Posted on 04/14/2002 4:01:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
LINKS to Hugo Chavez's "government" June 2001 - March 2002
I'm keeping track of Hugoland formally known as Venezuela. Please LINK any stories or add what you wish to this thread. The above LINK takes you to past articles posted before the new FR format. Below I'll add what I've catalogued since that LINK no longer could take posts.
(March 1, 2002)-- Venezuela's strongman faces widespread calls to step down
By Phil Gunson | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
[Full Text] CARACAS, VENEZUELA - The man who won Venezuelan hearts three years ago as a strongman who could deliver a better life to the masses is now facing them in the streets.
More than 20,000 people turned out this week calling for the resignation of President Hugo Chávez, while some 2,000 supporters marched in a rival demonstration of support. The demonstrations come after months of building discontent with a president who has managed to alienate the labor class, the media, business groups, the church, political parties, and the military.
Four military leaders have publicly called for his resignation.
In November, Chávez introduced 49 "revolutionary" decrees. The package of laws - affecting everything from land rights and fisheries to the oil industry - unified virtually the whole of organized society in a nationwide business and labor stoppage that paralyzed the country on Dec. 10.
The protests this week have a note of irony, because they started out as a commemoration called by President Chávez. In his eyes, Feb. 27 is a milestone of his so-called revolution - "the date on which the people awoke" in 1989. That is when thousands of rioters and looters took to the streets in protest of an IMF-backed austerity plan, in which the government hiked gas prices.
In what became known as the caracazo, or noisy protest, thousands of rioters and looters were met by Venezuelan military forces, and hundreds were killed. Three years later, Chávez and his military co-conspirators failed in an attempt to overthrow the government responsible for the massacre, that of President Carlos Andres Perez. Chávez was jailed for two years.
"But the elements that brought about the caracazo are still present in Venezuela," says lawyer Liliana Ortega, who for 13 years has led the fight for justice on behalf of the victims' relatives. "Poverty, corruption, impunity ... some of them are perhaps even more deeply ingrained than before."
Chávez's supporters consist of an inchoate mass of street traders, the unemployed, and those whom the old system had marginalized. This, to Chávez, is el pueblo - the people.
"But we are 'the people' too," protests teacher Luis Leonet. "We're not oligarchs like he says. The oligarchs are people like Chávez, people with power."
On Wednesday, Leonet joined a march led by the main labor confederation, the CTV, to protest what unions say is a series of antilabor measures, including one of the 49 decrees dealing with public-sector workers.
Chávez won't talk to the CTV, whose leaders, he says, are corrupt and illegitimate. So he refuses to negotiate the annual renewal of collective contracts with the confederation, holding up deals on pay and conditions for hundreds of thousands of union members like Leonet.
Across town on Wednesday, a progovernment march sought to demonstrate that the president's popularity was as high as ever.
"For the popular classes, Chávez is an idol," says marcher Pedro Gutierrez.
Pollster Luis Vicente Leon, of the Datanalisis organization, warns that marches are no measure of relative popularity. "There is a lot of discontent among ... the really poor," Leon says, adding that so far the protests are mainly among the middle class.
But the middle class can be a dangerous enemy. It includes the bulk of the armed forces, and the management of the state oil company, PDVSA.
This month, four uniformed officers, ranging from a National Guard captain to a rear-admiral and an Air Force general, called on the president to resign, while repudiating the idea of a military coup of Chávez, himself a former Army lieutenant-colonel.
But senior "institutionalist" officers "are under severe pressure from lower ranks frustrated at the lack of impact" that these acts have had, a source close to military dissidents says. In other words, a coup cannot be ruled out, although the United States publicly denounces the idea.
Meanwhile, the president's imposition of a new board of directors on PDVSA this week sparked a virtual uprising by the company's senior management. In an unprecedented public statement, managers said the government was pushing the company "to the verge of operational and financial collapse" by imposing political, rather than commercial, criteria.
