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]
"I'm very concerned about what message it sends about our support for democracy there and around the world," said Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic majority leader. "I think that we've got to be supportive of democratic principles even when they choose to elect people we don't like."
In some ways, the back-and-forth between administration officials and Democrats recalled the suspicion and bitter policy battles over Central America and Cuba during the Reagan administration. The administration's foreign policy team is dominated by anti-Castro hard-liners, who fought those policy battles, and they are running afoul of familiar antagonists including Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who has long specialized in Latin American affairs.
Mr. Dodd expressed dismay that the administration had been slow to criticize Mr. Chávez's ouster. Administration officials erroneously reported on Friday that Mr. Chávez had resigned and said his antidemocratic behavior was responsible for his undoing. Only after Mr. Chávez had been restored on Saturday did the administration support a resolution at the Organization of American States condemning the interruption of democratic rule.
"While all the details of the attempted coup in Venezuela are not yet known, what is clear is that the vast majority of governments in the hemisphere lived up to their responsibilities under the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and denounced the unconstitutional efforts to take power from a government which had been freely elected," Mr. Dodd said.
Mr. Reich, who is a Cuban exile, warned Congressional aides that there was more at stake in Venezuela than the success or failure of Mr. Chávez. American officials accuse Mr. Chávez of meddling with the historically independent state oil company, providing haven to Colombian guerrillas and bailing out Cuba with preferential rates on oil.
In the closed door briefing, Mr. Reich said the administration had received reports that "foreign paramilitary forces" suspected to be Cubans were involved in the bloody suppression of anti-Chávez demonstrators, in which at least 14 people were killed, a Congressional official said today.
Mr. Reich, who declined to be interviewed today, offered no evidence for his assertion, the official said. ***
According to the official, Ali Rodriguez was "offered the job last night," by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez but declined because of his commitments to OPEC.
Rodriguez has extended his stay in Venezuela by another week, OPEC's official said, a move which one OPEC source said could suggest that he is reconsidering the offer.***
This is not to say the coup was a necessary course of action, even from the standpoint of those who think Chavez must go. As Stephen Johnson of the Heritage Foundation points out, there were efforts already underway to remove Chavez from office through the devices of Venezuela's own constitution. It is possible to believe that his days were numbered without have to resort to extra-legal methods.
The coup went so badly that it's hard not to wonder whether Chavez didn't have a hand in it. He moves from a weakened position to a strengthened one. Let's be clear, however, in labeling this conspiracy theory as totally speculative. The enemies of the Bush administration won't be nearly so generous. Wednesday's New York Times, for instance, reports that Otto Reich urged Carmona not to dissolve the National Assembly, a claim the Times darkly interprets as "rais[ing] questions as to whether Mr. Reich or other officials were stage-managing the takeover by Mr. Carmona."
Except that Carmona apparently wasn't letting himself be stage-managed. But that doesn't matter. The Left now will make a determined effort to see the hand of Otto Reich behind it all - as if wishing would make it so.***
Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), told reporters he saw no risk of a new coup like the one that swept Chavez out last Friday after a huge anti-government protest when 17 people died, but warned: "There is a risk ... social unrest will come again soon."
Indeed, opposition leaders, unconvinced that the feisty former paratrooper whom critics say wants to install a Cuban-style regime in the world's No. 4 oil exporter has any intention of changing his autocratic ways, promised as much. "As long as Chavez remains in power, we will continue the protests," Henry Ramos, president of Accion Democratica, one of Venezuela's main opposition parties, told Reuters. ***
Cuba sent additional "teachers" and "doctors" to help in the proselytizing. And China -- notorious for violations of human rights and unfriendliness to America - also sent "workers" to help Chavez's regime.
As Castro did in Cuba after 1959, the armed forces of Venezuela were reorganized by putting Chavez's cronies in charge of all important positions in the military. And as in Cuba, promotions became conditional on political beliefs. Cuban military advisers and intelligence operatives descended on Venezuela to help organize the repressive apparatus necessary to keep the new dictator in place.
