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]
Mr. Gutiérrez was elected president in November after railing against traditional politicians and promising to cut poverty and scale back market reforms. He was supported by a powerful indigenous movement, Pachakutik, and inspired in part by another former army colonel and coup plotter, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Mr. Chávez, who introduced a new Constitution in Venezuela and is redirecting oil profits toward social programs, has taken the most aggressive tack.***
Garcia called the Venezuelan government "abusive" and accused it of threatening the media daily. Journalists in Venezuela have been threatened and shot at while covering clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in the last year. Garcia called attempts by the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to impose a media content law as "nothing short of censorship of the press, while it continues to tighten restrictions on the major television networks." He announced that the IAPA will send a fact-finding mission to Venezuela soon.
Garcia also criticized the Cuban government for the recent arrest of a group of journalists, and expressed concern over Haiti, "where violence against the press continues especially to silence the few voices of dissident radio stations." Garcia cited new types of threats to the press, especially the electronic media. He referred to the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society, which he compared to UNESCO-sponsored New World Information and Communication Order in the 1970s. "This time they are indirectly trying to control the media, especially Internet and electronic media, under the precept that the world is experiencing a transition from the industrial society of the 20th century to information society of the 21st century," he said. ***
Political scientist Christopher Garman writes: "President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva risks wasting his 'honeymoon' with public opinion and generating great frustration." And he continues: "The government made a big mistake by fanning expectations that some reform could be carried out during the first year" (Silvio Bressan, "Especialista não acredita em reformas ainda este ano," O Estado de S. Paulo, 3/2/2003).
Economist Paulo Rabello de Castro emphasizes: "The government's policy agenda is fraught with doubts and can end up by generating even greater frustration" (Rubeny Goulart, "Os caminhos do governo Lula," Forbes, 2/15/2003). With its image declining, the Lula government is under strong pressure from its own supporters to change its economic policy and strive for profound transformations in line with the PT's leftist ideology. This creates uncertainty. Others have warned President Lula not to fall into temptation.***
Court sources said similar cases against late Moroccan King Hassan II, Cuban President Fidel Castro and Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang had also been dropped in recent years. Lawyers filed the suit in Madrid because Spanish law allows for offenses such as genocide and crimes against humanity to be prosecuted in Spain even if they did not occur here. They argued they could not take the case in Venezuela, alleging Chavez controlled the judicial system. It was not immediately known whether the lawyers planned to appeal.
The suit argued that Chavez was responsible for deadly disturbances on April 11, 2002, lawyer Alfredo Romero said in January. The violence erupted when pro- and anti-Chavez demonstrators clashed in downtown Caracas - 19 Venezuelans died and hundreds more were wounded, Romero said. One Spaniard was killed and three were injured, he said. The plaintiffs argued that Chavez organized armed gangs to attack the opposition and keep him in power.
In 1998, National Court Judge Baltasar Garzon tried to bring former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to trial in Spain on charges of genocide. At the time, the court said it did have jurisdiction in the Pinochet case. In Britain, where Pinochet was arrested on a warrant from Garzon, officials released the aging leader on grounds that he was unfit to stand trial. [End]
........Chavez calls President Bush's efforts to reach a hemispheric-free-trade deal by 2005 "the caldron of hell itself" and is threatening to create a more protectionist, Latins-only trade bloc to derail the U.S-backed initiative. His politicization of the state oil company has drained it of nearly one million man-years of experience and made Caracas an increasingly unreliable supplier of oil all the more worrisome as instability looms in the Arab world. And if Chavez really is providing safe haven to rebels who are holding American citizens hostage and trying to overthrow Colombia's democratic government, the Bush administration can expect calls from Bogota -and Capitol Hill-to designate Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism.***
Here in the shadow of Mount Arayat, a rebel stronghold, villagers say the Communists are more active than ever. "Do I feel safe?" said Father Sahagun. "Who feels safe in a place like this? Nobody feels safe." Adding to the danger, the Communists have threatened to form a "tactical alliance" with the Muslim insurgents, who are fighting a separatist war on the southern island of Mindanao and on smaller neighboring islands. Some of the Muslims are believed to have links with terrorist groups associated with Al Qaeda.
The United States has placed one small, violent band, Abu Sayyaf, on its list of terrorist organizations and earlier this year offered to send some 2,000 troops to help fight it. It is the much larger group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, with which the Communists have been in contact. Last August, at the request of the Philippine government, Washington also added the Communist insurgency and its front organization, the National Democratic Front, to the list.***
Surely, any pledge of goodwill from Venezuela towards the United States raises eyebrows these days, given the recent testy exchanges between the two countries. But, despite the tensions, Venezuela could hardly be expected to punish itself economically by halting oil exports to the United States.