The political opposition remains relatively weak and divided. But in the view of many analysts, a president who offends both the military and the oil industry is asking for trouble. In the bars and restaurants of Caracas, the debate is no longer over whether Chávez will finish his term, which has nearly five years to run. It is when and how he will go - and what comes next. [End]
We have reliable reports that crew members are being held by the terrorist group the FARC," State Department spokesman Charles Barclay said Friday in Washington. "If these reports are accurate, we demand the crew members be released unharmed immediately." The bodies of an American and a Colombian were found in the wreckage of the plane. Gen. Jorge Mora, chief of the Colombian armed forces, told reporters both were "executed, in an act of extreme cruelty." Both died from the gunshot wounds, said Alonso Velasquez, director of the attorney general's office in Florencia. ***
But on a website friendly to the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which President Alvaro Uribe Vélez blamed for Friday's car bomb, a message read: "The luxurious club was the frequent site of meetings between political and business sectors with spokesmen for paramilitaries," the Resistance Network site said. "The current process of legalizing paramilitaries is the product of meetings held in different luxury locales in exclusive northern BogotÁ."
Now, in addition to the 32 people killed and 160 wounded in explosion - the biggest terrorist incident here in more than a decade - the most significant casualty may be the peace process itself. The AUC is hinting that it will once again take up arms against the FARC.***
Dueling websites
In a letter posted on its website, the AUC said: "If the guerrillas [do not abandon] their practices against the civilian population in their crazy war against the legitimate state, the declaration of peace by the AUC should be revised in letter, if not in spirit." The group added that the leftist guerrillas have taken advantage of the cease-fire to advance their military agenda instead of seeking a negotiated end to the conflict.
The FARC has not taken explicit responsibility for the blast. Independent Colombian defense analyst Alfredo Rangel says that if the AUC does indeed resume its battle against left-wing rebels, the peace process is in jeopardy, as the government has refused to negotiate without a cease-fire. "I don't see [the process] broken, but I see it in a situation of very high risk," Mr. Rangel says. The paramilitaries began as a loose coalition of ranchers protecting themselves against drug traffickers in the 1980s. But in the absence of strong government forces, it soon evolved into a right-wing army to battle the FARC.
Last week, El Tiempo, Colombia's leading newspaper, published a schedule of peace talks that was to conclude at the end of this year with the signing of a peace accord witnessed by former US President Jimmy Carter. During the first "negotiation" phase, lasting from January to June 11, meetings would take place between government peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, Mr. Castaño, and Salvatore Mancuso, another paramilitary chief wanted by the US. Topics under consideration are freezing arrest warrants for AUC members involved in negotiations and the return of people displaced by the four-decade conflict to paramilitary-controlled land.
In a surprise move last week, Castaño requested to a local radio program that the government create a "concentration zone" where peace talks could be held in Urabá, in the state of Antioquia. The idea brought to mind the failed demilitarized zone granted to the FARC in 1998 by former President Andres Pastrana as a haven for peace talks. The large zone was revoked a year ago this week after the FARC continued its violent behavior and used the zone to stash kidnapping victims and grow coca. But Castaño insisted that "it is not the same concept," because the police and the Army would be allowed in the area along with international observers. Furthermore, such a zone would only be two to five miles square, compared with the demilitarized zone that was the size of Switzerland.***
Chavez branded his foes fascists waging "economic and financial sabotage," and pledged to defend newly imposed currency and price controls which industry leaders say will drive them out of business. "The revolutionary government (is) on the offensive," Chavez said. "If anybody even thinks about closing their (food processing) factories ... we'll take them over. Nobody can threaten the people's food supplies," he said during the state-sponsored Sunday television program "Alo Presidente." Chavez spooked Wall Street last month when he ordered troops to briefly take over a Coca-Cola affiliate's bottling plant, after accusing its owners of hoarding. His opponents seized on the episode as proof that Chavez's "peaceful revolution" was a mask for Cuban-style communism. ***
………..A week ago, the White House offered to eliminate tariffs on all imports of textiles and clothing from 34 nations in the Americas by 2010, as part of negotiations for creating a free-trade zone in the Western hemisphere by 2005. The administration also has proposed cutting tariffs on about 65 percent of U.S. imports of consumer and industrial goods from the Americas when the free-trade zone becomes a reality, and to eliminate all tariffs on these goods by 2015. Also, 56 percent of agricultural imports would enter tariff-free once the zone is established.