The so-called "Cubanization" of Venezuela was well underway when, on June 10, 2001, Chavez, following Castro's example and guidelines, created paramilitary battalions to repress and intimidate his political adversaries. While in Cuba they are called "Rapid Response Brigades" Chavez called his "Bolivarian Circles."***
April 2001 - Mr. Chávez has described the subsequent purge of Ms. Imber and others as the start of a "Bolivarian cultural revolution," a reference to Venezuela's national hero, Simón Bolívar. But that term has generated apprehension here, especially in view of Mr. Chávez's declaration "I am a Maoist," made during the visit this month of President Jiang Zemin of China, and the agreements he has signed to bring Cuban advisers and exchange programs to Venezuela. Cultural affairs in this oil-rich nation of 24 million people are supervised by the same ministry that is responsible for education and sports. Last year Mr. Chávez made Manuel Espinoza, 64, a former Communist Party member and painter whose work has been exhibited, among other places, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the country's top cultural official by appointing him director of the National Council of Culture. [Castro has sent Chavez over 600 teachers, doctors and sports advisors.]
May 2001 - ``We're described in the world in a similar way,'' Chavez told Putin later, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. ``We're called people of democracy, with our own vision of democracy.''
June 2001- "Foreigners who come here and say something that offends the country or the government or the president or the people will be expelled from Venezuela. Starting today," Chavez said Sunday at a business forum.
Chavez recently warned he would declare a "state of emergency" to give himself more power to combat poverty and crime. He has yet to do so and accused the news media of exaggerating his remarks.
June 2001 - ``We count on you comrades,'' Chavez told communist supporters. ``The goal is clear: smash the conspiracy and promote the revolution.''
June 2001 - ``We are going to defeat the counter-revolution and push forward with the revolution,'' Chavez told cheering Communist militants who chanted ``Unity, unity'' in a theater decorated with revolutionary slogans and pictures of Argentine guerrilla icon Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara.--- During his fiery speech, Chavez announced ``revolutionary laws'' were being prepared, praised Russia, China and Cuba. While few leaders can sustain high ratings two years after taking office, Chavez enjoys continued high popularity marks. But recent polls give him poorer grades for job performance.
June 2001 - Chavez addressed the issue (declining popularity) during his homecoming speech, insisting that his popularity ``would never fall because Chavez is no longer Chavez. Chavez is the people.''
July 2001 - Chavez, who won a landslide election victory in 1998 six years after leading a failed coup bid, said those critics who accused his government of restricting freedoms were acting in ''bad faith'' or were ignorant about the reality of Venezuela. ``We still keep hearing this sort of thing ... and it makes one think, a bit like Jesus of Nazareth, 'Forgive them Lord, because they know not what they say or do,''' he said, citing a phrase attributed to Jesus Christ when he was crucified.
July 2001 - Chávez announced a plan to form "Bolivarian circles," neighborhood clubs that would instill the principles of the 19th-century hero such as moral character, love of country, and solidarity. That plan immediately stoked fears that Chávez, feeling besieged, really wants a network similar to Cuba's Revolutionary Defense Committees.
July 2001 - Earlier this year cattlemen proposed forming private militias to fend off local criminals and rebels from neighboring Colombia. The idea was abandoned as President Hugo Chavez suspended the issuance of new gun licenses and threatened to jail would-be militiamen.
August 2001 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he was ``worried'' by rising capital flight from his South American nation and warned unnamed ``capitalists'' he said were trying to derail his government: ``We are watching you.''
August 2001 - The veteran Cuban leader, clad in his trademark olive-green military uniform and cap, was greeted at Maiquetia airport with full military honors, a 21-gun salute and a hug from Chavez. ``We welcome this 75-year-old youngster, the same Fidel as ever,'' the Venezuelan leader said. He hailed the Cuban president as a ``brother, friend and revolutionary soldier''…….In a radio and TV broadcast before Castro's arrival, 47-year-old Chavez hailed the Cuban president as the ``leader of noble and just causes in the continent and in the world''.
August 2001 - A former army paratrooper who led a failed 1992 coup - Castro tried the same in a 1953 attack against troops loyal to dictator Fulgencio Batista - Chavez has said that Venezuela is sailing in Cuba's ``sea of happiness.'' But energy and trade pacts with Cuba and China buttress the fears of Chavez's fragmented opposition.
