Posted on 12/11/2001 1:21:01 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
While last week Chávez sounded as if he may make concessions on the land law and other economic related legislation, the strike's success appeared to have hardened his attitude. ``Now, even more, we are going to accelerate the implementation of the laws we've approved. The oligarchy is asking that we eliminate them and that means we have to apply them, and fast.''
CARACAS -- Caracas appeared on holiday on Monday, with some 90% of businesses, schools, factories, shopping malls, and hospitals shut in a national ``civic strike'' called to protest President Hugo Chávez's policies.
While organizers of the strike claimed a big victory, the angry president vowed to ``tighten the screws'' against his opponents.
Instead of going to work, people across the city stayed at home, and banged pots and pans out of their windows in ``cacerolazos'' that have become the hallmark of citizen protests against Chávez. The sound at times reached thunderous dimensions as people shouted ``Chávez get out!'' ``Chávez leave already!'' and ``Viva Venezuela!'' as well as ringing bells and other noise-making instruments on their balconies.
``It's a great success,'' said Carlos Fernández, first vice president of Fedecamaras, the country's biggest business association that called the strike to protest a set of laws Chávez adopted last month by decree. ``It doesn't even seem like a Sunday, it's like New Year's Day. Everything is completely paralyzed.''
Streets in Caracas were virtually deserted. Highways normally with bumper to bumper traffic in the morning rush hour were empty. Trucks at the big Polar brewery stood idle; the normally packed parking lot of Makro hypermarket in Petare loomed large with none of the usual mass of traffic, and the huge warehouse like store stood with darkened windows.
The iron doors of the city's big shopping mall, Centro Sambil, which bills itself as being open 365 days a year, did not open.
Private schools were closed, private hospitals only treated emergency cases, and newspapers did not publish Monday editions. Bus lines were partially operating, while the city's subway was in service.
State owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. had to implement its contingency plan, in which management works the production lines because union employees did not show up.
Street peddlers abandoned their stalls all over the city. Sabana Grande shopping boulevard, which on Sunday was so jampacked with sellers and shoppers that pedestrians had to elbow through the crowds, stood vacant and strewn with garbage.
Television showed a similar situation across Venezuela, including the major cities of Maracaibo and Barquisimeto.
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.''
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez watches a military parade in Caracas December 10, 2001. Shops, businesses and banks across Venezuela stayed closed at the start of a one-day strike called by business and labor groups to protest against President Hugo Chavez and his left-leaning policies. REUTERS/Kimberly White
While last week Chávez sounded as if he may make concessions on the land law and other economic related legislation, the strike's success appeared to have hardened his attitude. ``Now, even more, we are going to accelerate the implementation of the laws we've approved. The oligarchy is asking that we eliminate them and that means we have to apply them, and fast.''
Chávez bused in several thousand small farmers from around the country to a rally in downtown Caracas in favor of the land law.
``This strike is not of the people, it's of the powerful,'' said Jose Enrique Hernández, 48, a subsistence farmer from south central Portuguesa states. In the working class district of Catia, a traditional Chávez stronghold, about 40% of businesses did not open. Many merchants said they were not chavistas, but did not want to lose the day's sales in the busy Christmas buying season.
``I'm against the laws, but this strike doesn't benefit me,'' said Riad Mazloum, 29, owner of a lingerie shop.
The president promised to ``tighten the screws'' on his business opponents. He ordered the authorities to investigate whether any opposition bankers or business executives held government funds in their accounts or were seeking state contracts, suggesting that these could be withdrawn. ``Watch out, I'm going to be checking on this personally,'' Chavez said.
[Full Text] CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - A strike against land and oil reforms by President Hugo Chavez shut down much of Venezuela on Monday but the left-leaning leader promised more revolutionary policies and a crackdown against his ``oligarch'' enemies.
The one-day stoppage, the biggest anti-government protest to date in Chavez's three years of rule, was mostly peaceful.
But police in Caracas used water cannons to halt angry supporters of the president as they tried to join others demonstrating outside the headquarters of Fedecamaras, the private business association that called the strike.
The 12-hour national shutdown, and Chavez's belligerent verbal response, revealed a nation increasingly divided along class and political lines over radical oil, land and other reforms introduced by Chavez.
The stand-off seemed to herald increased political tension in one of Latin America's oldest democracies.
As shops, banks, businesses and schools stayed closed throughout the day, private business leaders who organized the strike hailed it as powerful message to Chavez to change the course of his self-proclaimed ``revolution.''
But Chavez, a former paratrooper and ex-coup plotter, was defiant on Monday, pledging to speed up the pace of the reforms he says are essential to close the gap between the poor majority and a rich minority in Venezuela.