The Bush administration is certainly on the right track in adopting measures that will allow Latin America to develop economically in the long-term. But it also should consider granting the region more immediate tariff relief, given the scale of current economic.
While Latin America's current economic crises are certainly troublesome, the Bush administration must steer clear of such quick fixes as bailouts, which certainly could cause more problems in the long term. Those troubled nations would best be served with foreign aid that focuses on micro and small businesses - rather than large-scale public works projects, for example. The United States clearly has a stake in Latin America's present and future, as Mr. Bush seemingly is aware.***
Dissident Soldiers, Protestor Killed in Venezuela*** Three military dissidents and a female protester opposed to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have been killed execution-style after being kidnapped, bound and gagged, police said on Tuesday. Police refused to comment on the investigation, or to discuss possible motives or suspects.
All four victims frequented Plaza Altamira, the site of more than 120 days of protests against Chavez' government. The dead military men had also joined a call for popular resistance led by anti-Chavez Gen. Enrique Medina.
A 14-year-old girl who apparently witnessed at least one of the killings was hospitalized after being shot, but is talking, police said.
Raul Yepez, deputy director of the Caracas police homicide division, said the four victims had been fired upon with shotguns. It appeared that all of them went missing last week.
"We are conducting the investigation to try to answer these questions," he said.
Despite occasional violence in Venezuela's political standoff, there have been no confirmed selective killings of Chavez's allies or enemies. Still, street clashes have claimed at least seven lives and left scores injured since December.
The Venezuelan leader says his self-styled "revolution" for the poor is a peaceful one. His opponents, however, blame his aggressive class-warfare rhetoric for inspiring his supporters to take up arms.
Police said the victims were army soldier Darwin Arguello, marine infantry corporal Angel Salas and air force soldier Felix Pinto.***
A crowded slate of technical challenges falls to a PDVSA workforce that is practically headless, as most of the firings occurred in the ranks of senior managers, scientists, and economists. PDVSA is severely short-staffed, and workers who have been brought out of retirement are scrambling to learn new computer systems. Reaching prestrike production levels will call for further exploration, and that requires cash - yet another problem. PDVSA announced it will tighten its belt by $2.7 billion this year, nearly one-third of its budget. "To run this corporation they need capital and labor, and they have neither," says Mr. Espinasa.***
Foreign-exchange controls promise to devastate the business sector after Chavez's declaration that dollars would be sold only for "vital areas of development" (www.talcualgital.com, Feb. 10), citing as an example the expected governmental support for agriculture. Chavez plans to assign 70 percent of Venezuela's territory to his supporters.
He has announced that not "one dollar will be sold to the coup-plotters" (globovision, Feb. 6), as he calls businessmen. Businesses have started to close foreseeing the lack of dollars to import raw materials and components.
The Ministry of Labor has warned that fraudulent bankruptcies would be investigated in view of the law that prohibits companies to fire workers, passed last May.
The gasoline crisis, a major hindrance to the business sector, is being partially solved through imports. The government made the unlikely promise that 200,000 barrels would be released by today, satisfying 72 percent of internal demand.
Venezuelans, however, are still making eight-hour lines to pump gas.
Oil exports have been re-established to half of the pre-strike volumes in spite of the 9,000 oil workers fired to date whom Chavez plans to put on trial on the charges of sabotaging the economy.
He has also announced the granting of concessions to Chevron-Texaco and the Norwegian company Statoil to research gas fields in exchange for $1 billion, possibly paving the way for independence from PDVSA's contributions.
The next step for Chavez's government will be to shut down several TV stations once the media-restricting "Law of Contents" is passed by parliament. The law would violate all international treaties entered into by the Venezuelan government on freedom of speech.***
Overvaluing the currency has created an unofficial foreign exchange market, despite Chavez's efforts to suppress it, where dollars are exchanging at up twice the unofficial rate.
The dollar shortage has prevented firms from maintaining inventories and has reduced sales forcing them to lay off workers, regardless of a state decree ordering that no one be fired.
The economic root of the problem is that Chavez is running the printing presses overtime. The flow of bolivars is driving down the exchange rate and causing prices to rocket. In response to the inflationary consequences of his monetary policy, Chavez has issued more decrees and imposed rigid price controls, the effect of which has been the disappearance of consumer goods, particularly food stuffs.
