Posted on 12/22/2002 1:51:57 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela - The government detained the striking crew of a tanker and moved the gasoline-laden vessel toward port Saturday as the nationwide work-stoppage against President Hugo Chavez dried up Venezuela's gas supplies.
Oil tanker Pilin Leon passes Maracaibo bridge as it moves towards the port at Bajo Grande refinery in Maracaibo in western Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2002. The government detained the striking crew of oil tanker Pilin Leon and moved the gasoline-laden vessel toward port as the nationwide work-stoppage against President Hugo Chavez dried up Venezuela's gas supplies. (AP Photo/Ana Maria Otero)
Leaders of the 20-day-old general strike accused Chavez of using a Cuban crew to pilot the Pilin Leon, which had been moored offshore after the crew joined the strike. Carlos Fernandez, a strike organizer and president of the Fedecamaras business chamber, said the use of Cubans "violates national sovereignty."
A source at the Cuban Embassy in Caracas, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied the claim, calling it a "lie." State TV said Venezuelans were piloting the ship. Chavez's rivals often accuse the president of being too close to communist Cuba.
Government security forces detained the Pilin Leon's captain and crew Friday night, Cuiro Izarra, international commercial manager of the state oil company, told Globovision TV. On Saturday, the vessel was heading toward a port in Maracaibo Lake.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez talks with an army soldier at the Bajo Grande oil refinery in Maracaibo in western Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2002, soon after the government detained the striking crew of oil tanker Pilin Leon and moved the gasoline-laden vessel toward port as the nationwide work-stoppage against President Hugo Chavez dried up Venezuela's gas supplies. (AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch)
The takeover of the vessel came as gasoline supplies in Venezuela began drying up Saturday, creating a specter of food shortage. Britain joined the United States and other nations in urging its citizens to leave Venezuela, fearing shortages will spark violence.
The strike, launched Dec. 2 to force Chavez from office, has crippled oil production in the world's fifth-largest exporter of crude and sent global oil prices climbing.
Defense Minister Jose Luis Prieto went on TV to urge all striking oil workers to obey a Supreme Court ruling ordering on them to immediately return to work. Otherwise, he said, they "will be subject to sanctions."
Most gas stations were shut and the National Guard stationed at the few that were open tried to keep impatient motorists in lines that were blocks long.
Sitting in his beat-up bus, which stood out of gas and idle in a working class neighborhood, Rafael Perez waited for a friend to arrive with fuel.
"I don't sympathize with any side, but this strike is endangering all of us," Perez muttered. "In a situation like this, we all lose."
Afraid the gasoline shortage could affect the availability of food, many people rushed to open-air street markets to stock up on supplies.
Leaders of the strike vowed to maintain the stoppage until Chavez resigns or calls early elections. The president's opponents say he has mismanaged the economy, widened class divisions and intends to impose a Cuban-style leftist state in this South American country of 24 million.
The government is insisting that Chavez - who constitutionally is not obligated to submit to a referendum on his rule until next August - would not bend.
Protests this week for and against Chavez have been mostly peaceful, but there is increased worry about the security situation.
Britain asked citizens only with urgent business to remain in Venezuela, saying a gas shortage might leave food stores bare and might in turn trigger disturbances," the Foreign Office in London said.
The Foreign Office said it was withdrawing families of British diplomats and nonessential embassy staff. The United States, Canada and Germany have made similar recommendations.
As the strike wore on, the resolve among some of Chavez's opponents seemed to strengthen. Already, merchants, by keeping their stores closed, have sacrificed profits during the peak Christmas buying season.
"I have faith that this strike will be a success with Chavez leaving," said Fabio Valencia, a taxi driver who had a quarter tank of gasoline left. "I voted for him, and now I regret it."
Under Chavez, Venezuela's economy shrank 6 percent in the first nine months of this year, unemployment is at 17 percent and inflation at 30 percent. Tensions between rich and poor are high.
Chavez, a former army paratroop commander who led an unsuccessful coup in 1992, was elected by a landslide in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, promising to help the nation's poor.
His popularity has dropped to about 30 percent, according to a recent opinion poll. But in the shanty towns ringing Caracas his popularity is as high as 45 percent.
March 2002 - Venezuela faces energy standoff at petroleum company***Chavez charged that the company's traditional autonomy made it a "state within a state," and neo-liberal managers were leading it to privatization. "This company cannot be managed as a private company," he said Tuesday. "It is a state company; it does not belong to bureaucrats or technocrats. We respect meritocracy, but there are other considerations."
Lameda and many employees fear that Chavez's philosophies run the risk of bleeding the company of the cash it needs to develop this country's rich reserves. Lameda locked horns with the Energy Ministry on numerous issues, including the new hydrocarbons law that raises royalties and mandates that PDVSA be the controlling partner in any joint venture. Critics said these rules would stifle international investment. Other bones of contention were the central government's demand that the company hand over $4.4 billion in dividends last year, forcing PDVSA to borrow $500 million to pay the bill; and the oil sales to Cuba, whose leader, Fidel Castro, is Chavez's longtime mentor.
One of the major disagreements centered on the Ministry's insistence on adhering to OPEC production cuts, but forcing PDVSA to continue producing surplus oil that has now filled every available storage facility. Although PDVSA cannot sell the oil, the catch is that it still must pay royalties for producing it to the central government, Lameda revealed after his departure. "I started warehousing" when prices were $26 per barrel, he told El Universal newspaper. "They're now $16. The barrels are worth less every day. I told the minister that I have to go out and ask for $500 million in loans while I have $300 million in the warehouse."