August 2001 - The four-day visit, the first by a Chinese defense minister to oil-rich Venezuela, followed signs that Chavez' left-leaning government wanted to broaden its military ties and move away from a traditional past alliance with the United States. This month, Venezuela asked the U.S. military mission in Caracas to vacate its rent-free offices and seek alternative premises in a move that seemed to signal a cooling of relations between the U.S. and Venezuelan armed forces.
September 2001 - In a speech on Wednesday night opening a bilateral cooperation meeting in Caracas, Chavez heaped praise on veteran Cuban President Fidel and his communist-ruled island and hailed a year-old economic accord between the two countries. ``Now we can talk of a single team. This isn't two teams any more, this is a single Cuban-Venezuelan, Venezuelan-Cuban team,'' he told high-level delegations from both countries.
September 2001 - "I take this opportunity to call on all those who have a lot of land and are not using it to voluntarily put it at our disposal. And if they do not, we will have no alternative but to turn the screw on them,'' said Chavez, wearing his trademark military fatigues.
September 2001 - President Hugo Chavez urged the United States on Friday not to start the ``first war of the 21st century'' in responding to terrorist attacks.
October 2001 - President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has sparked a new tiff with the United States by holding up photos of dead children and telling his countrymen that the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan has left a wake of atrocities. ``See this baby? What fault did it have?'' Chávez said in a national televised speech Monday night, suggesting that allied bombing was leaving innocent civilian casualties.
November 2001 - Venezuela's Chavez Says Remarks About U.S. Attacks Were Misinterpreted-- "I want to be your friend," Chavez said in English. "It's not a condemnation, it's a reflection and call for peace, and that's the way it should be interpreted," he added in Spanish. "I lament very much that my reflections have been interpreted in a different manner than in the spirit which gave rise to them," he said.
November 2001 - ``We are on alert because of this situation and because of almost public calls by political and often corrupt groups for rebellion.'' ``There will not be a coup here,'' Chavez added.
November 2001 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday dismissed rumors of a possible military coup in his South American nation, but warned that if there were any such insurrection he would meet it with ``my rifle in hand.'' Asked if he had considered resigning in the face of bitter media criticism of his government and protests from many sectors of society, Chavez said: ``No way. There is no reason for that.'' ``If one day, I realize that I am doing harm to the country, then I would be the first to go far away,'' he said.
November 2001 - They are not going to blackmail me, I will not be pushed around by anyone,'' Chavez said. ``I am very clear in my mind about the part I must play in the national history now.''
November 2001 - ``I dare them to have that strike. We will see who has more strength, [business] or the sovereign people,'' Chávez said while inaugurating a transportation law. ``I'm the head of state. You're not going to put me against the wall; you're not going to blackmail me.''
December 2001 - President Hugo Chavez threatened on Saturday to nationalize banks that fail to observe legislation requiring them to lend at least 15 percent of their loan portfolio to small farmers. ``We can nationalize any bank that does not observe the law,'' Chavez said in a speech in Venezuela's National Assembly. ``Not only can we nationalize any bank, any banker that does not abide by the law could go to jail.''
December 2001 - Chávez, speaking in the morning at La Carlota air force base to mark Aviation Day while pots and pans were being banged from nearby residences, appeared furious at the strike's success. He said the action was called by oligarchs attempting to protect their entrenched interests against his land reform policies. ``I will never go and sit down at a negotiation table, not to consider the betrayal of a people 1,000 times betrayed,'' he bellowed. ``I am getting a pair of pliers because I'm going to start tightening the screws.''
January 2002 - Opposition lawmakers attacked by supporters of Venezuela's President Chavez : Chavez called the violence a "warning" to the opposition "and its absurd and evil intention" of trying to destabilize his government. He threatened to deploy supporters on "every street corner" to "defend the revolution," as the leftist leader refers to his policies.
January 2002 - ''This revolution is not against the rich. ... The middle class can count on this revolutionary government to respect their rights and their property,'' Chavez said. He said the media had manipulated his frequent diatribes against ''oligarchs.''