The result of these so-called anti-inflationary policies will be to bankrupt companies. Those who attempt to evade the controls will be dealt with harshly, including prison terms for the "incurred crimes of price speculation and withholding of merchandise." (Chavez's economic policies have already wrecked the PDVSA [Petroleos de Venezuela S.A], one of the world's biggest oil companies).
Chavez is being accused of using inflation to destroy the opposition and turn Venezuela into a South American Cuba with himself as Castro, a dictator whom he greatly admires along with Saddam Hussein. His talk of destroying "coup plotters", "vicious speculators" and of replacing judges with those "who would support" his Bolivian revolution has only lent greater weight to the accusations.
But using inflation as a revolutionary weapon to bring about an "economic coup" is not the smartest of things to do. Hyper inflations have always worked against those who started them. The infamous Weimar inflation fuelled the Nazi movement. The Tsarist government's highly inflationary funding of WW I helped subvert their rule. Allende's inflationary policy helped bring about his death.
Still, there is always a first time. Should Chavez succeed in making himself in the image of Castro, he will be ruling over a devastated economy and a people reduced to abject poverty by his socialist delusions and lust for power.***
Organizers said they had counted and verified 3.7 million signatures collected in a nationwide petition drive on Feb. 2. These were added to another 719,000 signatures supporting the initiative already gathered.
Under the constitution, organizers need signatures from 15 percent, or about 1.8 million, of the country's 12 million registered voters, to force a referendum on the amendment. This would then clear the way for general elections later this year.
"This process is unstoppable," said Jesus Torrealba, an opposition leader who praised the results.
….. The signatures have not yet been officially validated by the National Electoral Council. Its board members were stripped of their election-organizing powers by the supreme court last month and the National Assembly is working on choosing a new council.
Organizers of the drive also said they collected millions of signatures from people refusing to recognize Chavez as president. Signatures also supported the overturn of a package of left-wing economic laws drafted by Chavez's government, while others showed support for striking workers at the state oil company. Chavez was first elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000 after rewriting the constitution. His term expires early in 2007, but the former paratrooper often jokes that he will stay in power until 2021.***
Arab advisers now are reinforcing a sizable contingent of Cubans in efforts to reorganize Venezuela's security services, assimilate its industries based on totalitarian models and repress a popular opposition movement. "What happens in Venezuela may affect how you fight a war in Iraq," Gen. James Hill of U.S. Southern Command is reported recently to have told his colleague at U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks.
"Chavez is planning to coordinate an anti-American strategy with terrorist states," says Venezuela's former ambassador to Libya, Julio Cesar Pineda, who reveals correspondence between the Venezuelan president and Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi about the need to "solidify" ties between liberation movements in the Middle East and Latin America and use oil as an economic weapon.
Exhorting his countrymen to return to their "Arab roots," Chavez has paid state visits to Libya, Iraq and Iran and signed a series of mutual-cooperation treaties with the rogue governments whose operatives now are flooding into Venezuela. There they can blend into an ethnic Arab community estimated at half-a-million.
Last Jan. 10, 18 Libyan technicians flying in from Tripoli via Frankfurt, Germany, were received at the Caracas airport by Ali Ahmed, head of Libya's "Commission" in Venezuela. He was accompanied by the parliamentary whip of the ruling Venezuelan Revolutionary Movement (MVR), Cilia Flores. Nicolas Maduro and Juan Baruto, two other bosses of the MVR party militias (the Circulos Bolivarianos) who had paid an extended visit to Tripoli in 2000, also were on hand to smooth the way for the Libyans coming off Lufthansa Flight 534.
The Libyan agents were identified as: Alsudik Alghariy, Elmabruk Najjar, Koaled Adun, Zeguera Adel, Sherif Nagib, Abubaker Benelfgh, Nabiel Bentahir, Abdulfat Enbia, Waldi Majrab, Amhamed Elkum, Abdulgha Nashnush, Mohamed Romia, Abdurao Shwich, Abdulnass Elghanud, Ezzedin Barhmi, Abdulssa Seleni, Hassan Gwile and Mhemmed Besha.
