Chávez said in a national televised speech Monday night, suggesting that allied bombing was leaving innocent civilian casualties.
November 2001 - Venezuela's Chavez Says Remarks About U.S. Attacks Were Misinterpreted-- "I want to be your friend," Chavez said in English. "It's not a condemnation, it's a reflection and call for peace, and that's the way it should be interpreted," he added in Spanish. "I lament very much that my reflections have been interpreted in a different manner than in the spirit which gave rise to them," he said.
November 2001 - ``We are on alert because of this situation and because of almost public calls by political and often corrupt groups for rebellion.'' ``There will not be a coup here,'' Chavez added.
November 2001 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday dismissed rumors of a possible military coup in his South American nation, but warned that if there were any such insurrection he would meet it with ``my rifle in hand.'' Asked if he had considered resigning in the face of bitter media criticism of his government and protests from many sectors of society, Chavez said: ``No way. There is no reason for that.'' ``If one day, I realize that I am doing harm to the country, then I would be the first to go far away,'' he said.
November 2001 - They are not going to blackmail me, I will not be pushed around by anyone,'' Chavez said. ``I am very clear in my mind about the part I must play in the national history now.''
November 2001 - ``I dare them to have that strike. We will see who has more strength, [business] or the sovereign people,'' Chávez said while inaugurating a transportation law. ``I'm the head of state. You're not going to put me against the wall; you're not going to blackmail me.''
December 2001 - President Hugo Chavez threatened on Saturday to nationalize banks that fail to observe legislation requiring them to lend at least 15 percent of their loan portfolio to small farmers. ``We can nationalize any bank that does not observe the law,'' Chavez said in a speech in Venezuela's National Assembly. ``Not only can we nationalize any bank, any banker that does not abide by the law could go to jail.''
December 2001 - Chávez, speaking in the morning at La Carlota air force base to mark Aviation Day while pots and pans were being banged from nearby residences, appeared furious at the strike's success. He said the action was called by oligarchs attempting to protect their entrenched interests against his land reform policies. ``I will never go and sit down at a negotiation table, not to consider the betrayal of a people 1,000 times betrayed,'' he bellowed. ``I am getting a pair of pliers because I'm going to start tightening the screws.''
January 2002 - Opposition lawmakers attacked by supporters of Venezuela's President Chavez : Chavez called the violence a "warning" to the opposition "and its absurd and evil intention" of trying to destabilize his government. He threatened to deploy supporters on "every street corner" to "defend the revolution," as the leftist leader refers to his policies.
January 2002 - ''This revolution is not against the rich. ... The middle class can count on this revolutionary government to respect their rights and their property,'' Chavez said. He said the media had manipulated his frequent diatribes against ''oligarchs.''
January 2002 - The hearts of President Hugo Chavez's numerous and vociferous critics must have leapt as he announced his departure from the historic Miraflores presidential palace. But the outspoken former-paratrooper, who is due to serve as president of the world's No. 4 oil exporter until 2007, quickly frustrated his opponents by clarifying he was leaving the 19th century mansion so a university could be set up there. ``I am going from Miraflores,'' said the 47-year-old president in a speech late on Wednesday, adding ``I leave it to the children, for the birth of a Popular Bolivarian University.'' Chavez, who has renamed his South American country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in honor of 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, announced the surprise move at the swearing in of a new higher education minister.
``I am sure my squalid opponents were elated when I said I was leaving Miraflores,'' chuckled the leftist leader, whose three-year-old ``revolution'' has deepened class divisions in his dilapidated but oil-rich republic. The palace, which was built by former dictator Joaquin Crespo and bought by the government in 1911, ``has fulfilled its mission,'' Chavez said. Standing at the center of Caracas' long valley, which is home to some 5 million inhabitants, the Miraflores palace is flanked by a huge army barracks. ``Later on I will tell you where I am going to move,'' Chavez said. [As far as I know he's still living there]
January 2002 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez assailed the country´s Catholic bishops, accusing them of not "walking in the way of God" because they do not openly support thepolitical leader´s "revolution." Chávez added: "Look here, Monsignor, one of the tumors of the revolution is the Catholic Church."