January 2002 - The hearts of President Hugo Chavez's numerous and vociferous critics must have leapt as he announced his departure from the historic Miraflores presidential palace. But the outspoken former-paratrooper, who is due to serve as president of the world's No. 4 oil exporter until 2007, quickly frustrated his opponents by clarifying he was leaving the 19th century mansion so a university could be set up there. ``I am going from Miraflores,'' said the 47-year-old president in a speech late on Wednesday, adding ``I leave it to the children, for the birth of a Popular Bolivarian University.'' Chavez, who has renamed his South American country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in honor of 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, announced the surprise move at the swearing in of a new higher education minister.
``I am sure my squalid opponents were elated when I said I was leaving Miraflores,'' chuckled the leftist leader, whose three-year-old ``revolution'' has deepened class divisions in his dilapidated but oil-rich republic. The palace, which was built by former dictator Joaquin Crespo and bought by the government in 1911, ``has fulfilled its mission,'' Chavez said. Standing at the center of Caracas' long valley, which is home to some 5 million inhabitants, the Miraflores palace is flanked by a huge army barracks. ``Later on I will tell you where I am going to move,'' Chavez said. [As far as I know he's still living there]
January 2002 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez assailed the country´s Catholic bishops, accusing them of not "walking in the way of God" because they do not openly support thepolitical leader´s "revolution." Chávez added: "Look here, Monsignor, one of the tumors of the revolution is the Catholic Church."
February 2002 - Cheered by supporters wearing red and jeered by black-clad foes, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday feted the botched 1992 coup that made him famous, saying it had spawned a full-scale "revolution." Chavez, who won the presidency through the ballot box six years after failing to seize power with the gun, had declared the Feb. 4 anniversary a "day of jubilation" and led four days of government-organized rallies, marches and ceremonies. "It was a dark night smelling of gunpowder and lead," Chavez, who wore a dark suit instead of military fatigues, said in a homage to those killed during the uprising led by him. "And here we are today, 10 years later, in the midst of a full-scale revolution, well on the way toward definitively restoring social justice for the people," he added.
February 2002 - In an uncharacteristically conciliatory speech late on Wednesday, the former paratrooper even extended an olive branch to his domestic opponents, asking them to help him "sheathe his sword" and end confrontation over contested economic reforms. "I am not a communist. ... I am very clear about which direction my country is going," the 47-year-old president, who is known for his abrasive, outspoken leadership style, said in the city of Maracay after swearing in a new trade minister.
February 2002 - Chavez said his government's policies "are the business of no one else in the world except Venezuelans." Noting that his visit to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 2000 had "irritated some people in the world," Chavez said: "What do we care? Let them get irritated. ... We are defending the sacred interests of the Venezuelan people."
February 2002 - "I know the armed forces inside out. I come from there. I spent more than 20 years of my life in the military and I know who is who in the Venezuelan barracks," Chavez, a former paratrooper, said in an interview with Chilean State Television, broadcast in Caracas late on Saturday. "There is no serious opposition, they do not have leadership, they do not have an alternative project," he said.
February 2002 - Chavez ordered the secret and federal police to draw up a strategy to expose and punish businesses that are illegally adjusting prices. Violators could be sent to prison, he said. "We cannot allow a small group that controls commerce to take advantage of these necessary, just and opportune measures to try to enrich themselves," Chavez said during his weekly radio show.
February 2002 - Now his adversaries include the business community, labor unions, the middle class, neighboring countries -- and the church. The opposition has taken to calling him 'El Chalibán,'' a play on the word Taliban. The snowballing size of the opposition has led to increasing social and political tension. In December, an unlikely alliance -- business and labor -- conducted a one-day strike to protest Chávez' laws. A month later, a massive march took place in the streets; Chávez had the government TV station broadcast a Catholic Mass instead…. ``It's not just the middle class, it's every class. We would rather have someone else, but there are no other options. What we can't do is expect anyone to be our savior -- that's what happened when we voted for Chávez.''
February 2002 - "I am sure that the organs of power in Washington are not going to let themselves be duped or manipulated ... that the U.S. government knows what's really happening here," he said. He acknowledged, however, that the two countries had "different views" on some subjects. The U.S. government has criticized the Venezuelan leader for befriending its enemies like Iraq and Cuba and also for questioning the U.S-led anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan.
February 2002 - Egui Bastidas: "I am resigning because I disagree with the DISIP's policy of providing security to Colombian guerrillas-he also made a number of revelations about DISIP activities in recent months. He said the Venezuelan security service had collected personal information about all serving military officers and had also tried to smear opposition figures, such as Alberto Pena, the mayor of Metropolitan Caracas.
