Chavez opponents take their case to Washington meeting on Venezuelan crisis

yahoo.com ^ | July 25, 2003 | JOSEPH B. FRAZIER, AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

CARACAS, Venezuela - Opposition leaders on Friday took their case against President Hugo Chavez to Washington, where delegates from six countries were discussing Venezuela's crisis.

Chavez opponents were meeting with representatives of the six nations - United States, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal and Spain - which are supporting negotiations mediated by the Organization of American States.

Among the plans under discussion is one offered by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter that would end a 54-day-old general strike in exchange for early elections.

"As long as this group supports an electoral and peaceful solution to Venezuela's crisis, our efforts will coincide with theirs," Alejandro Armas, an opposition negotiator, told local Union Radio from Washington Friday. "We need to be sympathetic, optimistic and supportive of this initiative."

Venezuela's opposition called the strike Dec. 2 to demand that Chavez resign or call early elections, saying his leftist policies have damaged business and scared away foreign investment.

The strike has devastated the world's fifth largest oil exporter, though the government is gradually restoring production. Chavez has said he welcomed international help but warned against outside intervention in Venezuela's internal affairs.

He urged the six nations to recognize that his is an elected government and warned them not to give equal weight to an "undemocratic" opposition.

At a rally attended by 300,000 of his supporters Thursday, Chavez blasted his foes as a "fascist oligarchy" and insisted that his left-wing, populist regime would survive despite the crippling effects of the strike.

The president lashed out at media coverage of the strike, condemning the nation's four private television stations as the "four horsemen of the apocalypse" and threatening to rescind their broadcast licenses.

"The Venezuelan people don't want violence," he told the crowd. "But it's convenient to remind the coup-plotting, fascist oligarchy attempting to overthrow the Bolivarian government that the Venezuelan people are willing to defend their government."

A pipe bomb exploded in downtown Caracas at the time of the rally, killing one person and injuring at least 14.

The rally followed a decision earlier this week by Venezuela's supreme court to invalidate a planned Feb. 2 referendum aimed at forcing Chavez from power - a nonbinding vote that he had declared unconstitutional.

The strike in the world's No. 5 oil exporter has dried up oil revenues and prompted the government to suspend trading in the national currency, the bolivar, for five days.

Ali Rodriguez, president of the state-owned oil monopoly, told the state news agency Venpres that most blue-collar workers and half the administrators have returned to work at the company and production has surpassed 1 million barrels a day.

Union and striking oil executives disputed his claims about the work force and insisted production was about 812,000 barrels a day. Pre-strike production was about 3.2 million barrels a day.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

At a rally attended by 300,000 of his supporters Thursday, Chavez blasted his foes as a "fascist oligarchy" and insisted that his left-wing, populist regime would survive despite the crippling effects of the strike.

The president lashed out at media coverage of the strike, condemning the nation's four private television stations as the "four horsemen of the apocalypse" and threatening to rescind their broadcast licenses.

Supporters bussed into Caracas - government finances pro-Chavez march***While the government tried to paint the rally as a spontaneous offering of support for a beloved leader, the marchers arrived on hundreds of buses from around the nation, apparently financed by the government despite a crippling strike that has sapped the country of gasoline and $4 billion. ''This march shows there is gasoline -- the government has it,'' opposition negotiator Rafael Alfonzo said. ``All Venezuelans paid for this march. It came out of our pockets.''

Asked who paid just how much for Thursday's demonstration, a presidential spokesman said, ''That's impertinent. That's not informing,'' and hung up. José Vegas, a city administrator from Barranca, insisted that nobody received ''one cent'' from the government. The buses from his city, he said, were paid with ``personal money of the mayor and his friends.''***

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, right, takes part in the meeting of the newly formed 'Friends of Venezuela' group at OAS headquarters in Washington Friday, Jan. 24, 2003. Officials from the United States and five other countries urged Venezuelans to stop political violence and inflammatory rhetoric as a new diplomatic effort began Friday to end a violent strike that has crippled oil production in the world's fifth- largest oil exporter. From left, Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations Celso Amorim, and Chilean Under Secretary of Foreign Relations Cristian Barros. (AP Photos/Matthew Cavanaugh)

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U.S. Concerned About Hugo Supporters

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Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

Venezuela gets a hand from nimble Castro***The Cuban regime is extending its influence by sending thousands of government employees - among the health workers and sports trainers are intelligence officers - to Venezuela for extended periods. Meanwhile, large numbers of Mr Chávez's supporters are being sent to the island for training. Commenting on the aborted coup, one European ambassador in Caracas said: "I don't know which was a bigger factor in returning Chávez to power - the ineptitude of his enemies or the effectiveness of the Cubans - but I do know that both played a role." ***

Fidel Castro - Cuba

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Remember Jimmy Carter and his much publicized trip to Cuba and praise for the Varela Project?

