Posted on 07/07/2004 9:48:09 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
By JORGE RUEDA Associated Press Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Outraging Venezuela's opposition, President Hugo Chavez has conscripted the military and the broadcast media in his bid to defeat an August recall referendum.
On Tuesday, Chavez presided over the graduation of hundreds of officers from military academies. He forced all of Venezuela's broadcast media to show the event, using a law that allows him to take over the airwaves for matters of national importance.
But opposition leaders charge that Chavez violated an agreement in which the government and private media pledged to give equal time to both sides in the campaign before the Aug. 15 referendum.
"This wouldn't happen in a country that truly respects the democratic game," insisted opposition leader Pompeyo Marquez.
On Monday, Chavez, a former army paratrooper who led a botched 1992 coup, presided over an elaborate military parade on Venezuela's Independence Day - traditionally a nonpartisan event.
It featured soldiers dramatizing the Battle of Santa Ines, a 19th-century clash which Chavez has adopted as the theme of his anti-recall campaign.
Pompeyo called Monday's dramatization by soldiers "one of the most dishonest acts in Venezuelan history. The military overtly surrendered itself to political proselytism."
"Are the armed forces a Praetorian Guard at the service of one person, or are they the military organization of the Republic for its defense?" the Caracas newspaper Tal Cual angrily editorialized.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.findlaw.com ...
I don't think Chavez is going to give up his power easily.
ping
I assume all the striking pdvsa, other listed people will simply find their names NOT on the ballot rolls for the recall. It is the simplest method of stacking the deck.
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