February 2002 - Cheered by supporters wearing red and jeered by black-clad foes, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday feted the botched 1992 coup that made him famous, saying it had spawned a full-scale "revolution." Chavez, who won the presidency through the ballot box six years after failing to seize power with the gun, had declared the Feb. 4 anniversary a "day of jubilation" and led four days of government-organized rallies, marches and ceremonies. "It was a dark night smelling of gunpowder and lead," Chavez, who wore a dark suit instead of military fatigues, said in a homage to those killed during the uprising led by him. "And here we are today, 10 years later, in the midst of a full-scale revolution, well on the way toward definitively restoring social justice for the people," he added.
February 2002 - In an uncharacteristically conciliatory speech late on Wednesday, the former paratrooper even extended an olive branch to his domestic opponents, asking them to help him "sheathe his sword" and end confrontation over contested economic reforms. "I am not a communist. ... I am very clear about which direction my country is going," the 47-year-old president, who is known for his abrasive, outspoken leadership style, said in the city of Maracay after swearing in a new trade minister.
February 2002 - Chavez said his government's policies "are the business of no one else in the world except Venezuelans." Noting that his visit to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 2000 had "irritated some people in the world," Chavez said: "What do we care? Let them get irritated. ... We are defending the sacred interests of the Venezuelan people."
February 2002 - "I know the armed forces inside out. I come from there. I spent more than 20 years of my life in the military and I know who is who in the Venezuelan barracks," Chavez, a former paratrooper, said in an interview with Chilean State Television, broadcast in Caracas late on Saturday. "There is no serious opposition, they do not have leadership, they do not have an alternative project," he said.
February 2002 - Chavez ordered the secret and federal police to draw up a strategy to expose and punish businesses that are illegally adjusting prices. Violators could be sent to prison, he said. "We cannot allow a small group that controls commerce to take advantage of these necessary, just and opportune measures to try to enrich themselves," Chavez said during his weekly radio show.
February 2002 - Now his adversaries include the business community, labor unions, the middle class, neighboring countries -- and the church. The opposition has taken to calling him 'El Chalibán,'' a play on the word Taliban. The snowballing size of the opposition has led to increasing social and political tension. In December, an unlikely alliance -- business and labor -- conducted a one-day strike to protest Chávez' laws. A month later, a massive march took place in the streets; Chávez had the government TV station broadcast a Catholic Mass instead…. ``It's not just the middle class, it's every class. We would rather have someone else, but there are no other options. What we can't do is expect anyone to be our savior -- that's what happened when we voted for Chávez.''
February 2002 - "I am sure that the organs of power in Washington are not going to let themselves be duped or manipulated ... that the U.S. government knows what's really happening here," he said. He acknowledged, however, that the two countries had "different views" on some subjects. The U.S. government has criticized the Venezuelan leader for befriending its enemies like Iraq and Cuba and also for questioning the U.S-led anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan.
February 2002 - Egui Bastidas: "I am resigning because I disagree with the DISIP's policy of providing security to Colombian guerrillas-he also made a number of revelations about DISIP activities in recent months. He said the Venezuelan security service had collected personal information about all serving military officers and had also tried to smear opposition figures, such as Alberto Pena, the mayor of Metropolitan Caracas.
The official said he was also concerned at the growing role of Russian and Cuban security advisers in Venezuela. Egui Bastidas said he had experienced "the direct participation and the attempts at indoctrination by the Russian and Cuban intelligence services, who have direct and virtually unlimited access within the Helicoide (DISIP's headquarters building)." The official's lawyer, former DISIP Secretary-General Joaquin Chaffardet, said around 100 members of the Cuban intelligence services are currently operating in Venezuela.
February 2002 - "Venezuela has a government that was legitimately elected and enjoys popular support. I might even say that it enjoys more popular support than any other country in the American continent," he said. He claimed the news media were "putting on a show" with the officers. Adding weight to the dissidents' argument that they speak for a silent majority in the ranks, a Bush administration official said Tuesday that some Venezuelan officers have sounded out U.S. diplomats about how Washington would react to a coup. They were told the U.S. stridently opposes any subversion of Venezuela's democratic process, the official said on condition he not be identified.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the United States has made no secret of its concerns that Chavez has tried to stifle dissent. "We believe that all parties should respect democratic institutions," said the spokesman, Richard Boucher. "That applies to whatever direction the attacks on democracy might be coming from," he added.
