Replies

As Venezuelan strike continues, don't be misled by stereotypes*** The e-mailed message about the 3-week-old strike that is paralyzing Venezuela and is driving up world oil prices was addressed ''to foreign correspondents'' and had an air of urgency about it. ''Dangerous stereotypes about Venezuela,'' read the headline. The fist paragraph said, ``I'm seriously concerned about the constant use of stereotypes by some of you in the foreign media.'' The writer was Ana Julia Jatar, a Venezuelan academic with Harvard University's Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and an often passionate supporter of liberal causes on Spanish-language television shows. She was referring, among others, to the coverage of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, she told me in a later telephone interview. In her message, she asked foreign reporters not to fall into the following stereotypes:…………………………..

o Fourth stereotype: that the opposition wants a coup d'état. ''Coup plotters use tanks and troops. They don't organize themselves to collect more than 2 million signatures for a petition asking for early elections,'' Jatar wrote. ``The true story is that despite having been elected, Chávez has broken the constitution and the law on many occasions.'' Chávez, who has stated that representative democracy ''is a farce,'' faces more than a dozen corruption and human rights accusations from the opposition in Venezuelan courts, including charges that he mismanaged millions of dollars from an economic stabilization fund and that his ''Bolivarian Circle'' militias were responsible for the killings of 19 people who were participating in an April 11 opposition march, she added.

Does this mean that we should support some opposition leaders' demands that Chávez resign immediately, or a coup d'état? I don't think so, and -- judging from what I heard from Jatar -- neither does she. Anything even closely resembling a coup would not only turn Chávez into a victim but would set a terrible precedent for Latin America's democracies. But Chávez critics have the right to demand -- within the law -- that their recently collected two million signatures be accepted as a legal step toward early elections. That's certainly more democratic than the attempt at a coup d'état Chávez led in 1992, his later glorification of that bloody uprising, or the gradual militarization of his government.***