Commies only like referendums when they're calling them.

January 25, 2002 -Cuba declares referendum effort dead *** HAVANA - Cuba's National Assembly yesterday officially quashed a proposed referendum on political and economic reforms that had been hailed as the boldest dissident challenge to President Fidel Castro's communist government in more than 40 years. "The case was reviewed by the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee, which decided not to proceed, and to inform its sponsors of that verdict," said Miguel Alvarez, an aide to National Assembly Speaker Ricardo Alarcon. Oswaldo Paya, leader of the referendum effort known as the Varela Project, was out of the country and not immediately available for comment.

In May, Varela Project delivered to the assembly boxes of petitions bearing more than 11,000 signatures requesting the popular referendum on political and economic reforms under the current constitution. Explaining the rejection of the opposition effort, Mr. Alvarez said it "went against the very foundation of the constitution, amongst other reasons." "It has already been shelved," Mr. Alvarez added, in the first official declaration that Cuba's one-chamber parliament considered the Varela Project dead.***

October 29, 2002 - Chavez Blocking Vote on His Rule *** CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - During his campaign to dismantle a corrupt political system, Hugo Chavez's favorite tool was a popular referendum. Now, the president is infuriating opponents by snubbing a petition to hold a referendum on his rule. The drive for signatures gathered force at an eastern Caracas plaza that has been occupied for seven days by more than 100 dissident military officers and thousands of civilians demanding Chavez's ouster.

Opposition political parties say more than 1.2 million people, or 10 percent of registered voters, have signed - the number required by Venezuela's constitution to petition for a referendum on "matters of national importance." They plan to deliver the signatures next week, and want the vote held in December. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel rebuffed the petition, insisting Monday "we can easily get 10, 15, 20 percent of the people to say that they are against the referendum."

Critics say that would be taking a page out the playbook of Chavez's good friend, Fidel Castro, who scorned a petitioning drive to hold a referendum for more civil liberties in Cuba earlier this year. Instead, Castro supported a counter-petition for a constitutional reform declaring the island's socialist system untouchable. Castro's government later claimed that 8.1 million of Cuba's 8.2 million eligible voters signed the "socialism forever" petition - a typically resounding return of 98.7 percent in favor. ***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Middleman in Venezuela***"I never thought it was going to take this long," Gaviria said on the eve of a meeting of a six-nation "group of friends" in Washington today to discuss ways of solving the conflict. Since early November, his family life has been on hold. He allowed himself 24 hours in Washington over Christmas and a couple of days for New Year's, with a weekend or two in Bogota or Miami.

Gaviria, who served as president of Colombia from 1990 to 1994, is not a novice at wading into Latin America's thicket of conflict and passion-driven egos. With the OAS, he has helped to avert a coup in Paraguay and to oversee a smooth transition to democratic rule in Peru after the rocky last days of President Alberto Fujimori. He continues to skirt disaster in Haiti as he pursues a political settlement. As leader of Colombia, he had to converse with drug lords and guerrillas to survive.

But Gaviria has never seen or experienced a crisis such as the one in Venezuela, which has polarized the entire population. "I don't remember such turmoil in the streets since Argentina and the days of Evita Peron," he said.

The strike in Venezuela was called by the opposition on Dec. 2, with protesters demanding Chavez resign or hold early elections or a referendum on his rule, not due to end until 2007. The shutdown has slashed Venezuela's oil production, choking off revenue, slashing oil exports to the United States and leading to a 25 percent devaluation of the Venezuelan bolivar.***

Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Cesar Gaviria takes part in the meeting of the newly formed 'Friends of Venezuela' group at OAS headquarters in Washington Friday, Jan. 24, 2003. Officials from the United States and five other countries urged Venezuelans to stop political violence and inflammatory rhetoric as a new diplomatic effort began Friday to end a violent strike that has crippled oil production in the world's fifth- largest oil exporter. (AP Photos/Matthew Cavanaugh)

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