February 2002 - Former paratrooper Chavez, who is battling growing opposition to his three-year-old rule, had called out his supporters to rally behind his government on the same day that anti-Chavez union bosses held a big anti-government protest. The competing demonstrations took place at a time when the president already is grappling with a faltering economy, open defiance from a handful of military officers and a revolt against his policies within the giant state oil firm PDVSA.
February 2002- But Chavez refuses to reconsider his appointment of leftist economist Gaston Parra as PDVSA president and of five government loyalists to the seven-member board of directors. He insists PDVSA employees must conform to state oil policy, which centers on strict compliance with production quotas imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The policy aims to stabilize oil prices but has significantly reduced PDVSA's production and output capacity. "They have to follow government policy because it's a state company. It's that simple." Chavez told foreign reporters earlier this week. "Those who don't agree can leave."
March 2002 - In comments Sunday, the Venezuelan leader slammed what he called ``perverse, immoral, lying and ill-intentioned'' coverage of Venezuela by national and international media.
March 2002 - "If they shut down the company, we'll militarize it. I am not going to allow Petroleos de Venezuela to be shut down," Chavez said.
March 2002 - Hailing the Venezuelan leader's "spirit and enthusiasm", the veteran Cuban president said Chavez would address the U.N. conference in Mexico as president of the Group of 77, which represents more than 130 developing countries. "No other voice could be better than yours to defend the interests of the (Group of) 77. ... You will have the possibility of putting forward the point of view of the progressive people of the world," Castro added.
March 2002 - In a speech in eastern Venezuela on Wednesday, Chavez scoffed at his opponents, calling them "poor things" and saying they viewed him as a "devil ... steeped in sulfur." Getting rid of Chavez is more difficult than trying to knock down a mule by pinching it," the president said during a ceremony to formally inaugurate a foreign-financed heavy crude oil upgrading project.
March 2002 - The world is living "a true genocide" and one cannot blame "this strategy on the poor countries. They are not the ones who conquered and pillaged entire continents over the centuries, nor did they establish colonialism, implant slavery, or create modern- day imperialism," said the Cuban leader in a speech that won enthusiastic applause from NGO delegates at the conference. According to his colleague Chávez, the world "is not only twisted," but it is "backwards," and the leaders of the world must straighten it out, he said in his address on behalf of the Group of 77, a bloc of 133 developing countries, plus China.
March 2002 - But until recent weeks, the skirmishes had been largely confined to newspaper editorial pages and Chavez's fiery speeches. Now, press advocates say, the president's incendiary verbal attacks have incited his followers to physical aggression against journalists. Angry hordes have shoved reporters and photographers covering presidential events, rocked and banged on television-station vehicles, and spewed epithets at reporters such as "traitors to the homeland" and "sell-outs."
"Some people feel legitimized (by Chavez) in lashing out at us physically and verbally," said Globovision television reporter Jose Vicente Antonetti, who has complained to the government's Human Rights Office. "He is instigating people by saying that Globovision does not report the truth, which is totally false." Reporters say the harassment is getting worse, with some saying that they have been followed, threatened and had their phones tapped. "One of the things they say is that my daughter is going to be the first death of this (Chavez) revolution," said Patricia Poleo, editor of the daily El Nuevo Pais.
At Chavez's radio show last Sunday, local newspapers reported that a Chavez supporter was videotaping journalists covering the event. When questioned, the videotaper ominously said the film was to identify the reporters to his colleagues. The previous week, the official government news agency Venpres issued a story denouncing three reporters who have been relentless in uncovering government corruption scandals, claiming they are "narco-journalists" in league with drug traffickers. Chavez later termed the story "a mistake."
