WANNA HELP ME TAKE BACK THE SENATE?
Posted on 10/24/2002 12:00:15 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela - Two more military officers joined a protest calling for President Hugo Chavez's ouster, bringing the number to 28, in a mini-revolt that showed little sign of toppling the government but underscored Venezuela's deepening political polarization.
Chavez's government insisted there was no unrest within military ranks. A general and a colonel from the National Guard joined the protest Wednesday evening, but most soldiers stayed in their barracks.
The rally which began Tuesday swelled to several thousand Wednesday afternoon as people got off work. But it was small compared to the one million people who participated in an opposition march - and to Chavez's own rally of hundreds of thousands - two weeks ago.
Still, the officers drew endorsements from the Venezuelan Workers Confederation and the Fedecamaras business chamber, the two groups that organized a nationwide general strike earlier this week.
Venezuela's three main opposition parties, Democratic Action, Primera Justicia and Copei, also endorsed the military dissidents.
Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, was scheduled to visit Sunday, hoping to broker peace talks. Gaviria condemned the call to rebellion and said there was an "urgent need to move from an environment of confrontation to a framework of direct negotiation between the government and the opposition."
"It is imperative that Venezuelans address the current problems within the constitutional order and the rule of law," he said in a statement released Wednesday.
The military high command accused the dissidents of involvement in an April coup.
Fourteen officers went on national television Tuesday to call for a rebellion. They insisted they weren't trying to provoke a coup, but cited a constitutional clause allowing citizens to rebel against a government they consider undemocratic. They were later joined by 12 other officers.
The clause was part of a new constitution which Chavez himself ushered in two years ago as the cornerstone of his leftist revolution against corruption and poverty in this South American oil exporter.
Analysts say the clause was an attempt by Chavez to justify his actions in 1992 when, as an army paratrooper, he led a failed military coup against an unpopular but democratically elected government.
Chavez was jailed after the coup, released two years later and was elected president in 1998.
Now, the constitution's Article 350 has become a rallying point for Venezuela's burgeoning opposition, which is looking for ways to oust Chavez before his term ends in 2007. Rebel military officers have used it to evade prosecution for an April 12-14 coup that followed the killings of 19 people in an opposition protest.
The secretary general of the workers confederation, Manuel Cova, called on citizens to join the protest to pressure the president into calling early elections or at least a nonbinding referendum on his rule in December.
The opposition insists Chavez no longer controls a country mired in economic recession. Venezuela is fiercely divided between those who consider Chavez an autocrat and those who believe him a champion of the poor.
"This crisis has reached levels that the government is unable to manage," Cova said. "Those military officers, by proposing the president's resignation or elections, are echoing what the majority of Venezuelans have expressed. And that proposal falls within constitutional norms."
Chavez, who was re-elected in 2000, has rejected the idea of a nonbinding referendum in December, arguing it would be unconstitutional. But he has agreed to a binding referendum next August, halfway into his term.
In Venezuela, Chavez presidency blurring the lines between democracy and dictatorship.
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... has a "replace" function that does find & replace easily-- makes it a snap to remove one bump list name & substitute another; and change the "group number."
While the bump lists have been locked in favor of the new "keyword" system, I find the old lists have more stories for reference, and are still useful.
That would be nice.
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