Posted on 04/10/2002 1:28:35 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - An angry President Hugo Chavez accused leaders behind a general labor strike and a work slowdown at the state-owned oil monopoly of trying to overthrow him and said he will defeat them.
Chavez said "corrupt" labor, business and political leaders from the opposition were trying to trigger a military coup by creating unrest. He blasted the news media for inflating the size of Tuesday's strike, sowing panic in the population and depicting a chaotic Venezuela abroad.
"No one stops Venezuela, especially a diminished number of oligarchs, of corrupt ones," Chavez declared in a nationally broadcast speech late Tuesday. "They're still trying to defend their privileges."
He urged thousands of followers not to be provoked into violence by the opposition and to be alert to conspiracies against his 3-year-old government.
"One day, I want to sheathe my sword," Chavez said. "But today I draw my sword again" to defeat the conspiracy, he proclaimed to cheers.
The labor strife at Petroleos de Venezuela and the bitter general strike has cut oil production and exports, rattled oil markets and aggravated political instability in this South American nation.
A petroleum workers' slowdown all but shut down one of the world's biggest refineries Tuesday, closed another, and brought ship deliveries to a near-standstill. Chavez defiantly insisted that production was normal.
Venezuela usually sends 400,000 barrels of refined products such as gasoline per day to the United States, as well as 1.3 million barrels of crude. Its troubles follow Iraq's suspension of exports to demand that Israel abandon Palestinian territories.
"I have a dozen vessels lined up, waiting for loading," said one shipping agent at the port of Puerto La Cruz. More than 20 tankers were waiting at the nation's main terminals, industry sources said.
On Tuesday, Fedecamaras, Venezuela's biggest business group, and the 1 million-member Venezuelan Workers Confederation launched a 24-hour general strike and later extended it by 24 hours until Thursday to support dissident workers at Petroleos de Venezuela. They warned they may continue indefinitely to weaken Chavez's government.
Confederation chief Carlos Ortega demanded that Chavez meet the demands of PDVSA strikers: Rescind his Feb. 25 appointment of a company board PDVSA executives claim will work to assert Chavez's control over a traditionally independent corporation.
Chavez insists the board is qualified and his appointments based on the law.
Fedecamaras president Pedro Carmona condemned the government's use of a law that forced all broadcast media to repeat government announcements that Tuesday's strike was a failure. Broadcasters were forced to transmit dozens of government transmissions, repeatedly interfering with reporting on the strike, until late Tuesday.
Labor and business leaders declared the strike a success, though Fedecamaras director Gregorio Rojas acknowledged it wasn't as inclusive as a Dec. 10 strike that virtually paralyzed the country. Tuesday's strike, he noted, was called only on Sunday. Chavez called it a failure.
Bands of Chavez supporters known as "Bolivarian Circles" clashed with strikers outside PDVSA headquarters, and at least 18 people were injured, many of them Chavez supporters, police officers at the scene said.
A Caracas city official, Nestor Henriquez, was dragged from a car by strikers and beaten before he fled under a hail of rocks. Richard Blanco, an official with the opposition Democratic Action party, accused Henriquez of belonging to "the armed gangs which (Chavez) incites with his aggressive rhetoric."
Thousands of citizens waving red, yellow and blue Venezuelan flags converged on PDVSA headquarters late Tuesday to sing the national anthem and chant, "Chavez Out! Chavez Out!" Dozens of National Guard troops took up positions around the building.
The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, urged U.S. citizens to be aware of "potentially violent confrontations" for "the next several weeks."
"What strike? There's no strike," Chavez told a reporter from a state-run TV channel. "I can tell the country, the world, that the country isn't paralyzed, the situation is absolutely normal. ... Oil is being produced and being exported."
But Jose Manuel Bacardo, manager at the 950,000-barrels-per-day Paraguana refinery, told Union Radio that the facility is "virtually shut, because with no products leaving, even by ship, you have effectively stopped the refinery."
With neither side willing to budge, "This is a fight with only losers, and no winners," said Ali Rodriguez, secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and a former Venezuelan oil minister.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gestures during a nationally broadcast speech late Tuesday April 9, 2002 outside Miraflores Presidential Palace, in Caracas, Venezuela. In his speech he accused leaders behind a general labor strike and a work slowdown at the state-owned oil monopoly of trying to overthrow him and said he will defeat them. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Bump!
EX-president of Venezuelan state oil company accuses government of eroding morale ***Other bones of contention were the central government's demand that the company hand over $4.4 billion in dividends last year, forcing PDVSA to borrow $500 million to pay the bill; and the oil sales to Cuba, whose leader, Fidel Castro, is Chavez's longtime mentor. · Chavez has insisted that oil sales continue to Cuba, despite an unpaid $97 million bill for past sales. ***
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