Energy Vice Minister Bernardo Alvarez said a new leader was brought in because "Gen. Lameda did not fulfill expectations." The confrontations with the ministry earned Lameda, whose initial appointment was greeted with skepticism, the respect and affection of employees who resented the meddling. Parra, is known for radical nationalist views on the oil industry. "He believes that the oil industry should be completely and fully controlled by the state, with no participation by private companies," said a former PDVSA top executive who requested anonymity. ***
February 2002 - Chavez security chief alleges FARC links - Cuban and Russian security advisors in Venezuela - I am resigning because I disagree with the (Venezuelan Police Intelligence Division) DISIP's policy of providing security to Colombian guerrillas ... this policy is more than just irregular, it approaches treason to Venezuela given the innumerable deaths, kidnappings and other crimes for which these groups are responsible in our country." Egui Bastidas said 90 percent of his fellow officers "obey orders but do not agree with them" and called on President Hugo Chavez to reverse his policy of tacit support for the rebels.
"All the peace negotiations there are over and open confrontations between the guerrillas and the Colombian government have begun. Are they going to carry on letting them cross over into Venezuelan territory?" Egui Bastidas asked. The former DISIP official called on the Armed Forces to issue a statement about their view of the Chávez government's alleged support for the Colombian guerrillas.
Egui Bastidas also made a number of revelations about DISIP activities in recent months. He said the Venezuelan security service had collected personal information about all serving military officers and had also tried to smear opposition figures, such as Alberto Pena, the mayor of Metropolitan Caracas.
The official said he was also concerned at the growing role of Russian and Cuban security advisers in Venezuela. Egui Bastidas said he had experienced "the direct participation and the attempts at indoctrination by the Russian and Cuban intelligence services, who have direct and virtually unlimited access within the Helicoide (DISIP's headquarters building)." The official's lawyer, former DISIP Secretary-General Joaquin Chaffardet, said around 100 members of the Cuban intelligence services are currently operating in Venezuela. The new allegations would, if proven, further strain the already difficult relationship between the United States and Venezuela.***
April 2000 - Fidel Castro's Deadly Secret - Five BioChem Warfare Labs***The Cuban dictator is devoting a lot of his destitute island nation's budget to secretive biological- and chemical-weapons research. Will he share his germ arsenal with terrorists? Not far from Havana's picturesque harbor, where ogling tourists and curvaceous prostitutes ply Cuba's only thriving form of free trade, stands the Luis Diaz Soto Naval Hospital, flanked by a newly built concrete laboratory complex about 400 feet long by 300 feet wide. Inside the compound, along a 165-foot acid-resistant work table with built-in circuit breakers, military biotechnicians reportedly experiment on cadavers, hospital patients and live animals with anthrax, brucellosis, equine encephalitis, dengue fever, hepatitis, tetanus and a variety of other bacterial agents.
Five chemical- and biological-weapons plants operate throughout the island, according to documents smuggled out of Cuba and made available to Insight by Alvaro Prendes, a former Cuban air force colonel who now is the Miami-based spokesman for the Union of Liberated Soldiers and Officers, a clandestine pro-democracy movement within Cuba's security services. The credibility of the smuggled documents is enhanced by a recent classified Pentagon analysis. Also, these facilities have not been on the itinerary of such visiting dignitaries as retired Marine Gen. John Sheehan, the recently passed-over candidate for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who enthusiastically embraced normalizing relations with Havana following a recent round of junketing with Castro.
Pentagon, State Department and congressional sources also point to continuing Cuban support for international terrorism and drug trafficking. They tell Insight that, according to the CIA, Russian specialists still operate the electronic listening station at Lourdes on the northeast tip of the island which taps into U.S. communications. During the Persian Gulf War, this station forwarded strategic information to Iraq.
Reports smuggled out this year by dissident Cuban military officers and scientists are believed to be among the factors prompting Defense Secretary William Cohen to revise a Pentagon report sent to Congress last April which decertified Cuba as a threat to U.S. national security. The revised report, still classified but made available to an Insight reporter, states: "Cuba's air force is in disrepair and much of the regular army is demobilized, but the Castro government retains the potential to pose unconventional threats. It has the infrastructure which can be adapted to the production of chem-bio weapons."
A classified annex to the Pentagon's final report to Congress further warns: "According to sources within Cuba, at least one research site is run and funded by the Cuban military to work on the development of offensive and defensive biological weapons." Why does the president ignore this? "Clinton just wants to avoid another front," says Ernesto Betancourt, former director of Radio Marti, a U.S. government broadcasting service. Betancourt believes that the administration is terrified of provoking a confrontation which could lead to another Cuban wave of refugees. ***
The Chavez issue has deeply that country's society. It is at root a struggle for power, with Chavez determined to sweep away the old institutions by promising parvenus the spoils. There are enough black hats on both sides to keep things from being too clear-cut; but it is enough to say that Chavez is most definitely not a white hat.
The current struggle is like a prizefight where the two boxers keep savaging each other for round after round. Chavez staged a coup earlier. His opponents came back. Chavez was ousted in a counter-coup. Then he came back. This match will go to the last man standing. One thing is for sure, Venezuela will be a gutted prize.
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