Posted on 12/08/2002 12:27:42 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Graciela Angarita hasn't spoken to her sister in more than a year. Theirs is a family feud that is becoming more and more common in a country roiled by political turmoil.
While many Venezuelans often find themselves disagreeing with their brothers, sisters, parents and cousins over issues great and small, observers say, they have rarely allowed their differences to drive them apart. Now, though, the national uproar over President Hugo Chavez's rule seems to be rending many families.
"She doesn't call me, and she doesn't visit me when she's in town," Angarita, a physician, said of her sister.
Since last April, when violence flared in the streets and a coup briefly ousted Chavez, the country's political drama has divided the armed forces labor union and petroleum producers. Now it has arrived at the doorsteps of many households, and some people, like 34-year-old Juana Sulvaran, find it easier not to speak to close relatives.
"Five of my seven brothers and sisters voted for Chavez," said Sulvaran, an economic analyst. "Today, only one is a Chavez supporter -- and she doesn't speak to the rest of us."
Sulvaran said her mother even tried to act as a go-between with her sister but she failed. "There has been no way to reconcile our differences," she said.
Tensions in Venezuela mounted last week when opposition leaders began a national strike aimed at pressuring Chavez into resigning or calling early elections. The strike sparked street demonstrations across the country, spread to an oil tanker briefly taken over by its crew and ended a dialogue between the two sides, making a negotiated solution appear remote.
Chavez, for his part, accused strike leaders of pursuing the same tactics they used to topple him last spring -- street marches, a general strike and an oil industry shutdown, all backed by Venezuela's privately owned news media.
"I don't spend more than five minutes at my house," said Modesto Rojas, 39, a Chavez supporter who lives with her brother's family -- all anti-Chavez partisans.
"As soon as I walk in the door," she said, "they start insulting me. I prefer to not to talk to anyone. I'm looking for another place to live."
Chavez has a way of getting under the skin of his critics, some of whom become agitated just by seeing his picture on television or hearing his voice on radio. Tempers often flare when politics comes up here. And it's hard to avoid talking about politics in Venezuela these days when police and National Guard troops break up political demonstrations with regularity.
Sat Dec 7, 5:52 PM ET Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez gives a speech to his supporters during a rally outside of Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Dec 7, 2002. Thousands of people wearing red berets marched through the capital of oil-rich Venezuela to support embattled President Chavez a day after three people were fatally shot at an opposition rally.(AP Photo/Gregorio Marrero)
"The country's political conflict has started to reach my office in recent months," said Rosalma Davalos, a psychiatrist who provides individual and family counseling. "Since the April coup, patients have increasingly complained that they fight about politics with family members.
"In aggressive families, people have gone beyond insulting each other, and actually get into fistfights."
The political turmoil has even strained some couples' sexual relations, the psychiatrist said, because of a higher level of stress brought about by frequent protests and street fighting.
Chavez, a former paratrooper who led a failed coup attempt in 1992, was elected in 1998 on promises to reduce poverty, end corruption and rebuild the government of the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
He retains a strong base of militant supporters around the country. But his attempts to remake Venezuela's political system, which many of his poor supporters believe was run for the benefit of the rich, has provoked a strong backlash.
Last April, 19 people were killed when violence broke out at an opposition demonstration, leading to the coup that ousted Chavez for two days. Both sides still blame each other for the violence, and authorities have not determined who was responsible for the deaths.
Even television provides little diversion from the street conflict these days, since commercial channels frequently run anti-Chavez programs while state-run stations stoutly support him. As a result, many people, eager to avoid arguing, simply don't turn on their sets.
The family division reached Chavez himself in May, when his wife, Maria Isabel de Chavez, announced that she had filed for divorce, taking their child with her to live in the interior of Venezuela.
Maria Isabel de Chavez said personal reasons motivated the divorce. But some observers said that opposition protesters, who greeted her at public events by banging on pots and pans, certainly didn't help her home life.
Numerous other public figures have found themselves on opposite sides of the fence from their family members.
Dr. Hermann Escarra, a constitutional expert who works with opposition leaders, says he has to avoid talking politics with his brother, Dr. Carlos Escarra, a pro-government constitutional expert.
Jorge Valero, Venezuela's representative to the Organization of American States, has severed relations with his brother Hidalgo, a militant opposition spokesman.
As the political battles heat up, many analysts wonder whether the opposing sides will call a truce during the Christmas season. With few signs of relief in evidence, some even fear this year's holiday celebrations will be marred by political conflict.
"I've never lived through a situation like this one," said Rojas, the Chavez supporter who lives a family feud. "I really don't know what Christmas will be like this year."
Especially the part where seeing him on television makes people agitated! I have TOTAL sympathy for the anti-Chavez people, as I have felt that way myself through 8 long years!
And long years they were. I hope both Clintons get all the justice they deserve, and the sooner the better.
I don't pay much attention to S. America, but I thought we were sort of counting on Venezuelan oil to come through in case the Iraqi war caused disruptions in Middle East crude. Doesn't sound like the situation will soon stabilize so I wonder how much Bush is counting on them now.
This is more serious for him, as many of his supporters have gone over to the other side. This is good, as it will be an overthrow by the people, not just the miitary.
A pro-USA, or at least a neutral government, will be happy to sell us oil. They need the money.
"On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.
"The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.
"Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.
"But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social." - Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto.
It is the philosophy of the atheist and the anthill.
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