The high level of security provided for the Libyans' arrival was intended to avoid the havoc of previous days when the entry of Iraqi and Iranian groups touched off a riot. As word of the landing of 20 Iranians had spread through Simón Bolívar International Airport on Jan. 8, crowds of infuriated travelers banged counters and cigarette urns and chanted "Get out! Get out!" to protest what many Venezuelans perceive as foreign interference in their country's affairs.
…………. Meanwhile, Iraqi VIPs, moving under the protection of Chavez's secret police -- the Department of Intelligence Security and Prevention (DISIP) -- came to the attention of Venezuela's regular military when government agents tried to use air-force planes to fly five of Saddam Hussein's agents into the interior of the country. Military pilots requested special clearances before allowing the Iraqis onto the C-130s.
Military sources also report that the recently arrived group of Libyans is billeted at the Macuto Sheraton Hotel in La Guaira, which they share with Cuban commandos who have been conducting strike-breaking operations around the nation's oil ports. Local units of the National Guard, the branch of the Venezuelan armed forces responsible for internal security, were reported to be refusing government orders to repress strikers.
According to Capt. Jose Ballabes of the merchant-marine union, the Cubans improvised floating concentration camps on board oil tankers, threatening officers and crews to get them to move the paralyzed vessels. When the Venezuelans still resisted, "such methods as sleep deprivation, often used against political dissidents in Cuba, are being systematically employed against our people," says Ballabes.
Sources in Venezuela's merchant navy name two of the Cuban agents on the tankers as Arturo Escobar and Carlos Valdez, who were presented as "presidential advisers" operating with DISIP. Venezuela's internal-security organization now is reported to be controlled by a command cell of undercover officers from Fidel Castro's military-intelligence service. Venezuelan sources say the Cuban operatives also run a computerized war room inside Chavez's presidential palace, Miraflores. It is in this war room that the repressive policies now afflicting the country have been planned, according to serving officers in the Venezuelan army, navy and national guard consulted by Insight.
The Libyans, like the Cubans, are specialists in military intelligence and security, but are described as computer specialists brought in to operate and reprogram crashed systems at the oil refineries, according to industry sources.
"The West must expect deepening relations between Venezuela and Islamic states," says professor Elie Habalian, a specialist in petroleum economics and a consultant to PDVSA President Ali Rodriguez Araque, who is identified by Venezuelan military sources as a one-time communist guerrilla chief. Aided by Cuban intelligence and Islamic workers, the government has managed to get oil production back up to 34 percent, a level sufficient to supply basic domestic needs. "It's a war between two models," continues Habalian, "one seeking total control over oil policy and the liberal international policy represented by PDVSA's previous management" effectively eliminated by the government, which has ordered the mass dismissal of 7,000 oil-company employees.
Interfacing of Venezuela's oil industry with the radical state systems also facilitates plans for a possible oil embargo against the United States in the event the military assault on Iraq is prolonged. While international oil experts consider such a scenario unlikely due to Venezuela's desperate need for export earnings, Venezuelan opposition leaders fear that Chavez could take advantage of a conflagration in the gulf to consolidate his dictatorship with the support of Cuban and Arab agents already in place.
"Chavez has violated the constitution on 34 counts and is moving to nationalize banking," says a leading member of Venezuela's business community. "He has packed the high courts with his judges, neutralized the army and turned the national assembly into a rubber-stamp parliament. All that's left to do is shut down the independent media and decapitate the opposition." According to this source, Chavez is most likely to move when world attention is fixed on Iraq.
……….. Undercover police officers report that the group has ties to a Hezbollah financial network operating from the Caribbean island of Margarita under Mohammed al Din, an important Chavez backer and a close friend of hard-line MVR deputy Adel el Zabayar Samara, a key link between Islam and Latin America's radical left.
The Caracas cell is involved in recruiting Venezuelan Arabs for terrorist indoctrination and military training at isolated camps in the country's interior and on islands off the coast, according to intelligence officers who claim that members of al-Qaeda are hiding out in Margarita. They say these members include Diab Fattah, who was deported from the United States for his possible connections with the Sept. 11 hijackers. Four Venezuelan officers investigating terrorist activities on the resort island were killed in 2001 when Chavez moved to dissolve DISIP Section 11, which had targeted radical Arabs. ***
Fernandez was detained about midnight Wednesday, said Fedecamaras vice president Albis Munoz. His whereabouts weren't known and there was no immediate comment from the government, she told a news conference. "We know absolutely nothing about his whereabouts," Munoz said, adding that Fernandez was arrested without any court order. "We demand that the government guarantee his safety."
Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton, attending a summit of non-aligned nations in Malaysia, told The Associated Press he had no information on Fernandez. Fernandez had been under government investigation for his role in the strike, which crippled Venezuela's economy. Chavez has repeatedly accused strike leaders of trying to topple his government and threatened they would be prosecuted.
Strike co-leader Carlos Ortega of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation condemned the arrest as "a terrorist act" that presaged a wave of repression against Venezuela's opposition. The arrest followed the slayings and possible torture of three dissident Venezuelan soldiers and an opposition activist this week.***
Eight heavily armed men grabbed Carlos Fernandez at a restaurant in eastern Caracas early and fired shots in the air to keep back protesters before bundling him into a car, witnesses and opposition representatives said.
Foes of Chavez quickly condemned the order to detain Fernandez, the head of the Fedecamaras business chamber, as intimidation by the leftist leader they accuse of wielding power like a dictator.
"This is one more demonstration of intimidation," said opposition negotiator Rafael Alfonzo. "This is completely outside of the law," he said.
A judge told state television that Fernandez and union chief Carlos Ortega, who spearheaded the two-month opposition strike started in December to try and oust Chavez, were ordered detained for civilian rebellion, sabotage and other charges.
An official from the security police could not immediately confirm that officers from the agency were involved in the incident.***
Opposition leaders called for street protests and appealed to the Organization of American States, the United Nations and the Carter Center, run by former President Jimmy Carter, which have brokered talks here. One opposition delegate to those talks, Rafael Alfonzo, said Fernandez's abduction made a mockery of a "peace pact" renouncing violence that government and opposition negotiators signed on Wednesday.
"This government doesn't want to negotiate. It only wants conflict. We won't back down," Alfonzo said. OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria issued a statement urging Venezuela's judiciary to treat Fernandez's case in "strict compliance with the laws and rights guaranteed by the (Venezuelan) constitution."***
In the eight-point 'Declaration against violence and in favor of peace and democracy,' the two sides announce their commitment to dismantle the tensions that have pervaded the political sphere in Venezuela over the last few years, and reiterate their commitment to the Constitution and democratic law.
In the statement, representatives of the Hugo Chávez administration and of the opposition reject verbal "intemperance," mutual recriminations, hurtful language and "rhetoric that in any way encourages confrontation."
The two sides propose instead "a language of mutual respect, tolerance, consideration of others' ideas, and the supreme appreciation of human life and dignity."
The tripartite group, comprising the OAS, the U.S.-based Carter Center, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which is facilitating the dialogue, had repeatedly urged the two sides to "lower their tone" and "moderate the language" of their political discourse.
Similar efforts were made by the so-called "Group of Friends," countries backing the OAS effort in Venezuela. The group was established in January by the foreign ministries of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States.
The second point of Tuesday's joint declaration states that violence in any form, regardless of who perpetrates it, is "absolutely unjustifiable."
The two sides "summon all authorities and competent administrative and juridical bodies to act to investigate and penalize the loss of human lives."
In the last year, the death toll resulting from political violence in Venezuela has reached more than 80, with hundreds of people injured. During the social chaos associated with the failed coup d'état in April 2002, 61 people died, according to the non-governmental Venezuelan Human Rights Education-Action Program.
Street demonstrations or political rallies in Caracas, whether supporting the Chávez government or the opposition, another 10 people have died. In rural Venezuela, several peasant leaders have been assassinated.
Tuesday's declaration rejects all expressions of violence, intolerance or vengeance.
Six government delegates and six delegates from the opposition Democratic Coordinator, the document's signatories, exhorted the Venezuelan people to cease any "direct or indirect attitude of aggression, threat, harassment or violence," and urged churches, trade unions and all social organizations to help in the effort.
