Posted on 06/21/2002 2:33:35 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
As the protesters marched Thursday, Chávez made a surprise visit to the shantytown of Las Malvinas, in south-eastern Caracas, warning supporters to be aware of another coup attempt. ''At any moment they can try to lash out at us like on April 11,'' he said according to The Associated Press.
CARACAS - Like a Wild West showdown, six opponents of President Hugo Chávez on Thursday met one of his military guards in the middle of a street blocked off by police, with cheering pro and anti-Chávez crowds at each corner, to deliver a statement demanding the leftist president resign.
''We have come to end communism in Venezuela,'' said retired Army Col. Hidalgo Valera, who led a march by some 4,000 Chávez opponents to the dramatic encounter five blocks from the whitewashed Miraflores presidential palace.
''They will not pass,'' a smaller pro-Chávez crowd chanted four blocks from Miraflores, separated from the opposition marchers by four thick lines of police and National Guard riot units.
The protests ended peacefully, unlike one April 11 that ended with pro-Chávez gunmen firing on the opposition. Enraged military commanders immediately toppled Chávez, but loyalists returned him to power April 14.
As the protesters marched Thursday, Chávez made a surprise visit to the shantytown of Las Malvinas, in south-eastern Caracas, warning supporters to be aware of another coup attempt.
''At any moment they can try to lash out at us like on April 11,'' he said according to The Associated Press.
Thursday's march, called by a group of retired military officers to present a letter at Miraflores demanding Chávez's resignation, had fanned fears of a new confrontation because the officers had vowed to wear their old uniforms -- a military code violation that could have led to their arrests.
In the end the officers decided to march in civilian clothes -- though Valera was arrested afterward by the secret police, the DISIP, on charges of wearing his uniform during a news conference Wednesday -- and agreed to stop the march five blocks short of Miraflores.
''The likelihood of another massacre is high,'' retired Navy officer José Angel Cano said as he waited for the arrival of the delegation from the presidential palace that would receive the march leaders' statement.
Some 2,000 Chávez supporters blocked their way, chanting ''the streets belong to the people,'' and ''Down with Bush'' and holding up signs from the pro-Chávez Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara Revolutionary Front.
Police guarding both sides turned up with empty pistol holders -- ''to avoid any possible incidents,'' Caracas Police Chief Henry Vivas said -- and carried only tear gas and shotguns loaded with plastic pellets.
Valera refused to hand over the marcher's letter to an attorney from the presidency's Citizens Assistance Office and instead delivered it to National Guard Lt. Col. José Betelmi, assigned to the Miraflores honor guard.
Hundreds of Chavez supporters gathered at the presidential palace to protest the retirees' march. National guardsmen and about 1,400 police officers kept the two sides apart, and the march ended without incident.
Officers are known to resent Chavez's ties with leftist Colombian guerrillas, Cuban President Fidel Castro, Libya and Iraq. Many active-duty soldiers and the generation before them fought Cuban-backed guerrillas in the 1960s and 1970s, and they trained in the United States. [End Excerpt]
Great minds think alike.
He is openly admiting that he is in the camp of self-worshiping revolutionaries, ready to transform Venezuela into North Korea, and the world stays mum and accepts it.
We have attained the point of no return in terms of gangrenous world decay.
Commie parasites can't eat when the victims refuse to feed them. A few weeks of general strike ought to do it. It couldn't hurt the economy any more than Castro Jr. already has.
I like to think of today as the turn point away from world decay toward a new era of freedom and democracy.
Well, half of them anyway - the half who work and produce. The situation in Venezuela appears to be the classic workers vs. parasites conflict (libs, of course would call it the haves vs. the have-nots), and it could be a preview of what will happen all over the world. It might get ugly in many places as people fight to expropriate the wealth of those who produce, and the producers attempt to fight back. Of course, here we have a "conservative" president to lull us into a sense of false security and then rob us blind.
Our conservative president is holding government corruption out as an economic assistance deal breaker. I believe Hugo qualifies. $23 Billion is missing from Venezuela's rainy day fund.
We've got to watch Hidalgo Valera. He may be the leader the Venezuelans need to dump Chavez.
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