Venezuelans resume protests as Chavez looks for food and fuel abroad

CARACAS, Venezuela - Striking oil executives vowed Thursday to keep a lid on Venezuela's petroleum exports until President Hugo Chavez calls an early vote on his presidency.

Having marked Christmas with a raucous pot-and-pan-banging protest followed by church services for peace, more than 1,000 oil executives staged a noisy rally in Caracas on Thursday chanting "Freedom!"

"This is a fight of a people who are demanding liberty!" Timoteo Zambrano, an opposition negotiator at talks sponsored by the Organization of American States, proclaimed to deafening cheers.

"The international community cannot ask for the impossible" — call off the strike and resume oil exports, Zambrano said.

Several opposition marches were planned for later Thursday in Caracas, the capital.

Zambrano said the opposition had three proposals at talks sponsored by the OAS: Chavez quit; Chavez call a referendum on his rule in early 2003; and Chavez guarantee the jobs of striking workers at the state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela S.A.

Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton said the government was determined to defeat the strike.

"I suppose those who are on strike want the government to give in, and we want them to give in. We want to win this battle," Chaderton told Globovision television.

Venezuela's opposition called the strike Dec. 2 to back its demand for a nonbinding Feb. 2 referendum on Chavez's presidency. The strike has paralyzed oil production in the world's No. 5 exporter, forcing the government to seek fuel and food abroad.

Brazil's state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro shipped 520,000 barrels of gasoline to Venezuela. The tanker should arrive by the weekend, Brazilian (news - web sites) officials said Thursday.

Once the strike ends, Venezuela will pay oil for food from the Dominican Republic, Agriculture Minister Efren Andrade said. The deal includes a recent rice shipment.

OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria was returning to Caracas to continue weeks of talks on an early vote on Chavez's presidency. There has been little progress.

Chavez has refused opposition demands that he call a nonbinding referendum on his government, that he step down, or that he schedule new presidential elections. Venezuela's opposition delivered 2 million signatures demanding the nonbinding vote, and the national elections council is verifying signatures and organizing a poll.

Chavez, whose six-year term runs to January 2007, says such a vote requires changing Venezuela's constitution, a process that must be conducted in the Chavez-dominated National Assembly.

The president has welcomed the possibility of a binding referendum on his presidency in August 2003, or halfway into his term, as permitted by the constitution. Opponents cite a constitutional clause allowing Venezuelans not to recognize a government considered undemocratic.

"A lot of people are asking how long the marches can go on for, how many rallies, how long can I keep shouting, demonstrating in the street. But that's what we're going to do," said Enrique Mendoza, governor of Miranda State.

The shutdown has cost PDVSA US$1.3 billion and helped push world oil prices above US$31 a barrel. Most Venezuelan service stations are closed.

At least 30,000 of 40,000 PDVSA employees are striking. Exports in December totaled just 2 million barrels, down from 3 million barrels per day before the strike.

Thanks for the update.

Once proudly self-sufficient, oil-rich Venezuela looking abroad for gasoline and food - By STEPHEN IXER, AP [Full Text] CARACAS, Venezuela - A nationwide strike aimed at toppling President Hugo Chavez has forced Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, to import gasoline and haggle with other countries for food. In deals that were once unthinkable here, Brazil announced Thursday it would ship 520,000 barrels of gasoline to Venezuela by the weekend while the Dominican Republic said it would send food as a partial payment for oil it has received in the past. Venezuela is also negotiating with neighboring Colombia for milk and meat, said Agriculture Minister Efren Andrade.

The nearly month-old strike has paralyzed Venezuela's all-important petroleum industry, which usually supplies the United States with 14 percent of its oil. Exports have declined from 3 million barrels a day to a trickle, depriving Venezuela of $50 million a day in revenue. Regular Venezuelans, who once took pride in their country's cheap fuel, are now facing shortages. On Thursday, about 300 people blocked a Caracas highway to demand propane cooking gas. "We are desperate. We've been using charcoal and kerosene to cook for two weeks now," said Faustino Gonzalez, a 59-year-old taxi driver. As foreign oil orders went unfilled, opposition leaders met with Brazil's ambassador Thursday to urge Brazil not to interfere by helping Chavez break the oil strike. The government rejected opposition demands that striking oil workers be allowed to keep their jobs as part of any settlement, government negotiator Nicolas Maduro said Thursday.

Fears that the strike could continue well into 2003, coupled with fears of war in Iraq, have helped push oil prices above $32 a barrel, the highest in two years. As the strike began biting into the savings of Venezuelan workers, one protest leader, Caracas City Councilman Enrique Ochoa Antich, said the opposition should consider ending the strike and focus instead on a referendum on Chavez's presidency. "The fundamental outcome we wanted (with the strike), the president's resignation, or his compliance with a consultative referendum, has not been achieved," said Ochoa Antich.

