Posted on 01/17/2003 2:06:04 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 16 - Brushing aside proposals to end the seven-week-old strike that has crippled his country's economy, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said tonight that he was fully confident he would vanquish the opponents demanding his resignation.
"I don't have the slightest doubt of our triumph," Mr. Chávez said in an interview. "We are winning this battle and we are going to win it!"
One day after the announcement of a new mediation effort by the United States and five other nations, Mr. Chávez also raised doubts about that initiative. He said Venezuela would insist on the participation of many other countries, naming Cuba, Russia, France, China and Trinidad and Tobago, among others.
Mr. Chávez's comments marked an abrupt end to recent signs that his government might be softening its stance toward the opposition groups that declared a national strike on Dec. 2 in an effort to force him from office.
The strike has brought much of Venezuela's industry to a standstill and plunged the country deeper into recession, causing shortages of food and fuel. Venezuela's oil production, the mainstay of the economy, has fallen by more than 75 percent, according to many estimates.
World oil prices, which have also been under pressure by developments in Iraq, rose today to their highest levels since December 2000, closing at $33.98 for a barrel of United States light crude.
On Wednesday, some moderate opposition leaders reported that during a meeting they held with Mr. Chávez in Caracas last weekend, he appeared open to a proposal for a constitutional amendment to reduce the presidential term to four years from six - a change that could conceivably lead to new elections later this year.
At a news conference today after he met with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, Mr. Chávez described the proposal as "very interesting" and said he was continuing to study it.
In the interview, however, he was less accommodating.
"The solution to terrorist, subversive acts by an anti-democratic opposition cannot be elections," he said, referring to the supporters of the strike.
While the Venezuelan strike has badly shaken him, it has also created serious hardship for many laborers, professionals and middle-class businessmen, prompting the opposition to consider easing the campaign in some areas. Mr. Chávez said his supporters were slowly but steadily regaining control of important areas of the economy. Mr. Chávez indicated that he could envision only one scenario under which he might leave office early: if his opponents were to gather the 2.4 million signatures required to call a referendum on his continued rule.
He said that the possibility of such a referendum was "just around the corner." The call for such a vote could be registered after Mr. Chávez reaches the midway point of his six-year term on Aug. 19.
But opposition leaders have called the idea a ruse that would not lead to new elections before sometime in 2004, and tonight they described Mr. Chávez's latest remarks as proof of his intransigence.
"There is no political will in the government for finding a solution to this conflict," said Timoteo Zambrano, an opposition representative in intermittent talks that have been facilitated by César Gaviria, the secretary general of the Organization of American States. "Chávez does not care about negotiations. To him they are irrelevant," he said.
Mr. Zambrano said the opposition would to press ahead to organize a nonbinding referendum on Mr. Chávez's presidency on Feb. 2. However, the country's Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the legitimacy of that referendum, and Mr. Chávez said a legitimate vote could not be organized that quickly.
Mr. Gaviria has also been the driving force behind the formation of a group of six countries to try to mediate the conflict between Mr. Chávez's government and the coalition of business, labor and civic groups that have led the 46-day strike.
The group, called the Friends of Venezuela, was unveiled on Wednesday in Quito, where Mr. Chávez and other Latin American leaders attended the inauguration of the new Ecuadorean president, Lucio Gutiérrez. Along with the United States, it includes Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Portugal and Chile.
Mr. Chávez said tonight that he welcomed the formation of such a group. But he called the six countries announced in Ecuador as "the pre-configuration of a nucleus of what could become" a viable mediation group. Such a group would also have to include other countries from Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia, he said.
A State Department official responded tonight that the United States and other countries involved in the initiative believed that the group had already been formed.
"As far as we are concerned, this was put together as the result of a lot of discussions in the region, as well as with Spain and Portugal," a State Department official said.
Mr. Chávez also raised questions about his willingness to compromise in the context of any eventual mediation, saying "a good group" of mediators, he said, would be one that "took away relevance" from the hard-line opposition groups calling for his 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. ***
Cuban President Fidel Castro (C) embraces Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez while Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula Da Silva (R) and Spain Prince Felipe de Borbon (L) look on prior to the swearing in ceremony for Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez', in Quito, January 15, 2003. Chavez sought backing from fellow Latin American leaders to resolve a six-week-old opposition strike that has crippled his country's vital oil exports. Photo by Mariana Bazo/Reuters
Venezuela's Tyrant Hugo Chavez Must Go*** That opportunity came - and went - just over eight months ago, on a date that today resonates to every Venezuelan, April 11, 2002. On that day, Chavez's thugs fired on a 150,000-strong opposition rally, killing 19 people and injuring over 100. Popular anger over the killings prompted military leaders to demand Chavez to step down to avoid further bloodshed. Chavez resigned, but loyalists reinstated him two days later - after the governments of the United States and every Latin American nation refused to recognize a transitional government led by Pedro Carmona, the former president of Fedecamaras, the country's largest business association. The hemisphere's governments (several Latin American leaders were gathered at a summit in Costa Rica at the time) argued that the overthrow of Chavez constituted an extralegal transfer of power that violated Venezuela's constitution. And this week, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher urged a "peaceful, democratic, constitutional and electoral solution." But the problem is that Venezuela has no rule of law to undermine!