Venezuela has traditionally provided about 20 percent of America's crude-oil imports, and it is the world's largest oil producer outside of the Middle East. In the wake of a two-month nationwide strike that began Dec. 4, Venezuela's oil production has been impaired. About 40 percent of the workers at Venezuela's state oil company were fired for striking. Before the strike, Venezuela was exporting about 2.5 million barrels a day, of which 1.5 million (60 percent) went to the United States. Estimates vary on what Venezuela is currently exporting.
Some private analysts believe Venezuela is exporting 1.8 million barrels a day and producing 2.4 million barrels a day. The government says it has passed its OPEC production quota of 2.8 million barrels a day, and can even push up production to 4 million barrels by April, if there's a supply emergency.
Regardless of the varying estimates, the company's ability to recover from the strike is impressive. And the United States does indeed need Venezuelan oil, particularly now. The Bush administration has successfully balanced its need for Venezuelan oil with its determination to hold Mr. Chavez accountable for his actions. The administration criticized Venezuela's arrests of strikers, for example, to which Mr. Chavez responded by telling the United States to mind its own business.
Now, with some Iraqi oil wells set on fire and the war possibly disrupting oil production for an unknown period of time, it may be tempting for the United States to go silent on its concerns about Mr. Chavez. But a continuation of the Bush administration's calibrated policy would bolster U.S. credibility and leadership. Also, the engagement of the United States and other countries in the Group of Friends initiative - an effort to broker agreements between the government and the opposition - keeps Mr. Chavez's policies within certain democratic bounds. The Group of Friends may also be moderating the opposition's tactics. A more restrained Mr. Chavez helps avert the kind of crisis that would disrupt Venezuela's oil production over the medium or long term.
The best guarantor of stability and oil production in Venezuela will be the international community's steady engagement. At this point, the whole world has a stake in Venezuela's future. [End]
Scotland Yard and secret police here are now combing bank accounts, telephone records and other travel documents to determine whether Rahaman, who also suffered from serious depression, might have been part of an al-Qaida cell seeking to launch a surprise attack from an unexpected base: South America. "This is a very complicated, very delicate investigation," said a Venezuelan government official involved in the inquiry. "We are looking to see what links he had" to terrorist groups.
Latin America's loose borders, weak legal systems and poor regional cooperation have long allowed some areas to become minor havens for activities linked to international terrorism. Venezuela's Margarita Island, a tourist destination with a large Arab population, has been identified as a source of funding and site of money laundering for the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups.
Investigators say Rahaman has ties to the region where the borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet. Local Arab traders there are accused of sending millions back to Hamas and Hezbollah. U.S., Argentine and Israeli authorities believe the area was the launching site for bombing attacks in Buenos Aires, Argentina, against the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and a Jewish community center in 1994 that left 86 dead. Brazilian federal police also said recently that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida chief of operations and Sept. 11 mastermind who was arrested earlier this month in Pakistan, visited the triple-border region at least twice in the 1990s. And in 1999, police captured an Egyptian terror suspect affiliated with al-Qaida who established himself at the triple border in order to set up a network there, according to Argentine intelligence documents.
Rahaman had phone contact and other ties with suspected extremists in the triple border region, a U.S. official said in an interview. It is not clear whether Rahaman traveled to the area, the U.S. official said. Investigators in Europe and Venezuela have not yet determined what Rahaman's target might have been, the U.S. official said. But if he turns out to have been part of an al-Qaida operation, it would mark the first time the group has tried to launch an attack from Latin America, raising fears of a new front in the U.S. government's war on terror just hours from Miami. U.S. law enforcement officials are monitoring the case, but have not opened an official investigation.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who heads the Washington office for Rand Corporation, noted that al-Qaida's Web site was paid for from a Caracas-based bank account for a brief period last year. Al-Qaida "may see Latin America as an area where nobody is looking for them," Hoffman said. "They see breathing space and room to maneuver."
Rahaman was arrested Feb. 13 when British customs inspectors found a hand grenade in a large duffel bag as he was leaving the baggage claim area at Gatwick airport. He had flown to London on a British Airways flight that originated in Colombia and made stops in Caracas and Barbados. Rahaman was charged with three counts under Britain's Terrorism Act and remains in custody. ***
. Chavez said that to deter any actions by Colombian irregulars he will be sending in an elite army unit and bolstering air patrols along the 2,200-kilometer (1,367 mile) border with Colombia.
