Posted on 02/26/2002 12:07:45 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in an interview published Tuesday, dismissed growing calls by military officers for his resignation. But a U.S. official said Venezuelan officers have raised the possibility of a coup.
Chavez told the French daily Le Monde that the dissident officers "are dissatisfied for personal reasons" and that risks of a military coup are "zero."
"Venezuela has a government that was legitimately elected and enjoys popular support. I might even say that it enjoys more popular support than any other country in the American continent," he said. He claimed the news media were "putting on a show" with the officers.
Adding weight to the dissidents' argument that they speak for a silent majority in the ranks, a Bush administration official said Tuesday that some Venezuelan officers have sounded out U.S. diplomats about how Washington would react to a coup. They were told the U.S. stridently opposes any subversion of Venezuela's democratic process, the official said on condition he not be identified.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the United States has made no secret of its concerns that Chavez has tried to stifle dissent.
"We believe that all parties should respect democratic institutions," said the spokesman, Richard Boucher.
"That applies to whatever direction the attacks on democracy might be coming from," he added.
Chavez, a former army paratrooper who led a failed coup in 1992, was overwhelmingly elected president in 1998 on an anti-poverty, anti-corruption platform. His current term expires in 2007.
Already locked in a verbal war with business, labor, the news media and the Roman Catholic Church, Chavez has struggled for weeks to play down perceptions of military discontent. Those efforts suffered another blow Monday when a fourth military officer demanded that he resign.
Air Force Gen. Roman Gomez Ruiz urged other colleagues to speak out, citing alleged government corruption and what he called Chavez's politicization of the armed forces. He said "many more" in the 100,000-strong military shared his discontent.
"Remember that the people are above all else. And our loyalty is to the nation, not with a particular leader," Gomez Ruiz said. "President Chavez, for the good of the country and for love of the armed forces, resign peacefully and take responsibility for your failure."
Gomez Ruiz said Tuesday he was worried about the expanding polarization of Venezuelan society into two camps - one led by the leftist Chavez and the other by a growing but disorganized opposition that has balked at the president's attempts to increase the state's role in the economy and is weary of his incessant verbal attacks on any and all critics.
Amid the bickering, Venezuela's oil-dependent economy has struggled along with the global slump in world oil prices. Poverty afflicts 80 percent of the nation's 24 million people. Street crime is high. And the Venezuelan bolivar has lost more than a third of its value against the U.S. dollar in recent weeks after the government abandoned exchange controls in an effort to stem billions of dollars in capital flight.
Many in the armed forces resent Chavez's distancing of Venezuela from traditional allies such as the United States and his political ties with Cuba and leftist Colombian rebels. They also object to being assigned public works and other traditionally civilian tasks, which they consider outside their role as defenders of the country.
"We need peace, tranquility, quiet, work and a lot of security," Gomez Ruiz told Union Radio Tuesday.
He praised other officers who have publicly called for Chavez to resign: Air Force Col. Pedro Soto, National Guard Capt. Pedro Flores and Navy Vice Adm. Carlos Molina Tamayo. Another officer, Gen. Guaicaipuro Lameda, quit the armed forces after he was fired as head of Venezuela's state-owned petroleum company so that he could be free to criticize Chavez.
Soto was discharged last week, and Flores was jailed for 15 days. The military is still deciding whether to sanction Molina Tamayo.
Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel said Gomez Ruiz was angry about being asked to step down earlier this month as head of air transport in the Infrastructure Ministry.
Both the government and opposition groups planned marches in Caracas on Wednesday to commemorate 1989 food riots that killed hundreds.
In a newspaper advertisement Tuesday, more than 3,000 workers at state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela SA protested Chavez's decision to fire Lameda and replace him with leftist economist Gaston Parra.
F--k Chavez--- Clemenza's Venezuelan neighbor at work
Chavez denies he supports FARC but it just doesn't fly.
All the commies Chavez has been cozying up to around the world, will feel the sting too.
Venezuela couldn't last until 2007 when Chavez's term expires,
I hope Chavez falls now, because if he doesn't, he's going to be trouble in a couple of years. He is clearly Castro's annointed heir, not for Cuba, but for the Lat Am left. He's obviously encouraging every guerrilla movement that crosses his path; FARC has been very emboldened by their contacts with him. (I assume all Freepers know that FARC kidnapped one of the Colombian presidential candidates a couple of days ago, and have added her to their kidnapped stock of five members of the Colombian Congress and a growing number of police and military personnel.)
I hope the people opposed to Chavez strike now, while popular opinion is against him and before he can completely crush the opposition.
Besides the military, who is left? The homeless and the academics?
I'm sure having Otto Reich in place (A President Bush recess appointment-- Christopher Dodd was blocking his hearing and vote as Assistant Secretary of the Western Hemisphere under Colin Powell) has been instrumental.
When President Bush travels to South America in late March, he will find a region that, despite recent political and economic reforms, is still on shaky ground.
Nowhere has that been more evident the last few weeks than in Argentina and, especially, Venezuela.
In Argentina, massive street protests have become a way of life. Millions of people are fed up with the way the government has handled the nation's economy.
In Venezuela, an even worse crisis seems to be brewing. For three weeks, there has been growing pressure on President Hugo Chávez to resign. ...
Although Chávez won by a landslide -- 80 percent of the vote -- his popularity has sunk since he took office. And no wonder. He approved many populist policies for which his government cannot pay. ...
In the international arena, Chávez has alienated traditional allies, including the United States, while befriending totalitarian regimes, such as Cuba, Iraq and Libya, and embracing leftist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia.
If the Venezuelan leader does not change his authoritarian ways, he could throw his nation into the kind of turmoil not seen since the last dictator, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, was overthrown 44 years ago.
Even with that worsening situation, the United States, while monitoring events in Venezuela, should not become directly involved.
The last thing Washington needs is a nation of 24 million people who, despite being unhappy with Chávez, might resent U.S. meddling even more.
Bump!
Venezuela would be better off if it didn't have so much oil. Next to Argentina, it is the biggest nanny state in So. America. The people there think because they have oil, the government should be able to take care of them, so they don't work. It was that way before Chavis was elected, and will probably be that way after he is gone.
Oh, and the other problem besides Chavez, is not oil, its their attitude about oil.
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