Venezuela's Chavez Taps Generals to Fight 'Oil War' - Is Castro Running Out of Gas?*** Both generals are close allies of Chavez, who has used the armed forces to take over strike-hit oil installations and, more recently, to raid food plants he accuses of deliberately hoarding goods to support the strike. Since a short-lived coup against him in April, the president has purged his opponents from the military and is now doing the same in the strategic oil industry. Some 2,000 striking oil executives and employees have been fired. In a move that drew howls of outrage from Chavez's foes, National Guard troops on Friday broke into two private drinks manufacturing facilities. One was a local bottling affiliate of Coca-Cola Co. and the other a storage plant belonging to Venezuela's biggest private company, Empresas Polar.
CUBA'S CASTRO PRAISES CHAVEZ
Chavez on Sunday accused a U.S.-controlled technology company, Intesa, of joining what he called a campaign of sabotage by the opposition strikers in the state oil giant PDVSA. Intesa, 60 percent of which was owned by the U.S. company Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), had been responsible for running PDVSA's computer systems which Chavez said were deliberately blocked and disrupted in the strike.
"The Intesa executives didn't want to cooperate ... We'll have to rescind that contract ... We're nationalizing the brains of our oil industry," the president said. Opposition leaders said Friday's raids against the drinks firms were an attack on private property. They accuse Chavez of trying to introduce Cuba-style communism in Venezuela. Cuban President Fidel Castro on Sunday defended his friend and political ally Chavez, praising him as a "firm, good and intelligent man who is not going to abandon his people." Speaking in the eastern Cuban city of Santiago de Cuba, Castro said Chavez's striking opponents were being defeated. ***
Millions in Cuba vote in race without choices *** HAVANA - President Fidel Castro and millions of other Cubans voted yesterday in parliamentary elections where all 609 candidates ran uncontested. Many Cuban dissidents labeled the vote a farce and refused to participate. State television showed Castro voting in the eastern city of Santiago, where he traditionally casts his ballot. ''We are perfecting our revolutionary and socialist democracy,'' Castro told hundreds of cheering supporters during a lengthy address outside the voting place.***