Late Sunday, Bogota's ambassador to Caracas, Carlos Rodolfo Santiago, denounced alleged moves by Venezuelan farmers in the border region to form paramilitary units to protect themselves from Colombian leftist guerrillas. "Some farmers want to create their own groups for protection, and that is totally forbidden in Venezuela," the diplomat told Radio Caracol, alluding to complaints from Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel that Colombian paramilitaries were acting "with total impunity" on the frontier.
He said there might be connections between the proposed paramilitary groups and the right wing Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC) who are involved in a mortal struggle with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).
The opposition in Caracas as well as Colombian media and politicians have repeatedly accused the leftist-populist Chavez government of tolerating and even aiding Colombian rebels inside Venezuela. Chavez has denied the charges, attributing them to an international conspiracy against his government.***
At first, the official U.S. line -- both publicly and privately -- was that there would be no retaliation against countries that did not support the war. Washington would not give leaders of these countries the cold shoulder, nor suddenly find previously undetected bugs in their countries' fruit exports, officials said. But now that the war is in full swing -- and Mexico is scheduled to take over the chairmanship of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday -- the hard-liners within the Bush administration are taking their gloves off. Countries that support Bush will be rewarded, and those that don't will get the cold treatment, the hawks say.***
Gunfire broke out April 11, 2002, when a massive opposition march clashed with a pro-government rally in downtown Caracas. The shootings spurred a bloodless military coup that briefly ousted the leftist Chavez. Loyalists in the military returned Chavez to power two days after the uprising.
Venezuela remains divided over Chavez's continued rule since the mid-April rebellion. Government opponents accuse the former paratrooper of riding roughshod over democratic institutions and dragging this South American nation of 24 million into chaos with ill-defined economic policies. Chavez claims Venezuela's opposition, including leading labor and business groups, are leading an "economic coup" with the intention of overthrowing his revolutionary government. The judges on Tuesday did uphold lesser charges - of improper firearm use and public intimidation - against the four. But defense attorney Amado Molina said they were granted conditional freedom. [End]
In its annual human-rights report released Monday, the U.S. State Department said Venezuela's ''human-rights record remained poor'' and ''government intimidation was a serious problem'' in 2002. ''The president, officials in his administration, and members of his political party frequently spoke out against the media, the political opposition, labor unions, the courts, the Church, and human-rights groups,'' the report said. ``Many persons interpreted these remarks as tacit approval of violence, and they threatened, intimidated, or even physically harmed several individuals from groups opposed to Chávez during the year.''***
For more than a decade, the Venezuelan military with United States cooperation carried out annual eradication campaigns involving hundreds of soldiers who chopped down and yanked out clandestine fields of marijuana, opium poppies and coca, the raw material for cocaine. But last year, as Venezuela experienced social and political upheaval including an aborted military-led coup in April, the country carried out no eradication.
"[The mountains] are full" of drug crops, said a national guardsman in the town of Machiques who participated in past eradications but requested anonymity. "The places we destroyed have regrown." In fact, drug acreage in Venezuela is tiny compared with the numbers in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, long centers of illegal drug exports. In 2001, Venezuela eradicated 117 acres of coca and 96 acres of poppy crops, while the other three eliminated tens of thousands of acres. Still, nobody is certain how much illegal drug cultivation exists in Venezuela, since it has no monitoring program.***
"Iraq! Hold on! The world is rising up!" dozens of Chavez sympathizers chanted in a Caracas auditorium during the inauguration of the "Anti-imperialist Front of Solidarity with Iraq" on Wednesday night. Speakers denounced the attack on Iraq, and some expressed fears that Venezuela would be next. U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro has dismissed such a notion.
Washington is distrustful of Chavez, who maintains a tight friendship with Cuban President Fidel Castro, and who in 2000 became the first world leader to visit Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War. Chavez has condemned the strike on Iraq. Venezuelan-U.S. relations also remain strained over Washington's response to an April 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez. The United States initially blamed Chavez for his own downfall and only belatedly condemned the coup.
"We have to spread the idea that we have to defend ourselves," said lawmaker Victor Hugo Morales, a leader of Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement party and founder of the Anti-imperialist Front. "If we want to make progress we cannot allow ourselves to be colonized." Morales said he "never sympathized" with the Iraqi leader but insisted "the problem isn't Saddam Hussein. The problem is this is strategy to dominate the world."
Morales said the Anti-imperialist Front would organize marches and forums and promote a boycott of U.S. products. The first march will be Saturday on the British Embassy. The movement includes the so-called Bolivarian Circles, neighborhood organizations created by Chavez to help their communities and defend his self-described "revolution." Iraqi Ambassador Tahaal Abassi also addressed the crowd, expressing his gratitude for the initiative. The crowd responded to his speech with chants of "Hey, Hey! Saddam is here to stay!" [End]
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