During the past year, opposition protesters and pro-Chávez demonstrators have clashed in the streets of Caracas, and military officials are staying away from certain public places, such as restaurants in middle-class neighborhoods, because they are subjected to insults or surrounded by crowds of residents banging pots and pans.
The point in the declaration that required most effort to achieve consensus is about the communications media. The text calls on journalistic enterprises to "promote peace, tolerance and peaceful coexistence" in their programming and to comply with and exercise their constitutional and legal rights and duties.
The privately owned media championed the cause of the opposition during the two-month anti-Chávez strike that ended earlier this month. Television stations, for example, replaced normal advertising for political propaganda against the government.
And the government followed suit, using state-run television and radio stations to disseminate its messages.
The declaration's signatories are now obligated "to maintain and improve the work" of the negotiations panel, which "with this declaration approaches the possibility of an electoral way out" of the crisis, opposition leader Humberto Calderón told IPS.
The delegates also agree to take up related issues, such as setting up a Truth Commission to clear up the events surrounding the April 2002 coup and deaths, and disarming the civilian population--demanded by the opposition, which claims that many government supporters are carrying weapons illegally.
"The dialogue had started at the end, and with the Tuesday declaration we have returned to the beginning, and the road has been cleared so we can discuss anything," commented Vice-President José Vicente Rangel.
He was referring to the opposition's insistence on an "electoral" way out of the political crisis--such as a referendum on Chávez's mandate--while the word order in the declaration is "peaceful, democratic, constitutional and electoral."
Andrés Cova, representing the anti-Chávez trade unions in the negotiations, says he is confident that "with this accord we can find an electoral solution in the middle term."
The opposition is seeking a constitutional amendment to declare an end to Chávez's presidential term, which lasts until 2006, and to convene new elections this year.
After the six delegates from each side signed the joint declaration, representatives from the OAS, the Carter Center and UNDP added their signatures. [End]
President Hugo Chavez, speaking at the presidential palace, said he gave secret police the green light to detain Fernandez. "One of the coup plotters was arrested last night. It was about time, and see how the others are running to hide," Chavez triumphed. "I went to bed with a smile." Chavez said judges shouldn't "be afraid to issue arrest warrants against coup-plotters." Government opponents at the rally accused the former paratroop commander of trying to establish a Cuban-style dictatorship in this South American nation of 24 million.
"This is an escalation of violence by the government, which has arrived at the extreme of repression," said Carlos Feijoo, 88, a retired oil worker at the demonstration. "He wants to copy Fidel (Castro)." Government allies warned that more than 100 opposition leaders - ranging from labor bosses to news media executives - who supported a two-month strike to oust Chavez could also be arrested. The work stoppage ended on Feb. 4 in all sectors except the oil industry. "More than one hundred are on the list to be captured," said Luis Velasquez, a ruling party lawmaker. It could not be immediately confirmed if such a list existed. Eight armed secret police agents seized Fernandez at about midnight Wednesday as he was leaving a restaurant in Caracas' trendy Las Mercedes district, said his bodyguard, Juan Carlos Fernandez. He said the men fired in the air when patrons tried to stop them from taking Fernandez.
Fernandez and Carlos Ortega, president of the country's largest labor union, called the strike on Dec. 2 to demand Chavez's resignation and early elections. Fernandez's wife, Sonia, spoke briefly with her husband by telephone and said that he was in good condition at secret police headquarters. Fernandez was meeting with his attorneys, she said.
Ortega was ordered to surrender, also on treason and instigating violence charges, said magistrate Maikel Jose Moreno. The tough-talking labor boss said he wouldn't turn himself in. "We have nothing to fear," Ortega said in a telephone interview with the local Globovision TV channel. "The only one who has a date with justice is the president." ***
The police say that the testimony of a 14-year-old girl will be vital to solving the killings. The girl is thought to be the girlfriend of Mr. Pinto, and she was abducted along with the four but survived the shooting, the police said. She has been hospitalized and was unable to give investigators a formal statement.
The case is mired in controversy, especially since it appears to involve a deadly Dec. 6 shooting at the Plaza Altamira, which was witnessed by two of the victims. Zaida Perozo, a protester whose body was found on Monday, was wounded along with 20 others in the Plaza Altamira and had been considering testifying against a suspect.
