Posted on 01/04/2003 10:59:39 AM PST by Dog Gone
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Foes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday they would hold a referendum on his rule next month despite government objections and an upsurge of political violence that killed two people.
Violent street clashes in Caracas on Friday between troops and feuding supporters and opponents of the leftist president broke an uneasy Christmas holiday calm and fired up tensions during an opposition strike that has lasted nearly five weeks.
The 34-day-old shutdown has crippled oil output and exports by the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter. But opposition leaders have vowed to maintain the grueling strike until former paratrooper Chavez resigns or calls early elections.
Several thousand Chavez supporters waving national flags and chanting pro-government slogans marched in the southwest of the capital on Saturday to back the populist leader.
As part of its campaign, the opposition has set its sights on a nonbinding consultative referendum on Chavez's rule scheduled by electoral authorities for Feb 2. The referendum will ask Venezuelans if they want the president to resign.
"We will hold the referendum against all odds," opposition representative Timoteo Zambrano told Reuters on Saturday.
The government has contested the Feb. 2 referendum in an appeal to the Supreme Court, rejecting it as unconstitutional and refusing to fund it.
Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and survived a coup in April, has said he will ignore the referendum result. He accuses opponents of trying again to topple him from power.
They brand him a dictator and say his left-wing policies are dragging the country toward Cuba-style communism. A defeat in the referendum will rob him of legitimacy, they say.
Chavez tells foes they must wait until August -- halfway through his current term due to last until 2007 -- when he says the constitution allows for a binding referendum on his rule.
But opposition leaders say the country's crisis cannot wait. They plan a public collection to obtain the $21.4 million required to finance the Feb. 2 referendum. The National Electoral Council, the official electoral body, said the poll might have to be postponed if financing was not forthcoming.
MORE VIOLENCE FEARED
The deadlocked political conflict in South America's biggest oil producer has jolted world oil markets and caused international alarm, especially in the United States which has seen its imports of Venezuelan oil disrupted. Venezuela normally provides more than 13 percent of U.S. oil imports.
Friday's clashes in the streets of Caracas were a reminder of just how easily the political conflict between Chavez and his foes could spiral into all-out, uncontrolled violence.
The confused battles between rival demonstrators and police and troops turned part of southwest Caracas into a battleground clouded with tear gas and smoke. Two people died from gunshot wounds and four others were injured by bullets. At least 20 others were hurt by stones and other objects thrown.
Government and opposition blamed each other for the deaths. "The two dead were our people," said Rafael Vargas, a leader of Chavez's ruling Fifth Republic Movement or MVR.
Witnesses to the clashes said protesters on both sides had handguns but it was hard to say who started the shooting.
"The government is trying to create a climate of political violence to see whether it can declare a state of emergency to avoid the consultative referendum," Zambrano said.
Chavez said on Friday events did not merit introducing emergency measures, but he would be ready to do so if public order or national sovereignty were seriously threatened.
He said it was unreasonable for his foes to demand funds for a referendum when they were staging a strike costing the nation millions of dollars a day in lost oil revenue.
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