Posted on 01/27/2003 1:34:23 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela/PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (Reuters) - Foes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez clamored Sunday for early elections to vote him out of office, while the former coup plotter hinted he might be forced to take up arms again if his leftist "revolution" was defeated.
Showing their support for an 8-week-old strike against the populist president, tens of thousands of his opponents massed Sunday along a major highway in east Caracas, waving red, yellow and blue national flags.
But former paratrooper Chavez, speaking during a trip to Brazil, ruled out immediate elections and said his foes must wait until August, when the constitution allows for a binding referendum on his four-year-old rule.
The 56-day-old opposition strike has slashed oil exports in the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter, choking off the government's oil revenues and triggering an economic crisis.
An unidentified activist hold up a photomontage showing U.S. President George Bush standing next to Adolf Hitler saying 'Down with the imperialist war against Iraq'as he waits for the arrival of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil on Sunday Jan. 26, 2003. Chavez arrived in Porto Alegre where the World Social Forum is being held to meet with sympathizers among the 100,000 activists gathered here to protest American-style capitalism.(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
Chavez, who staged a botched coup bid six years before winning elections in 1998, said that if his opponents succeeded in "breaking my revolutionary government ... then that would be terrible, because I would have to think of other methods."
"I once had a rifle in my hands. I put it away, I don't want to pick it up ever again. I have kept it somewhere," he told cheering supporters in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
He was attending the World Social Forum that brings together leftist intellectuals, grass-roots social groups and nongovernmental bodies.
Citing the Argentine-born guerrilla legend Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Chavez said that if political movements like his own were not allowed to prosper in peace in Latin America "then the sounds of combat and of machineguns will start to rise up."
To counter the financial impact of the opposition strike, Chavez said his government would have to introduce price controls on top of planned foreign exchange restrictions. He told reporters earlier his government was also studying a tax on financial market transactions.
OPPOSITION FRUSTRATION
At the opposition rally in Caracas, spirits were high, but tinged with frustration and uncertainty about the strike. "We never thought Chavez would resist for so long. ... We have to make him give in, he's the problem here," teacher Haydee Cartaya told Reuters.
After a Supreme Court Wednesday dashed hopes for a referendum next month on Chavez's rule, opposition leaders were pursuing other ways to trigger early elections. They collected signatures on Sunday for a planned constitutional amendment.
They were also studying ways of scaling down their grueling strike that has hurt anti-Chavez private businessmen as much as it has harmed the oil-reliant economy.
Venezuelans protest against President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, January 26, 2003. Eight weeks into Venezuela's opposition strike that has crippled the economy but failed to oust Chavez, foes of the leftist president face difficult choices in their campaign to force his resignation. Photo by Chico Sanchez/Reuters
A shift in the opposition strategy could involve allowing private businesses to go back to work but maintaining the state oil sector stoppage that has choked off government revenues.
Amid shortages of gasoline and some food items and growing reports of job lay-offs, the government has suspended foreign currency trading and sharply cut back the 2003 budget.
Chavez, who survived a coup in April last year, rejected the opposition campaign for early elections. "You can't put a gun to the head of the president and the country and say 'Elections now!', you can't do it like that," he told a news conference in Porto Alegre.
He added: "The only way for there to be immediate elections in Venezuela is if I were overthrown."
With Brazil, the United States, alarmed by a crisis that has disrupted the source of more than 13 percent of its oil imports, is heading a six-nation "group of friends" formed last week to try to help broker peace in Venezuela. The other countries in the group, which will send a delegation to Caracas on Thursday, are Mexico, Chile, Spain and Portugal.
Chavez told reporters Venezuela's oil production had recovered to 1.32 million barrels per day. But oil strike leaders put current output at 986,000 bpd, still under a third of pre-strike levels.
Accused by foes of dragging Venezuela toward Cuban-style communism, Chavez has been condemned for failing to deliver on promises to eliminate corruption and poverty. He says his opponents are a rich elite trying to protect their privileges against his self-proclaimed "revolution."
Uninvited but "Popular" Chavez Meets Sympathetic Crowd at World Social Forum ***PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized his opponents Sunday after arriving at the World Social Forum to meet with sympathizers among the 100,000 activists gathered to protest American-style capitalism. Chavez, who left his country despite a 56-day general strike, lashed out at Venezuelan opposition leaders, predicting they would fail in their bid to oust him from power. "Our struggle against the terrorists and fascists has further strengthened the will of the Venezuelan people," Chavez said after arriving at this far southern Brazilian port city. "It is one thing to try to get rid of me, and another thing to succeed. I have the popularity to remain in power."
Although Chavez wasn't formally invited to the World Social Forum, a counter-conference to the World Economic Forum being held in Davos, Switzerland, he was attending some events. The social forum has shunned government leaders in the past but this year welcomed Brazil's new leftist president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, as a keynote speaker.
One of the forum's founders, Oded Grajew, said organizers weren't embarrassed by Chavez' decision to come, but warned the Venezuelan leader not to use the event for self-promotion. "He will get no sympathy from anyone at the forum if he uses it to capitalize for his own benefit," said Grajew. ***
These personal traits, when translated into terms of National Policy, gave birth to several generations of political leaders for whom State Control of the economy, ownership of strategic industries, free social services were "religious" dogmas. These dogmas went hand in hand with deep nationalistic, almost xenophobic, sentiments and a deep distrust of the private sector.
The combination of Catholicism and Marxism produced a strange breed of parochial political leadership, not the splendid isolation of early 20th century North America but, rather, a closed society relying in import substitution, State ownership of hundreds of companies and very mediocre educational and health systems, since nobody paid for them and the State soon became too inefficient to provide the required funds.