Venezuelan labor, business and political leaders launched the strike on Dec. 2 to demand that Chavez accept a Feb. 2 nonbinding referendum on his rule. The national elections council is organizing a vote over Chavez's objections. The president's opponents, who blame him for a steep recession, originally said they hoped a poor showing by Chavez in a nonbinding vote would increase pressure on him to resign. Chavez argues a nonbinding vote is unconstitutional and declared he wouldn't leave office even if 90 percent voted against him. Pro-Chavez lawmakers have asked the Supreme Court to declare the vote illegal. The president says his opponents can call a binding recall vote halfway into his six-year term, or next August. But during talks sponsored by the Organization of American States on Thursday, the government agreed not stand in the way of the referendum if the Supreme Court upholds it, Maduro said.

Ochoa Antich said the opposition must spend the coming weeks preparing international observers and voting materials for the referendum. He warned the strike was hurting the country and Chavez showed no sign of budging. "Unfortunately, we have a government that is capable of cutting off its nose" to stay in power, he said. However, other opposition politicians said there were no plans to call off the strike. "We will continue (the strike) until the government recognizes the crisis it is in and agrees to an electoral solution," said Carlos Ocariz, whose Justice First party is leading the referendum drive. [End]

Excellent posting, thank you!

For more on the support (and the resaons behind it) that Chavez is now getting, see the original of the following here...
http://www.militaresdemocraticos.com/articulos/en/20021227-01.html

Brazilian Plotter Buys Time for Chavez; Has Links to Terrorists and to Saddam

Marco Aurelio Garcia

By Johan Freitas, in Caracas

" - We have to first give the impression that we are democrats," says Marco Aurélio Garcia, the hardline marxist behind president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil. "Initially, we have to accept certain things. But that won't last," he warns.1

Marco Aurelio Garcia was in Venezuela last week, lending a helping hand to another make-believe democrat, Hugo Chavez. The country's general strike has left pumps dry and motorists stranded. The effects of the strike threaten to unseat Chavez. But now, thanks to Marco Aurelio Garcia, Chavez just bought himself some time: A Brazilian tanker, the Amazon Explorer, is on its way with 520.000 barrels of gasoline from the Brazilian oil company Petrobras.

Why the urgent need to personally arrive and help out? Why would Brazil intervene to break-up a strictly Venezuelan strike? Why does Lula want Chavez to stay?

A closer look at Marco Aurelio Garcia, the man behind the plan...

"Democracy is just a farce for taking power"
In interview with the French "Le Monde", Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva repeats words taught to him by Marco Aurélio Garcia when he calls a democratic election a "farce" that is merely a necessary step for the taking of power in a nation.2

For Marco Aurelio Garcia, these words are not just theory. He lived them personally, from 1969 to 1973 when he was a foreign political activist in Chile during the Salvador Allende regime.3 Allende was democratically elected, but once in power used the government to close newspapers and harshly control his political opposition. In a public scandal, huge caches of Cuban weapons were found in his home, sent from Cuba's president Fidel Castro to arm citizen militias to "defend the socialist revolution" in Chile. A Brazilian was a key helper. This was Marco Aurelio Garcia's first contact to Cuban operatives abroad.

In 1980, Marco Aurelio Garcia founded 'PT', the Brazilian Worker's Party, with Lula da Silva. Ever since founding the party, he has been its international affairs advisor.

Fast forward to 1990. Spurred on by Castro, who by this time had orchestrated military incursions in more than 30 different countries, Marco Aurelio Garcia calls a meeting of all left-wing groups from Latin America and the Caribbean. Representatives from 48 different communist parties and terrorist groups attend. This becomes the "Foro de São Paulo", which is founded with Marco Aurelio Garcia as its head -- a title which he still holds today, 12 years later.

The Sao Paulo Forum: Supporters of terrorism
As the leader of the Sao Paulo Forum, Garcia controls and coordinates the activities of subversives and extremists from the Rio Grande to the southernmost tip of Argentina.
Several of the members of the Sao Paulo Forum are terrorists. Some are on the FBI's Most Wanted list. But this is not a coincidence. The Sao Paulo Forum, under the auspices of its executive secretary Marco Aurelio Garcia, has made it a policy to support terrorist groups. Consider this quote from its 10th Congress, which took place NEW-AXIS December 7, 2001 in Havana, Cuba, and which refers to the terrorist groups ELN and FARC of Colombia:
"9. Ratify the legitimacy, justice and necessity of the Colombian organizations' fight and our solidarity with them."

The new axis of terrorism starts with Cuba, then works its way down to Colombia, financed with Venezuelan oil billions, and ends in budding superpower Brazil.