The official said he was also concerned at the growing role of Russian and Cuban security advisers in Venezuela. Egui Bastidas said he had experienced "the direct participation and the attempts at indoctrination by the Russian and Cuban intelligence services, who have direct and virtually unlimited access within the Helicoide (DISIP's headquarters building)." The official's lawyer, former DISIP Secretary-General Joaquin Chaffardet, said around 100 members of the Cuban intelligence services are currently operating in Venezuela.
February 2002 - "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.
February 2002 - Former paratrooper Chavez, who is battling growing opposition to his three-year-old rule, had called out his supporters to rally behind his government on the same day that anti-Chavez union bosses held a big anti-government protest. The competing demonstrations took place at a time when the president already is grappling with a faltering economy, open defiance from a handful of military officers and a revolt against his policies within the giant state oil firm PDVSA.
February 2002- But Chavez refuses to reconsider his appointment of leftist economist Gaston Parra as PDVSA president and of five government loyalists to the seven-member board of directors. He insists PDVSA employees must conform to state oil policy, which centers on strict compliance with production quotas imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The policy aims to stabilize oil prices but has significantly reduced PDVSA's production and output capacity. "They have to follow government policy because it's a state company. It's that simple." Chavez told foreign reporters earlier this week. "Those who don't agree can leave."
March 2002 - In comments Sunday, the Venezuelan leader slammed what he called ``perverse, immoral, lying and ill-intentioned'' coverage of Venezuela by national and international media.
March 2002 - "If they shut down the company, we'll militarize it. I am not going to allow Petroleos de Venezuela to be shut down," Chavez said.
March 2002 - Hailing the Venezuelan leader's "spirit and enthusiasm", the veteran Cuban president said Chavez would address the U.N. conference in Mexico as president of the Group of 77, which represents more than 130 developing countries. "No other voice could be better than yours to defend the interests of the (Group of) 77. ... You will have the possibility of putting forward the point of view of the progressive people of the world," Castro added.
March 2002 - In a speech in eastern Venezuela on Wednesday, Chavez scoffed at his opponents, calling them "poor things" and saying they viewed him as a "devil ... steeped in sulfur." Getting rid of Chavez is more difficult than trying to knock down a mule by pinching it," the president said during a ceremony to formally inaugurate a foreign-financed heavy crude oil upgrading project.
March 2002 - The world is living "a true genocide" and one cannot blame "this strategy on the poor countries. They are not the ones who conquered and pillaged entire continents over the centuries, nor did they establish colonialism, implant slavery, or create modern- day imperialism," said the Cuban leader in a speech that won enthusiastic applause from NGO delegates at the conference. According to his colleague Chávez, the world "is not only twisted," but it is "backwards," and the leaders of the world must straighten it out, he said in his address on behalf of the Group of 77, a bloc of 133 developing countries, plus China.
March 2002 - But until recent weeks, the skirmishes had been largely confined to newspaper editorial pages and Chavez's fiery speeches. Now, press advocates say, the president's incendiary verbal attacks have incited his followers to physical aggression against journalists. Angry hordes have shoved reporters and photographers covering presidential events, rocked and banged on television-station vehicles, and spewed epithets at reporters such as "traitors to the homeland" and "sell-outs."
"Some people feel legitimized (by Chavez) in lashing out at us physically and verbally," said Globovision television reporter Jose Vicente Antonetti, who has complained to the government's Human Rights Office. "He is instigating people by saying that Globovision does not report the truth, which is totally false." Reporters say the harassment is getting worse, with some saying that they have been followed, threatened and had their phones tapped. "One of the things they say is that my daughter is going to be the first death of this (Chavez) revolution," said Patricia Poleo, editor of the daily El Nuevo Pais.
At Chavez's radio show last Sunday, local newspapers reported that a Chavez supporter was videotaping journalists covering the event. When questioned, the videotaper ominously said the film was to identify the reporters to his colleagues. The previous week, the official government news agency Venpres issued a story denouncing three reporters who have been relentless in uncovering government corruption scandals, claiming they are "narco-journalists" in league with drug traffickers. Chavez later termed the story "a mistake."