Relatives of those who were killed said they feared more attacks would follow on opposition leaders. "This is like a chess game," Mr. Pinto said. "First they go after the pawns and then later for top leaders."***
Police gave the cause of death as multiple shotgun wounds, and added that the bodies showed additional injuries consistent with the use of torture.
The leader of the dissident military officers, General Enrique Medina Gomez, said the officers were part of a group which took turns to keep watch over the square. He described the murders as "a crime against humanity".
Salas' brother Edwin, who is also a rebel naval officer, said the dissidents' public stand against the Chavez government had made them many enemies. He said he and his brother had been subjected to constant intimidation since deciding to join the protests.
Mr Salas accused elements within the Venezuelan police and intelligence services of "persecuting" dissident officers. He said that they had also received violent threats from the Bolivarian Circles - groups of pro-government activists - and from the far-left Tupamaro group.***
The U.S. State Department said three other people in the aircraft, all Americans, may have been taken hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
"We have reliable reports that crew members are being held by the terrorist group the FARC," State Department spokesman Charles Barclay said Friday in Washington. "If these reports are accurate, we demand the crew members be released unharmed immediately."
The bodies of an American and a Colombian were found in the wreckage of the plane. Gen. Jorge Mora, chief of the Colombian armed forces, told reporters both were "executed, in an act of extreme cruelty." Both died from the gunshot wounds, said Alonso Velasquez, director of the attorney general's office in Florencia.
The identities of those aboard haven't been released.
The single-engine Cessna plane went down Thursday in rebel territory in southern Colombia where the United States has backed a massive campaign in the region to locate and destroy the drug crops with aerial fumigation. Plantations of coca -- the main ingredient of cocaine -- are prevalent in this region of humid plains and jungle-covered mountains.
According to one report based on a radio interception, rebels quickly arrived on the scene of the plane crash and captured the survivors.
The State Department said the plane was a U.S. counter-drug aircraft.
President Alvaro Uribe lamented the deaths of "two people aboard the plane -- a sergeant in our army and an American citizen -- whose murders have been confirmed in the south of the country."
"There is a massive effort under way in a very unfriendly part of the country," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington.
The Americans were contractors for the U.S. military's Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. government officials said in Washington. The U.S. Embassy said the plane crashed eight minutes before its scheduled arrival in Florencia, a provincial capital.
Colombian troops and U.S. officials continued their desperate search Friday for the survivors. DynCorp, a U.S. State Department contractor involved in anti-drug missions in Colombia, said Thursday that it was helping in the rescue effort.
Four Colombian soldiers involved in the rescue effort were reported injured by rebel land mines.
"The rebels have a large part of the area mined to stop troops from coming in," said Capt. Lida Zambrano, spokeswoman for the Colombian army's 12th Brigade. [End]
ARMED MEN
According to spokesmen for Fedecámaras, the armed men who detained the business leader presented neither identification nor a warrant.
They fired into the air to disperse a small crowd before arresting Fernández.
Ombudsman German Mundarain -- regarded by the opposition as a government sympathizer -- said police ''wore vests identifying them as DISIP'' and told the business leader he was under arrest.
Sonia Fernández, the business leader's wife, said she was able to speak to him, that he was physically unharmed and was talking with lawyers.
Lawyer Jesus Ramon Quintero said under the country's new penal code, Fernández could be held for 45 days before being formally charged.
''This is the first time a major opposition figure has been treated this way,'' Quintero said, adding that there were ``plenty of indications that this is political.''
'The oil workers' leaders should prepare themselves,'' he warned. ``Next week they could all be arrested.''
The latest moves come just days after the torture and murder, in circumstances that have yet to be clarified, of three soldiers and a young woman involved in a four-month-old anti-government protest by military officers.***
"I don't think there's any question that this precipitous action by the FARC is going to meet with very strong retaliation," said Rep. Tom Davis, D-Va., a member of a visiting Congressional delegation. "Precisely what happens is being discussed as we speak, but they've made a very grave error."
The State Department declined to say what steps could be taken. "Any questions on the response to the hostage scenario cannot be addressed at this time until the whereabouts of missing crew members is ascertained," said Department spokesman Lou Fintor. ***
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