Posted on 12/11/2002 1:35:21 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Citing political harassment and a climate of violence, eight of 20 members of President Hugo Chavez's hand-picked Supreme Court suspended most of their work Tuesday, essentially joining the general strike aimed at ousting him.
National airline pilots, bankers, customs agents, tax collectors and other professionals have signed on to the strike since managers and workers at the government's oil conglomerate, Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, began walking off their jobs late last week.
Magistrate Alberto Martini told a news conference that, for the time being, the striking Supreme Court judges will consider only the most pressing cases before the court.
The justices' action came a week after the Chavez-controlled Congress voted to fire the court's vice president, Franklin Arrieche, saying he was not qualified for the position. Once considered loyal to Chavez, the court ruled against the president in August when it disallowed the prosecution of military officers who briefly overthrew the government last April.
The walkout at PDVSA, which supplies about 80 percent of Venezuela's export income and half of government revenues, further disrupted gasoline and natural gas supplies across the country.
On Tuesday, company officials in one of the world's largest oil refineries, on the Caribbean island of Curacao off the coast of Venezuela, announced the plant was halting the processing of heavy crude oil because of the strike. Heavy crude is used for making lubricating oils.
Cesar Gaviria, the secretary-general of the Organization of America States who is brokering negotiations between the government and the opposition, said talks held Tuesday made little progress. According to Gaviria, the government on Monday had agreed to discuss a timetable for presidential elections.
"I couldn't say we have advanced much," Gaviria said in a terse statement, adding that the talks would resume this afternoon.
Across this nation of 23 million people, long lines formed at gas stations, banks and grocery stores as many scrambled in the face of real or imagined shortages.
But Chavez appeared to win some respite from the strike's effects after government troops oversaw the transport of some gasoline from distribution centers to fuel-starved stations in the capital of Caracas.
With tensions simmering, the U.S. State Department urged Americans in Venezuela to consider leaving. Last week, Washington issued a travel warning, advising Americans to cancel trips to the country.
A fractious and growing coalition of labor unions, business groups and political parties determined to force Chavez from power called the general strike that began Dec. 2.
Carrying a Venezuelan national flag, thousands of members of the opposition circle La Carlota Air Force military base, in Caracas during a national strike against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government, December 10, 2002. Oil workers and public gas employees are in the ninth day of a strike that has paralyzed the vital oil industry of the world's No. 5 crude exporter, in Venezuela aimed at driving the paratrooper-turned-president from power or call early elections. REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar
Opposition leaders say Chavez -- a former army paratrooper who led a failed military coup in 1992 and has twice been elected president with the support of Venezuela's poor majority -- plans to transform the country into a leftist dictatorship modeled after Cuba.
Supporters of the president say the opposition represents Venezuelans who have lost the privileges they enjoyed during the reign of two political parties that traded power for 40 years.
The opposition has staged four general strikes in a year in an attempt to either force Chavez to resign or call new elections. A strike last April sparked a briefly successful military coup after at least 19 people died when gunmen fired on a protest demonstration. The army restored Chavez to power 48 hours later after the coup plotters installed a conservative Cabinet that suspended the constitution, closed Congress and fired mayors across the country.
Incensed by the privately owned media's coverage of the current crisis, Chavez's militants seized a handful of television stations across the country Monday night.
A worker of Globo vision television network checks her office after crowds destroyed the station in Maracaibo, December 10, 2002. Crowds loyal to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez surrounded television stations that they say support the opposition, even as bankers and gas employees joined oil workers in a general strike aimed at driving the leftist from power. (Mariana Bazo/Reuters)
On Tuesday, Chavez's opponents and supporters staged raucous protests, either defending or lambasting the private television stations. While opposition activists marched through Caracas to demand freedom of the press, hundreds of Chavez supporters demonstrated outside the luxury hotel where Gaviria is staying in protest of the televised remarks he made Monday that, in their eyes, supported the private networks.
Gaviria had exhorted both sides to respect freedom of expression after the crowds of Chavez supporters descended on the stations.
"They are constantly transmitting purely violent messages," school teacher Isabel Garcia said of the private channels as she participated in Tuesday's pro-Chavez march. "It's insupportable."
Citing harassment, Venezuela's high court suspends most work***CARACAS, VENEZUELA -- Eight of the 20 judges on Venezuela's Supreme Court suspended work Tuesday to protest what they called political harassment from the government during the opposition's crippling general strike against President Hugo Chavez. The eight magistrates plan to work only on urgent cases of national interest, said Magistrate Alberto Martinez. The protest, which would disrupt most court work, came after the pro-Chavez National Assembly fired Franklin Arriechi, the court vice president, saying he wasn't qualified.
Martinez accused secret police of investigating justices who "have been suffering -- like many Venezuelans -- from a policy of threats and harassment." The protest raised tensions on the ninth day of the strike. Thousands of opposition demonstrators marched Tuesday in Caracas to protest a coordinated series of pro-government demonstrations at media outlets and an assault by Chavez supporters on a regional TV station. The strike led to further shortages of gasoline, food, drinking water, cash and other necessities.
In Washington, the State Department warned U.S. citizens to put off all travel to Venezuela and said Americans already there should consider leaving.***
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