April 2002 - "Comandante" Lina Ron, who considers herself a modern version of "Tania," a woman who fought alongside Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, says she is a willing martyr for Chavez's cause. She was arrested after leading a violent pro-Chavez counter-protest against demonstrating university students. Ron suggested that violence is needed to quash mounting opposition to Chavez - whose combative rhetoric has contributed to a precipitous decline in popularity polls. It's needed, she said, to allow Venezuela's majority poor a stake in the country's governance for the first time in history. Ron attributes her growing flock of supporters to a "gift that God gave me" so that "the people follow me and believe in me. ... We're ready for the Fatherland to call us."
Now Ron has become a focal point for debate about Chavez's "Bolivarian Circles," which the government calls self-help neighborhood groups. Chavez opponents call them a violent threat to democracy styled after Cuba's Revolutionary Block Committees. Created after Castro urged Venezuelans to "organize" to defend Chavez's revolution, the committees are forming street tribunals to demand Ron's release - and to symbolically prosecute government opponents as "traitors." In recent months, the 42-year-old Ron has organized and led street marches - called "countermarches" here - to stop or intimidate demonstrations by civilians and a disorganized opposition to Chavez. Two December marches to Miraflores, the presidential palace, were stopped by Ron's "countermarches." A February march to the National Assembly to commemorate Venezuelan democracy was similarly met - and diverted - by a countermarch.
Ron and her followers burned a U.S. flag in Caracas' central Plaza Bolivar just after the September terrorist attacks in the United States. The anti-Washington demonstration appalled many Venezuelans. More recently, Ron's followers threatened journalists at El Nacional newspaper in Caracas. Chavez has called Ron a political prisoner. "We salute Lina Ron, a female soldier who deserves the respect of all Venezuelans," he said recently.
…. "We've been forced to suspend the sessions because nobody can work like this, trying to vote while knowing that armed thugs are waiting outside," Cesar Perez, a member of the Social Christian Party, said Friday. More than 200 riot police and National Guardsmen were sent to the assembly on Thursday night to protect lawmakers from rowdy "Chavistas" who threw rocks and bottles when opposition legislator Pastor Heyra tried to enter the elegant assembly building.
April 2002 - Lately, Chavez declared himself a member of a charismatic congregation, thus allegedly belonging to his country's fastest-growing branch of Christianity. But then he angered the country's National Catholic Bishops Conference by communing at a Mass organized by a priest of pro-Communist leanings.
April 2002 - "Our patience in this conflict has been obvious," Chavez said in his weekly radio show. "We have been soft. That has been our error. They have crossed the line." "Tomorrow there may be more" firings, he added. Executives Horacio Medina, Juan Fernandez, Eddy Ramirez, Gonzalo Feijoo, Alfredo Gomez, Carmen Elisa Hernandez and Edgar Quijano were fired. Chavez accused the protesters of trying to "sabotage" Venezuela's oil industry and vowed that his efforts to reform PDVSA would continue. Last week, managers at Petroleos de Venezuela walked off the job to protest Chavez's attempts to assert control over the company.
April 2002 - Also on Wednesday, an army general whose duties included patrolling part of the western border with Colombia accused Chavez of taking a "passive" attitude toward leftist Colombian guerrillas. Brig. Gen. Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez said at a Caracas news conference that Colombian guerrillas maintain camps along the remote frontier and that Chavez's government was lying when it denied such camps exist inside Venezuela. Gonzalez Gonzalez accused Chavez of refusing to govern democratically, of sympathizing with the rebels and politicizing Venezuela's military. "Mr. President, you have betrayed the country," he said. "Respect the national armed forces."
April 2002 - Chavez has insisted that oil sales continue to Cuba, despite an unpaid $97 million bill for past sales.
April 11, 2002 - Chavez Foes March in Venezuela, Head for Palace - 500,000 march/ Update: Venezuela Leader Hugo Chavez Resigns (Chavez faces charges)
April 14, 2002 - Recently Ousted Communist President Hugo Chavez Reclaims Power in Venezuela
A new constitution written by Chávez supporters requires all schools to teach ``Bolivarian principles'' ---- a code phrase for Chávez's brand of leftist populism ---- and the pro-Chávez majority in the legislative National Assembly is preparing a bill laying out the exact curriculum. Last month, the president issued Decree 1011, creating a corps of ``itinerant inspectors'' empowered to close schools and fire teachers that don't follow government-set procedures and standards.