April 2002 - "Comandante" Lina Ron, who considers herself a modern version of "Tania," a woman who fought alongside Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, says she is a willing martyr for Chavez's cause. She was arrested after leading a violent pro-Chavez counter-protest against demonstrating university students. Ron suggested that violence is needed to quash mounting opposition to Chavez - whose combative rhetoric has contributed to a precipitous decline in popularity polls. It's needed, she said, to allow Venezuela's majority poor a stake in the country's governance for the first time in history. Ron attributes her growing flock of supporters to a "gift that God gave me" so that "the people follow me and believe in me. ... We're ready for the Fatherland to call us."
Now Ron has become a focal point for debate about Chavez's "Bolivarian Circles," which the government calls self-help neighborhood groups. Chavez opponents call them a violent threat to democracy styled after Cuba's Revolutionary Block Committees. Created after Castro urged Venezuelans to "organize" to defend Chavez's revolution, the committees are forming street tribunals to demand Ron's release - and to symbolically prosecute government opponents as "traitors." In recent months, the 42-year-old Ron has organized and led street marches - called "countermarches" here - to stop or intimidate demonstrations by civilians and a disorganized opposition to Chavez. Two December marches to Miraflores, the presidential palace, were stopped by Ron's "countermarches." A February march to the National Assembly to commemorate Venezuelan democracy was similarly met - and diverted - by a countermarch.
Ron and her followers burned a U.S. flag in Caracas' central Plaza Bolivar just after the September terrorist attacks in the United States. The anti-Washington demonstration appalled many Venezuelans. More recently, Ron's followers threatened journalists at El Nacional newspaper in Caracas. Chavez has called Ron a political prisoner. "We salute Lina Ron, a female soldier who deserves the respect of all Venezuelans," he said recently.
…. "We've been forced to suspend the sessions because nobody can work like this, trying to vote while knowing that armed thugs are waiting outside," Cesar Perez, a member of the Social Christian Party, said Friday. More than 200 riot police and National Guardsmen were sent to the assembly on Thursday night to protect lawmakers from rowdy "Chavistas" who threw rocks and bottles when opposition legislator Pastor Heyra tried to enter the elegant assembly building.
April 2002 - Lately, Chavez declared himself a member of a charismatic congregation, thus allegedly belonging to his country's fastest-growing branch of Christianity. But then he angered the country's National Catholic Bishops Conference by communing at a Mass organized by a priest of pro-Communist leanings.
April 2002 - "Our patience in this conflict has been obvious," Chavez said in his weekly radio show. "We have been soft. That has been our error. They have crossed the line." "Tomorrow there may be more" firings, he added. Executives Horacio Medina, Juan Fernandez, Eddy Ramirez, Gonzalo Feijoo, Alfredo Gomez, Carmen Elisa Hernandez and Edgar Quijano were fired. Chavez accused the protesters of trying to "sabotage" Venezuela's oil industry and vowed that his efforts to reform PDVSA would continue. Last week, managers at Petroleos de Venezuela walked off the job to protest Chavez's attempts to assert control over the company.
April 2002 - Also on Wednesday, an army general whose duties included patrolling part of the western border with Colombia accused Chavez of taking a "passive" attitude toward leftist Colombian guerrillas. Brig. Gen. Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez said at a Caracas news conference that Colombian guerrillas maintain camps along the remote frontier and that Chavez's government was lying when it denied such camps exist inside Venezuela. Gonzalez Gonzalez accused Chavez of refusing to govern democratically, of sympathizing with the rebels and politicizing Venezuela's military. "Mr. President, you have betrayed the country," he said. "Respect the national armed forces."
April 2002 - Chavez has insisted that oil sales continue to Cuba, despite an unpaid $97 million bill for past sales.
April 11, 2002 - Chavez Foes March in Venezuela, Head for Palace - 500,000 march/ Update: Venezuela Leader Hugo Chavez Resigns (Chavez faces charges)
April 14, 2002 - Recently Ousted Communist President Hugo Chavez Reclaims Power in Venezuela
Phew! Cincy, thanks so much for putting all that together. What a great Venezuela primer. regards, By.
Thanks for all the great work you do keeping us informed on the events in Venezuela.
