They better not give up their guns.
They better not give up their guns.
Opposition representative Juan Raffalli said the proposal also calls for votes on the mandates of other elected officials.
The agreement, brokered by the Organization of American States, prohibits any amendments to election laws while authorities prepare for balloting.
A government delegate involved in the negotiations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed an agreement had been reached with help from OAS chief Cesar Gaviria.
The pact, which came unexpectedly after six months of OAS-mediated negotiations and is slated to be signed next week, would end formal talks between the sides. It calls for the creation of a special committee, including envoys from the OAS, Atlanta-based Carter Center and United Nations, to ensure the accord is respected.
Opponents accuse Chavez of scaring off foreign investment and becoming increasingly authoritarian. The only democratic solution to the crisis that has dangerously divided this South American nation of 24 million, they argue, is holding a referendum on his rule.
Chavez denies the allegations. Opposition groups, he argues, aim to overthrow his government to regain privileges they lost when he swept to power on promises to cast aside entrenched political parties widely regarded as corrupt.
Chavez, a former paratrooper who led a failed 1992 coup attempt, was elected president in 1998 and re-elected to a six-year term in 2000. The leftist firebrand has vowed to defeat the opposition bid at the ballot box and says he could remain in power until 2021. [End]
I have questions:
Who elected them?
Did the Department of State have anything to say about this deal via the OAS?
If not, why would Bush accept it? He'd better not keep quiet.
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper
prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breath of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in
Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would
cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had
plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards
withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not God that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four-
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man- There are only
four things certain since Social Progress began:-
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!