Posted on 04/14/2002 3:27:22 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq hailed the return to power of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, viewing it as a defeat for U.S. foreign policy.
"We congratulate the friendly Venezuelan people for their victory over a U.S. imperialistic conspiracy," Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told reporters.
Chavez returned to the presidential palace in Caracas early Sunday morning, two days after he had been deposed by the Venezuelan military following mass demonstrations in which 16 people were shot dead.
The United States had said Chavez was responsible for his own ouster because of attempts to suppress Thursday's demonstrations.
A groundswell of support for Chavez in the streets of Caracas and among elements of the armed forces on Saturday led the interim president, Pedro Carmona, to resign.
Speaking at a symposium on globalization, Aziz said Chaves' restoration as president was proof that U.S. policy in Venezuela and other parts of the world was "doomed to failure."
Chavez became the first head of state to visit Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites) when he went to Baghdad in August 2000 and met President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), ostensibly to invite him to a summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Saddam took him on nighttime drive around the capital city.
U.S. President George Bush has said his policy is to remove Saddam from power because he defies U.N. resolutions and seeks to rebuild his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
sny-jbm
"The lesson here is that charismatic demagogues can still win elections in poor countries," said Anibal Romero, a political science professor at Simon Bolivar University here. "The economic and social instability is still with us. The field is still open for the successful appearance of these figures that, by distorting reality and securing the hearts and minds of the uneducated,win elections."
..Part of the problem is the way people such as Chavez, who had been on the outside of a corrupt two-party lock on power for years, play the game once they take office. After his failed 1992 coup, Chavez served a two-year prison sentence and then began a journey of discovery on horseback across Venezuela's countryside. He was accompanied by an Argentine neo-fascist, Norberto Ceresole, who believed that a leader should rule with the army at his side.
After his election, Chavez set out to weaken Venezuela's institutions, first by engineering a new constitution that bolstered his power and then by appointing loyal military officers to run its independent agencies. Chavez set out to run a country with a sophisticated economy, based primarily on its vast oil reserves, as a one-man show. He employed the military to carry out social projects, and passed by fiat such important legislation as a land reform measure that would confiscate private property. [End Excerpt]
Iran Sees U.S. Behind Chavez's Venezuela Ouster
Cuba protests ouster of Venezuela's Chavez***
[For almost a day](April 13, 2002) - New York Times - Manager and Conciliator Pedro Carmona Estanga -By JUAN FORERO
[Full Text] CARACAS, Venezuela, April 12 - In one day, the man in charge in the presidential palace went from a strong-willed populist known for his rambling speeches to a mild-mannered businessman who chooses every word carefully.
The new leader, Pedro Carmona Estanga, 60, head of Venezuela's most powerful business group, was installed today as president of an interim government that succeeded President Hugo Chávez, who was forced to resign early today.
Mr. Carmona promised "freedom, pluralism and respect for the state of law" and said general elections would be called within a year.
"It is not a responsibility I have sought," Mr. Carmona, dressed in a sport jacket and casual shirt, told a quickly improvised news conference early this morning. "And I want to tell the country that all the actions I took as a representative of civil society were never done with the goal of reaching this position."
Mr. Carmona was tapped by military officers and leaders of the anti-Chávez movement to take the helm after he had been leading the opposition. Since last summer, Mr. Carmona has headed Fedecámaras, an association of leading businesses. Mr. Chávez's left-leaning economic policies and autocratic style antagonized much of the business class.
Mr. Carmona could not be more different from Mr. Chávez. Although Mr. Chávez cherished attention from the news media and world leaders, Mr. Carmona has never been comfortable in the limelight. Mr. Chávez sought power, even starting a failed coup in 1992, when he was an army colonel, before winning office in an election in 1998.
"This has never been his aspiration," said Rafael Sandrea, a friend who is in Mr. Carmona's business group. "He fell into it because of the circumstances."
Mr. Carmona, experts said, is a level-headed manager who is also known as a conciliator. He was chosen to head Fedecámaras as someone who could negotiate with Mr. Chávez. One of Mr. Carmona's unusual achievements was forging an alliance with the one million-member Venezuelan Workers Confederation, the largest labor group.
"He's a guy who's looking for compromises and solutions that everyone can work with," said Robert Bottome, editor of Veneconomía, a business newsletter here. "He has the style of personality that is exactly right for this moment."
As protests mounted, Mr. Carmona became the most prominent spokesman for the anti-Chávez cause. Slight and meek, he often appeared sitting behind a desk, reading a statement or giving a precise response to the reporters' microphones that surrounded his baldish head.
He would sometimes seem overwhelmed, but he always managed to remain calm. Yet as efforts to prod the government to negotiate failed, Mr. Carmona became ever more steadfast in his pronouncements against Mr. Chávez.
Mr. Carmona was born on June 6, 1941, in Barquisimeto, 155 miles southwest of Caracas. He has been married 25 years and has one child.
An economist educated at Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas and in Belgium, he headed a large petrochemical company, Venoco, that processes automotive oils. A major stockholder in the company, Mr. Carmona resigned as its president last summer to run Fedecámaras.
Mr. Carmona, an avid flier, is known in Caracas business society as a taskmaster who has worked hard to get where he is.
"Carmona is not a mega-industrialist in his own right," a political consultant, Eric Ekvall, said. "Carmona is a man who's always worked in and been involved in the business sector, but always as a manager. He's not one of the landed elite, with his own fortune, his own bank."
His supporters hope that his negotiating abilities will help him mend the wide gulf between Mr. Chávez's supporters, mostly poor Venezuelans, and the middle and upper classes that strongly backed the turnover.
Mr. Carmona will have to work hard. Many of the poorest people will see him as part of the "squalid oligarchy" that Mr. Chávez derided.
"There are still 15 to 20 percent of the people who think Chávez is god," Mr. Bottome said, "and the biggest challenge between now and Christmas is for this transition government to be able to respond to their needs." [End]
(December 29, 2000) - Fidel, Saddam and Hugo --An improbable but growing friendship of three military revolutionaries***The improbable but growing friendship of three military revolutionaries - Fidel Castro of Cuba, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela - poses a challenge to U.S. interests and to President-elect George W. Bush. It is a friendship with considerable power: Venezuela and Iraq are among the top 10 oil exporters. Cuba is a beneficiary of their largesse and, in Venezuela's case, a mentor of revolution.
Meanwhile, United Nations economic sanctions against Iraq, imposed after the Persian Gulf War nearly 10 years ago, and the four-decade U.S. embargo against Cuba, following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, are crumbling. Allies and U.S. businesses are increasingly violating or ignoring both embargoes, and there is nothing Washington seems able to do about it. Earlier this month, the UN Security Council overrode U.S. objections and released $525 million from its Iraqi oil fund for use in upgrading Mr. Saddam's oil industry.***
Is this the same Tariq Aziz who loudly resigned from Saddam's cabinet some time ago, ostensibly over some spat involving his son? Maybe Saddam made him an offer he couldn't refuse to come back.
Bump!
You are not alone- most of America remains painfully oblivious to events in our own backyard. Never forget that these shadowy, alphabet-soup groups like the IRA, FARC, ANC, ad infinitum, share things in common....
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