Chavez's "constitution" is a farce instituted by Chavez himself in December 1999, a year after he was elected, to extend his hold on power. Chavez supporters, who controlled 121 of 131 National Assembly seats, rammed the document through the legislature. It was later approved in a national referendum in which over half of the electorate stayed away from the polls. The new "constitution" dissolved the senate, extended the president's term from five to six years, gave greater power to the military, tightened state control over the oil industry, and limited the central bank's autonomy.
The document includes a "truthful information" press provision. It also allows the president to run for a second term, so Chavez can stay in power "legally" for up to 13 years. What happens at the end of the 13 years? No one knows, but it's important to remember that Chavez has tried to take power by force before, staging two failed coups in 1992.
Chavez's contempt for the rule of law is astounding. In the ongoing general strike, he has sent out troops to seize private gasoline-delivery trucks and ordered military commanders to ignore court orders to return the trucks to their owners. He has also seized control of the Caracas police department and defied a court order to return the department to the city's mayor's control. "A country where the judicial system is not autonomous and must submit to the executive is not democratic," said strike leader Carlos Ortega, president of the country's largest labor federation. "Listen well, Venezuela and the world: There is no democracy here."
There is little doubt how most Venezuelans feel about Chavez: They hate him, and for good reason. Many of his former supporters now consider him a dictator. His approval ratings have fallen to around 30 percent from a high of 80 early in his regime. His statist policies have brought the country to the brink of ruin. During Chavez's tenure, the Venezuelan economy has taken and nosedive -- GDP shrank by 7.1 percent just in the first half of this year -- and continues its descent. Meanwhile, his government has been selling 53,000 barrels of oil to Cuba a day at bargain-basement prices.***
Venezuela's Opposition Hopes for Effort - Chavez looks to Russia, France, Algeria, and China*** CARACAS, Venezuela - Opposition leaders are hoping a new international effort will come up with a plan to end the seven-week strike against President Hugo Chavez and lead to an agreement on elections. Representatives from the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Spain and Portugal agreed to create the new forum this week known as the "Group of Friends of Venezuela" to seek solutions to the work stoppage. Strike leaders are demanding Chavez agree to a plebiscite in February on his presidency. Although the vote would be nonbinding, strike leaders believe Chavez would be so embarrassed by the outcome he would step down. But Chavez, who was elected in 1999 and re-elected in 2000, said Thursday at the United Nations that it will be "virtually impossible" to hold the vote on the scheduled date.
Chavez said any plebiscite held before August would be unconstitutional. Venezuela's constitution allows for a binding recall referendum halfway through the presidential term, which would be August. "I think this Group of Friends will present an electoral proposal in a relatively short time," said Juan Rafalli, an opposition leader. Chavez, who met U.N. Secretary-General Kofi at the United Nations on Thursday, said the initiative should be expanded to include Russia, France, Algeria, and China - nations he considers allies. "We think it is still an embryo and that it should be broadened," he said. *** The leader of the Organization of American states, Cesar Gaviria, who has been trying to negotiate a solution to the standoff, also said the group could help. "The OAS doesn't have that much leverage," said Steve Johnson, a Latin American specialist at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. "It's probably going to have more of an effect than leaving Gaviria to do it by himself."
The strike ground on Thursday, with the Central Bank suspending its daily dollar auctions to stop a run on the currency. The move came before the local bolivar currency closed at 1,715 to the dollar on Thursday, slightly up from its all-time low of 1,716 on Wednesday. One trader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Central Bank was only providing dollars to banks and others with legitimate needs, such as merchants who have to pay for imported goods. The strike has crippled Venezuela's oil exports, which provide half of government income.
The stoppage has cost the country $4 billion, the government has said. Despite government asurances that it did not plan to devalue the bolivar, citizens lined up at exchange houses this week, pushing demand for dollars to about $114 million a day, Planning Minister Felipe Perez said. In a report this week, the Santander Central Hispano investment bank warned that Venezuela's economy could contract as much as 40 percent in the first quarter of 2003 if the crisis isn't resolved soon. Venezuela's economy contracted by an estimated 8 percent in 2002. Unemployment is 17 percent and inflation is 30 percent.
