Venezuela's opposition seeks unified strategy for ousting Chavez *** CARACAS, Venezuela - Conservatives wore green, while radical leftist students wore red. The vast majority of marchers last weekend, though, were not representing any political party and simply waved Venezuelan flags. The hundreds of thousands of marching Venezuelans dwelled less on their incompatible ideologies than on a deeply shared longing: to oust President Hugo Chavez.
One month after Chavez was removed from office and then quickly restored, dissent is rebuilding in this South American nation of 24 million people - but it is leaderless and disoriented. Most Venezuelans look upon the opposition parties with disdain, considering them corrupt and incapable of proposing a viable alternative to Chavez's self-described leftist "revolution." In desperation, the parties have pledged a unified strategy for toppling Chavez: convoke a national referendum to push him out.***
Carter Debates Democracy With Castro*** "In the United States, we believe that it is very important to have absolute freedom of expression and freedom of assembly," Carter told the students Monday, citing two liberties that nearly all human rights groups find lacking in Cuba. On Monday night, Castro played host to Carter at the Latin American School of Medicine, where the Cuban leader argued that the concept of democracy was born in ancient Athens, with fewer than 20,000 citizens ruling some 50,000 non-citizens and 80,000 slaves.
Noting the vast poverty of most of the world's people, Castro compared Western-style democracies to an Athens in which a minority unjustly dominates the majority and said Cuba was striving for "a society with justice" and equal opportunity. He said his country was seeking "that dream of justice, of true liberty, of true democracy, of true human rights."***