``A handful of cowardly and immoral oligarchs are not going to throw Venezuela into chaos,'' Chavez, wearing a red paratrooper's beret and camouflage fatigues, told a cheering crowd of more than 5,000 supporters at a rally in Caracas.
President Hugo Chavez is surrounded by supporters as he arrives in Santa Ines, Venezuela, to inaugurate a land reform law Monday, Dec. 10, 2001. The land reform law is designed to correct a situation in which 1 percent of the population owns more than 60 percent of the country's arable land.(AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch
The rally attended by pro-Chavez peasants and farm workers was held to launch a disputed land law that aims to break up unproductive estates and distribute idle land to the poor.
Fedecamaras said the reforms would hurt the economy, destroy jobs and frighten off investors. ``Thank you, Fedecamaras. ... I'm not going to wait a second to apply this law,'' said a defiant Chavez.
Business leaders say the reform laws, which include new oil sector legislation that hikes royalty taxes and asserts majority state control over new oil projects, were passed without consultation with the private sector or workers.
Fedecamaras President Pedro Carmona told Reuters the strike had been backed by small businesses and many street vendors.
A Sunday atmosphere of quiet streets, shuttered shops and light traffic reigned in most of Caracas and in other cities.
The state-owned oil company PDVSA said contingency measures kept oil shipments flowing in the world's No 4. oil exporter.
The main workers' union CTV had also joined the stoppage, mounting a broad opposition challenge to Chavez.
Carmona rejected the president's portrayal of the strike as the action of a rich, resentful minority. ``That's just refusing to see the reality, this massive, convincing demonstration that the country gave today,'' Carmona said.
The strike ended at 6 p.m. local time.
Carmona hoped the government would display the ``necessary sensibility'' to establish a dialogue after Monday's strike.
But Chavez's speech to his supporters was anything but conciliatory. ``I'm not taking a single step backwards. ... I'm calling for a counterattack by the revolution,'' he said.
FEARS OF CAPITAL FLIGHT, STAGNATION
The president promised to ``tighten the screws'' on his business opponents.
He ordered the authorities to investigate whether any opposition bankers or business executives held government funds in their accounts or were seeking state contracts, suggesting that these could be withdrawn. ``Watch out, I'm going to be checking on this personally,'' Chavez said.
His comments were likely to rekindle fears among opponents that he might be considering increasingly authoritarian steps, including force, to implement reform and silence opposition. Chavez won a landslide election in 1998, six years after failing to seize power in a coup. He installed a National Assembly and Supreme Court controlled by his supporters.
His opponents have accused the president of concentrating personal power and of seeking to create a socialist-style economic and political system in Venezuela with similarities to communist-ruled Cuba, which he openly admires.
One foreign financial analyst said he feared the heightened political confrontation in Venezuela, combined with falling world prices for the country's main export oil, would lead to capital flight and economic stagnation.
``Clearly, in the near term, this is going to be a mess,'' Michael Gavin, chief of Latin American economics and debt strategy at UBS Warburg, told Reuters.
The national strike was an embarrassment for Chavez as he prepared to host a summit of Caribbean region leaders on Tuesday and Wednesday on the resort island of Margarita.
[Full Text] CARACAS, Venezuela -- Thousands of Venezuelan businesses closed Monday and millions of people stayed home from work in a nationwide strike against new laws that critics say stifle investment.
President Hugo Chavez responded by calling out troops and police to patrol the tense streets and accusing "corrupt economic elites" of conspiring against his government. He blamed news media for promoting the strike and threatened legislation regulating the content of news reporting.
The 12-hour business strike appeared to further polarize politics in Venezuela, the United States' fourth-largest trade partner in the Americas and No. 3 supplier of oil. Domestic production was at a near standstill, though oil production and exports were unaffected.
The strike was called by Fedecamaras, Venezuela's biggest business confederation, whose affiliates are responsible for 90 percent of Venezuela's non-oil production. Fedecamaras head Pedro Carmona proclaimed it a nationwide success late Monday.
"Rectify!" demanded Carmona, referring to the 49 laws his chamber considers statist and the constitution that allowed Chavez to decree the laws. One requires the state-owned oil company to own a majority stake in future joint ventures with private corporations.
Banks, schools, supermarkets and the Caracas stock exchange closed and airlines canceled a few flights for lack of passengers. Hospitals tended to emergencies, and Caracas' subway system and private buses operated normally.
Venezuela's largest media association, the Bloque de Prensa, joined the protest, as did the opposition-aligned Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, Venezuela's largest labor group with 1 million members.
Chavez took a hard line, withdrawing an offer to discuss amending the laws he decreed last month and vowing that the laws will stand for the sake of Venezuela's poverty-stricken majority.
"I must say that my government tried to avoid (the strike). We did everything possible ethically. But they proposed an immoral pact" -- suspend the laws first, and talk later, Chavez said. "Nobody, and nothing, will stop this revolution."