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Excerpted from "Hillary Clinton and the Racial Left"
Ever since abandoning the utopian illusions of the progressive cause, I have been struck by how little the world outside the left seems to actually understand it. How little those who have not inhabited the progressive mind are able to grasp the ruthless cynicism behind its idealistic mask or the fervent malice that drives its hypocritical passion for "social justice." No matter how great the crimes progressives commit, no matter how terrible the future they labor to create, no matter how devastating the catastrophes they leave behind, the world outside the faith seems ever ready to forgive them their "mistakes" and to grant them the grace of "good intentions."***
In a way, this bizarre trio represents the rebirth, a half century later, of the kind of nationalist populism spawned by General Juan Perón in Argentina and Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. Mr. Castro and Mr. Saddam gained power through armed revolutions; Mr. Chávez, a paratroopers' lieutenant colonel, was democratically elected in 1998, after serving time for trying to overthrow the government in 1992.
Mr. Chávez is the most intriguing new leader to emerge in Latin America since Mr. Castro - and he is the lynchpin between Mr. Castro and Mr. Saddam. Although Cuba had been sending doctors and health workers to Iraq for years, there had not been any major contacts between the two countries until Mr. Chávez appeared on the scene. This fall, Mr. Chávez became the first democratically elected foreign head of state to visit Iraq since the Gulf War, ostensibly to invite Mr. Saddam to a summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. But it also was an in-your face gesture toward the United States.
The Iraqi link is one aspect of Mr. Chávez's international involvements that the United States must not underestimate, with Cuba playing a central role. Since he took office in February 1999, Mr. Chávez has proclaimed his "identification" with the Cuban revolution. He visited Havana and entertained Mr. Castro in Caracas for five days last October. Mr. Castro treated Mr. Chávez as a son, an attitude seldom displayed by the Cuban leader toward any young people. During that same visit, Mr. Chávez granted Cuba large crude-oil price discounts, as he has done selectively elsewhere in the Caribbean, and agreed to help complete building a Cuban oil refinery.
Mr. Castro is Mr. Chávez's guide in the art of gently and gradually introducing authoritarian government to Venezuela. Mr. Chávez abolished the Senate and established a unicameral Parliament whose members support him. He has a new constitution, approved by a simple majority of voters in a referendum, that grants him considerable power.
To complicate matters and his relations with the United States, Mr. Chávez has been openly supporting leftist guerrilla movements in neighboring Colombia. The rebels control big swaths of Colombian territory, along with numerous coca plantations. Washington has already committed $1.3 billion, mainly in military aid, to the eradication of both guerrillas and coca plantations. This could foreshadow a big U.S. commitment in Colombia and an eventual conflict with Mr. Chávez that may interfere with the flow of oil north from Venezuela.***
The only true solution involves the application of commonly found mineral subtances "liberally" applied at high velocity.
Chavez knows this.
Military seizes heavy arms from Caracas police-Officers left with pistols as Chávez tightens control ***Chávez's dominance of government, which already extends from the Supreme Court to Congress, is one of the principal motives cited by supporters of a nationwide strike that enters its 45th day today. By taking heavy arms away from the police loyal to his nemesis -- Peña -- Chávez weakens one of the only forces friendly to the opposition and strengthens his own grip on power. In eight pre-dawn raids, the military seized 581 submachine guns, 1,712 shotguns, 14 riot-control rifles equipped to fire nonlethal bullets, as well as tear gas launchers and ammunition clips, the police said. The 10,000 officers were allowed to keep their .38-caliber revolvers.
''Instead of disarming the criminals, they disarm the police,'' Police Director Henry Vivas complained. ``It's unprecedented.'' Chávez's opponents said officers were being left defenseless in a nation that registered 9,244 homicides last year, about 2,000 of those in the capital. ''I cannot assume the responsibility of sending a police officer to his death so he can confront delinquents with just a .38 [pistol],'' Peña said. ``The delinquents carry laser[-sighted] guns, bazookas, rifles and machine guns.'' The government defended the move, saying the Metropolitan Police had become an arm of the opposition, which has staged a nationwide strike to force early elections. ''The Metropolitan Police can't be at the service of one political group,'' Vice President José Vicente Rangel said in a meeting with the foreign press Tuesday. ``The Metropolitan Police can't be above the law, above the executive and above the people. We're going to straighten this out and normalize the Metropolitan Police.''
..The intense rivalry between Chávez and the Metropolitan Police began shortly after the president's 1998 election, when he began making changes to consolidate his power. Through a constituent assembly's new constitution, Chávez abolished Congress, creating a single-chamber legislature that he controlled. But before that new assembly got to work, an interim Congress appointed a new public prosecutor, comptroller, Supreme Court, and elections council, which until then had functioned as independent powers. ''When all you want is one political party, one newspaper, one radio station, and control over police and banks,'' Peña said, ``you are instituting a totalitarian regime.''***
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