``Political commissars,'' Agudo called them. Jaime Manzo, head of the national teachers' union, called it ``a sword hanging over the head of any teacher who refuses to sing Chávez's praises in the classroom.'' Parents' groups and the teachers' union have appealed to the Supreme Court to block the decree and submitted to the assembly an alternate education reform plan that guarantees a ``pluralist education'' and bans ``partisan politics'' from the classroom.
New history texts for fourth- and sixth-graders published in 1999 praised Chávez's coup attempt and branded as ``corrupt oligarchies'' the two parties that ruled Venezuela since the late 1950s, Democratic Action and COPEI. Chávez has also greatly expanded a system of paramilitary classes in public high schools that had long been on the books but were seldom held, portraying them as ``the founding stones of the new Venezuelan man.''
``He is promoting militarism, infecting texts with viruses that foster class hatreds ... and speak against globalization and privatization,'' Raffalli said in an interview. Chávez recently signed a deal with Cuba under which Havana will train Venezuelan teachers and provide educational materials, and Education Minister Hector Navarro last year approved a nationwide essay competition on the life of Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary Ernesto ``Ché'' Guevara.***
"It (is) very important for President Chavez to do what he said he was going to do, to address the reasons why there was so much turmoil on the streets," Bush said after meeting Colombian President Andres Pastrana at the White House.
"It's very important for him to embrace those institutions which are fundamental to democracy, including freedom of the press and freedom for the ability of the opposition to speak out," Bush told reporters. "And if there's lessons to be learned, it's important that he learn them." [End]
Venezuela, an oil-rich nation the size of France and Spain, has one of the most unequal land ownerships in the world. Many Choroni residents still remember the last attempt at reform. At the birth of its modern democratic era, the government of Romulo Betancourt launched an ambitious agrarian reform amid the leftist euphoria of the early 1960s in Latin America.
``They sent leaders from outside the village to encourage people to invade the land,'' said Haydee Machado amid the dusty grandeur of her colonial villa set in an overgrown cacao farm. ``Most of the estates were bought for land reform, but the new owners collected only one harvest. They never sowed any more crops and they sold they land to outsiders,'' she said.
Betancourt's agrarian reform failed as much of the land redistributed was poor quality, and estate owners promptly repurchased good land using generous indemnity from the government. Many Venezuelans were also reluctant to leave prosperous cities during an oil boom to toil in the fields.
Chavez has blamed the breakdown of reform on corrupt political parties and apathy within the National Agrarian Institute (IAN), which now owns half Venezuela's fallow land. But he faces the same challenge encouraging his country's largely urban and coastal population back to the land.
In the wake of mudslides which ravaged the coastal Vargas state in 1999 killing up to 20,000 people, Chavez called on his poor supporters to abandon precarious hillside slums and move to new farming communities. Few Venezuelans have embraced the president's dream and many victims of Vargas have even trickled back to Caracas' shanty towns. ``We are not going to leave here. We cannot live in the country, there are no jobs there,'' said Leon, beside a road the squatters have painted with the slogan ``We are willing to die for our land.'' [End Excerpt]
Attempts to crack down on the media will test domestic support for Chavez as well as his willingness to fly in the face of international criticism – two issues that lie at the core of Venezuela's future. The failed coup attempt has, on balance, strengthened Chavez politically within Venezuela – though not nearly to the heights of 2000 – while weakening his opposition. And though Chavez, with the eyes of the international community focused upon him, is making "conciliatory" statements to his foes, he may be even more emboldened to ignore international pressure to protect human rights and democracy for the sake of his own political survival.
While the sustainability of the Chavez administration remains in serious doubt, the president is in a position to further consolidate his power – which may include cracking down on the media. And there may be little that the international community can do about it. ***
Rep. Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., was concerned about Ecuador's decision to prohibit the United States from using the Manta air base to carry out the war on terrorism. The United States has used the base for two years to fight drug trafficking. Ecuador's foreign relations minister, Heinz Moeller, said in February that the government would not let the United States use the base for anti-terror activities.***
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