Posted on 11/10/2002 11:59:56 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela - Mayor Alfredo Pena's building looks more like a besieged fortress than a city hall, with bullet-pocked windows and doors barricaded against radicals loyal to President Hugo Chavez.
"If the world wants proof that Chavez doesn't want dialogue, here it is," Pena said in his office, daylight peeking through a bullet hole in a red curtain. Once Chavez's chief of staff, Pena is now one of the president's most vocal critics.
Seven months after a coup briefly toppled the leftist president, Venezuela teeters on the brink of another upheaval - and Chavez himself says he is losing control of his radical street fighters.
Radical Chavista Lina Ron points to her office, a base used by Bolivarian Circles, in Caracas, Venezuela, in this Nov. 6, 2002 photo. Ron, a former activist for the homeless, ignored pleas by top Chavez officials and attacked an opposition march demanding an early vote on Chavez's presidency. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez himself says he is losing control of his radical street fighters. (AP Photo/Fernando LLano)
Last Monday, a pro-Chavez mob led by Lina Ron, a former activist for the homeless, ignored pleas by top Chavez officials and attacked an opposition march demanding an early vote on Chavez's presidency. Dozens were hurt by gunfire, rocks and tear gas. The crowd dispersed only after the National Guard fired a barrage of tear gas.
"Lina Ron is uncontrollable," Chavez was quoted as saying by El Mundo newspaper after Monday's violence.
Radicals have also attacked Pena's offices, smashing windows and throwing a small explosive device that left a blast mark on a wall inside.
Other targets have included the Supreme Court, which came under attack after the justices ruled there wasn't enough evidence to try four military officers accused of rebelling against Chavez in the April coup.
The breakdown in law and order (news - Y! TV) has focused international attention on Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
During the April coup, thousands of Chavez supporters poured out of Caracas' poor neighborhoods and led huge demonstrations demanding his return. Loyalist troops restored Chavez, who called for national reconciliation.
But the latest round of violence has led the Organization of American States to sponsor peace talks that began Friday between the government and the opposition.
Pena said Chavez's government would only pay lip service at the talks. The opposition is adamant about its demand for an early, nonbinding referendum on Chavez, while the government says a vote would go against the constitution.
"Here, instead of dialogue, they throw bombs and rocks," Pena said, his shoes crunching broken glass near the foyer of city hall. The elegant marble entrance is scarred by shrapnel from an April grenade attack. A nearby stained glass window is riddled with holes from a burst of sub-machinegun fire.
Just around the corner, three blocks from the presidential palace, Ron holds court by an underground passage she and her followers occupy as squatters. The cave-like passage is plastered with posters of Chavez and Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
Ron represents the radical element of the Bolivarian Circles - neighborhood groups created to carry out social projects backed by the Chavez government throughout Venezuela.
"There were battles between the forces of the revolution and the counterrevolution, and there will continue to be," she said of Monday's violence.
In an interview, Ron warned that violence will escalate unless the 80 percent of Venezuelans living in poverty gain access to education, housing, health care and jobs. She maintained that Venezuela's elite always have been selfish.
"So we are saying to them, if that's the way things are, I am preparing for war," Ron said, her bleached-blonde hair covered by a baseball cap. "We will wage a scorched-earth campaign."
Several months ago, Chavez hailed Ron as "a female soldier who deserves the respect of all Venezuelans." But now the president says she is going too far.
Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel also tried to distance the government from Ron.
"Lina Ron has her political rights, which she exercises. But we are not in agreement with her behavior," Rangel said in an interview. "We don't support violence."
But many of Chavez's opponents believe the president and his men are using Ron and other violent radicals to attack and intimidate the opposition.
"They wash their hands of it and say they have nothing to do with it," Pena spat.
Anti-Chavez forces also have their agitators, creating a volatile mixture in a country deeply split along class lines. Since Oct. 22, more than 100 military officers have occupied a plaza in Caracas' upscale Altamira neighborhood, calling for Chavez to step down.
The officers insist they don't want bloodshed.
"We are not coup plotters," Gen. Pedro Pereira shouted recently to the cheers of hundreds of civilian supporters. "If we were, we would have used weapons, and there would have been bloodshed in Venezuela."
But Pereira was more ominous.
"Be attentive for our call," he said, as the cheers grew louder. "You are the soldiers of freedom."
April 5, 2002 - Chavistas: Venezuelan street toughs: Helping "revolution" or crushing dissent? ****CARACAS, Venezuela - From her bed in a Caracas military hospital, the wiry, chain-smoking prisoner vowed to continue a hunger strike and risk becoming the first death in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's "revolution." "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. Thousands follow her lead in Venezuela and they have increasingly quashed dissent, breaking up anti-government protests, intimidating journalists and alarming the president's critics. …..Chavez has called Ron a political prisoner. "We salute Lina Ron, a female soldier who deserves the respect of all Venezuelans," he said recently.***
I went to a pool party at the house next to Miraflores [the presidential mansion in Caracas]. The partiers couldn't hide from the guards on the wall so, instead, they handed food, drink, and cash up to them.
That was during the administration of Romulo Betancourt. 1961.
We were down there about that time, as my dad was a CalTex/Texaco engineer advising PDVSA on technical matters. Previously we'd been at the CalTex Santa Clara facility when Fidel took over, which was a LOT more lively, and before that, in Buenos Aires.
Being a refinery-town brat is a lot like being a military brat, except the postings often smell a good bit worse. And very few of the refinery-dependent kids want to grow up to become firemen.
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We spent about half of the time our family spent there in Caracas, and about half at Caribobo University at Valencia. There's some real pretty countryside there, as well as nice coastline.
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