Chavez countered the strike with a flourish of patriotism, hosting the air force's annual air show over Caracas.
Later Monday, he inaugurated a land reform law at a rally attended by thousands of peasant farmers trucked in from the countryside. The poor constitute 80 percent of Venezuela's 24 million people. [End]
Jiang Zemin and Hugo Chavez
CHRISTOPHER DODD FREE OTTO REICH ----[Excerpt] While the eyes of the world focus on the Middle East, the war on terror has its targets in this hemisphere, too. Unfortunately, President Bush's designated envoy to the Americas must fight this country's shadowy enemies with both hands tied behind his back. Otto Reich, Bush's nominee for assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, is being held hostage by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) who refuses to hold a confirmation hearing on Reich's candidacy. Dodd apparently would rather brood over Reich's performance in the Reagan administration than permit him to address these clear-and-present dangers today:
Venezuela. Hugo Chavez, the increasingly erratic president of this key U.S. oil supplier, has declared himself "a Maoist" and befriended pro-terrorist dictators. A Caracas-based, anti-Chavez group called the National Emergency Coalition published a veritable Chavez photo album in the September 25 Washington Times. In one picture, Chavez rides in Saddam Hussein's Mercedes with the Iraqi thug at the wheel. During an August 2000 visit, Chavez called Iraq "a model" for Venezuela.
In another snapshot, Chavez hugs Iranian President Mohammed Khatami and says, "We have sister revolutions with equal struggles and the same destiny." Elsewhere, Chavez embraces Muammar Qaddafi and calls Libya "a model of participatory democracy." Chavez greets Fidel Castro as well and says that Cuba and Venezuela are "swimming together toward the same sea of happiness."
Chavez also appears to be arming Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels. Colombian defense officials say that between January 1998 and July 2000, they captured 470 clandestine FAL rifles stamped with the insignias of Venezuela's military and its arms manufacturers.
Cuba: Castro's worker's paradise seems to be a giant O'Hare Airport for suspected terrorists. As counterterrorism consultant Paul Crespo reported in the Nov. 5 issue of Insight, three Afghans detained in the Grand Caymans shortly after the September 11 attacks allegedly arrived there from Cuba. Two others, allegedly linked financially to al Qaeda, were stopped in Panama bound for Cuba.
…Snip…..
"I need Otto Reich in place," Secretary of State Colin Powell pleaded with senators on October 3. Eight weeks later, Reich's State Department office literally remains empty, its desk unoccupied and bookshelves bare. Even as an overworked career diplomat juggles crucial security and economic matters in Reich's absence, Dodd could care less.
"That nomination's not going anywhere. That's the end of it," Dodd recently snapped. He has hurled at Reich a number of easily refuted ethical charges pertaining to his 1980s service as director of State's Office of Public Diplomacy and as Ambassador to Venezuela. However Dodd will not let his subcommittee hear Reich defend himself. Perhaps Dodd fears looking foolish once Reich demonstrates his innocence. [End Excerpt]
I'm glad to hear it. It is probably all to the better for the people of Venezuela and the US that he join Senor Allende in Hell.
He's re-written the constitution, held many elections to re-fit the Congress with his supporters (thanks to the re-written constitution), he's stocked the judiciary with judges who won't block his take over of private land, or rule against Chavez's orders that the government hold majority of any oil ventures and push fishing companies further off-shore. He's taken over the office of cultural affairs (which includes the schools) calling it his Bolivarian Revolution and brought in Cuban teachers and trainers to help him facilitate him in this ugly business.
He has started the infamous block-watch groups fashioned after the ones Castro has used so well to oppress the Cuban people by getting them to report on their neighbors. He's blocked ranchers from arming themselves against people taking over their land or from Columbian rebels crossing the border to kidnap them for ransom, while at the same time helping to arm those same the rebels. He buses supporters in from the countryside (sort of like the DNC and Castro) and has been giving Casto-length speeches.
As far as I am concerned this is primarily of academic interest, except as it might affect tactics. I feel rather like commentators on what to do with the Taliban -- send him to God, and let him sort it out.
The LINK at Post #5 will take you to a lot of LINKS that detail Hugo Chavez's last six months and more.
'The great do what they will, the weak suffer what they must' -- The History of the Peloponnesian War -- Thucydides.
Venezuelan Strike Splits a Nation--[Excerpt] In one sign of dialogue, representatives of Venezuela's goods and services sector in the petroleum industry planned to meet Wednesday with National Assembly President Willian Lara to discuss amending a new law regulating private investment in the oil industry, El Nacional newspaper reported.
But legislators with Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement political party, which holds a majority in Congress, suspended Tuesday's session of Congress when Deputy Andres Velasquez of the opposition Causa R party called for a debate on Monday's strike. [End Excerpt]
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