In a policy dictated by Havana, Cuba, the Sao Paulo Forum leader Marco Aurelio Garcia has shown special interest in named terrorist Manuel Marulanda Velez, a.k.a. 'Tirofijo', leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Every year from 1990, Garcia has made it his priority to personally meet with FARC. The meetings have not just taken place in Havana (with Fidel Castro himself being always present), but also in Mexico, where Marco Aurelio Garcia travelled to meet with FARC-member Marco León Calara on Tuesday, December 5 2000.

What they talk about is a matter that remains behind closed doors. But every time they meet, FARC always increases its attacks in the weeks that follow, with a high cost in loss of human lives.

What's in store for Brazil - and the region...
Brazil's foreign policy, under the guidance of Marco Aurelio Garcia , will be designed in Havana, Cuba. Garcia's Brazil will actively work against current United States policy, starting with it's policy towards Fidel Castro: "We'll attempt to eliminate the trade embargo against Cuba," he promises.4

Marco Aurelio Garcia describes his party, PT, as "radical, of the left, socialist"5. But Garcia is more than radical, and more to the left of mere socialists. Because Garcia is, in fact, a hardline communist. He wants to revive communism. In an article which he wrote about 'The Communist Manifest' by Karl Marx, he ended saying that: "The agenda is clear. If this new horizon which we search for is still called communism, it is time to re-constitute it."6

Marco Aurelio Garcia works closely with other marxist politicians around the world and appears in anthologies whose other participants read like a who's-who of international terrorism supporters. From Cuba, we meet Dario Machado and Marta Harnecker. From China, YunLin Nie, author of "The Communist Manifesto and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics". Pham Nhu Cuong represents Vietnam, and Mohamed Latifi is the Iranian contact. Extremists from democratic countries also collaborate, like Seppo Ruotsalainen ("The Revolutionary Process and Manifesto") from Finland, Alan Woods ("The Communist Manifesto Today") from England, and Pierre Zarka ("The Manifest of the Communist Party") from France. All share a deep and intense hatred of the United States, and everything that the West stands for.7

The Nuclear Weapons link to Saddam
Brazil used to have a nuclear weapons development program, which they stopped at the request of the United States. But now, with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in charge and Marco Aurelio Garcia directing foreign strategy, there are plans for the program to be silently reactivated. Nuclear capability is necessary for the strong anti-Americanism of Marco Aurelio Garcia and the terrorist groups which he supports through the Sao Paulo Forum.

From a nuclear Brazil, there are links to Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The first link is Hugo Chavez. The second, Sao Paulo Forum co-founder Fidel Castro. Hugo Chavez is Saddam's best friend in Latin America, and has personally visited and supported Saddam Hussein. After the first Chavez visit, Fidel Castro then sent his right-hand man, Rodrigo Alvarez Cambras, to Iraq for personal discussions with Saddam as well. Up until now, the trio of Saddam-Castro-Chavez has only worked together on bio-weapons. But from January 2003, with Lula taking power in Brazil, nuclear warheads will be added to the mix as well. It is just a matter of time. And with the rescue package of Brazilian gasoline to Chavez, Marco Aurelio Garcia just bought some more time for the beleaguered Venezuelan president.
In a world where totalitarian dictatorships are still very much alive, nothing would please Marco Aurelio Garcia more than to see Saddam go nuclear.

More information: www.MilitaresDemocraticos.com

REFERENCES:

1: “La Nación”, Buenos Aires (Argentina) 5 October 2002.
2: Le Monde, Paris: "En privé, Lula, âgé de 56 ans, pense tout haut que l'élection est une "farce" et qu'il faut en passer par là pour prendre le pouvoir".
3: Article in "O Estado de S. Paulo" Newspaper (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Monday, Nov 6 2000: "Quem é Marco Aurélio Garcia"
4: Emilio J. Corbière, quoting Marco Aurelio Garcia in: "Lulazo, populismo y desarrollismo", published in "La Fogata, el fuego de la lucha revolucionaria" 28 October 2002
5: Marco Aurélio Garcia, "A social-democracia e o PT", from Revista Teoria & Debate N° 12, Sao Paulo, Oct/Dec. Issue 1990
6: "O Manifesto e a refundação do comunismo", by Marco Aurélio Garcia, published in Teoria e debate, nº 36. Brazil. 26 January 2001.
7: Source: Internatif, France (2002)

December 27, 2002

Click this banner below for all the newly released English language versions of the cutting-edge expose's of Chavez regime (like his Cuban Bio-Weapon's Lab & support of Saddam's Iraq, Al Qaeda, Columbian guerillas, drug trade, etc.) direct from his top military who have just left him and have first-hand knowledge of it all...

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-Shane

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