Already by the end of the 20th century it was obvious that this model had failed miserably. The State had taken on so much burden that it could not possibly be faithful to its creed. Salaries of Public employees went largely unpaid, hospitals and schools lacked the most essential, infrastructure deteriorated rapidly, poverty increased. In parallel there was much corruption, which was the result of poor salaries, lack of controls and almost total impunity. If a saint had come to work for those governments he probably would have put his hands in the till, yielding to peer pressure.
The revolution of Hugo Chavez could have been a revolution to put a stop to the welfare and mighty State. But it was a revolution designed to reinforce this notion. It encountered a State already half broke, owing billions of dollars to public employees, but still making promises to these people that they could not possibly fulfill.
Instead of coming down to earth, facing the realities of our society, the new revolution kept extending the control of the State over the economy, kept reinforcing the concepts of totally free health and education, kept making promises to the Venezuelan people which could not be fulfilled.
As a result, and regardless of the good intentions which could have existed, the welfare and mighty State came crashing down on all of us, the rich and the poor.
Today the State is broke, the poor are miserable, the middle class is poor, the social services are paralyzed, the streets and roads full of potholes, the garbage uncollected in the sidewalks.
Faced with its incapacity to govern, the revolution has decided to go down in glory, claiming that its enemies did not allow them to accomplish their objectives. Better to be martyrs than to be defined by historians as incompetent.***
''So that these [currency] controls do not hurt the poor, we will institute price controls,'' Chávez said in Porto Alegre, Brazil, at the World Social Forum. He did not give details of the controls.
Hundreds of thousands of his foes occupied a central Caracas highway for the entire weekend to protest a Supreme Court decision suspending a Feb. 2 referendum on Chávez's rule.
After extending the protest well beyond the 24 hours planned, protesters finally rolled up their national flags -- and, in many cases, their tents -- and let traffic flow again.
Opposition leaders said that, instead of the referendum, they would collect signatures Feb. 2 petitioning for Chávez to resign, for his term to be cut and for pro-Chávez lawmakers to be replaced.
Chávez suspended foreign currency dealings for five business days last Wednesday to halt the rush of nervous Venezuelans trading in their bolivars for dollars.
The currency has lost 25 percent of its value this year alone.
On Sunday, he said he will soon propose a tax on all financial transactions in Venezuela, saying it would be ''a kind of Tobin tax.'' Tobin taxes, named after Yale University economist and Nobel-laureate James Tobin, are designed to tame currency market volatility.
Chávez did not provide more details, but said Venezuela's dollar-based reserves dropped $3 billion in December and January as a national strike dried up oil exports. Dollars are needed to buy food -- about half of which is imported -- medicines and other essentials, some of which already are in short supply.
Chávez also said Sunday that oil production has risen to 1.32 million barrels a day. But dissident oil executives put the figure at about 957,000 barrels. [End]
Bump!
*** Chavez met Sunday with organizers of the World Social Forum, where attendees have vented against capitalism. The Venezuelan president denounced his political opponents and the 56-day general strike that has emptied store shelves and crippled the economy in his country. The Venezuelan president equated his opponents to the advocates of neoliberalism, the Latin American term for free-market economic policies opposed by many at the World Social Forum.
"You here at the forum and we in Venezuela are trying to come up with an alternative to neoliberalism that is destroying the world," Chavez said in a speech attended by more than 2,000 cheering activists. "If we don't put an end to neoliberalism, neoliberalism will put an end to us."
Before he spoke at Port Alegre's state legislature, hundreds showed up outside and handed out free copies of a book in English and Spanish titled, "The Fascist Coup Against Venezuela," a compilation of Chavez speeches over the last two months. Source
Jesus Soriano has never met Roy Chaderton or Hugo Chavez. Soriano supported President Hugo Chavez's meteoric rise, volunteered during the election campaign, and is now a second-year law student in Caracas. His law-school peers describe the 24-year-old as a cheerful and happy young man.
Soriano, a member of the Chavez party, is part of a national student group called "Ousia," a group that brings together moderates who support the government and opposition members seeking a peaceful resolution to the current crisis.
On December 6, Soriano witnessed the massacre that occurred during a peaceful protest in Altamira, a neighborhood in Caracas where the opposition has a strong presence. The killer was Joao De Gouveia, an outspoken supporter of Chavez who has an unusually close relationship with mayor Freddy Bernal, a Chavez crony. Gouveia randomly began shooting at the crowd. He killed three--including a teenage girl he shot in the head--and injured 28 people. As Gouveia kept shooting, several men raced toward him to stop the killing. Soriano was one of the men who wrestled Gouveia to the ground and prevented further killing. Soriano also protected Gouveia from a potential lynch mob that swarmed around the killer.
Soriano's heroic accomplishments did not cease that day. He became a national figure in Venezuela when he brought a small soccer ball (known in Venezuela as a "futbolito") to a sizable protest march organized against the rule of Lt. Col. Chavez. Soriano and other pro-Chavez partisans made their way towards the march intending to engage the opposition members in dialogue.
That hot afternoon, Soriano kicked the futbolito across the divide at the members of the opposition. They kicked it back. The magical realism of the event is evident in the extraordinary television footage of what occurred next. By the end of the match the anti-Chavez protestors and pro-Chavez partisans were hugging and chanting "Peace! Unity! We are Venezuela! Politicians go away! We are the real Venezuela!" In one particularly moving part of the footage, Soriano and a member of the opposing team trade a baseball hat for a Chavez-party red beret.
In one hour this sharply divided group of strangers accomplished more than the high-level negotiation team that seeks to defuse a potential civil war. Chavez was reportedly furious with the televised soccer match and even angrier that the reconciliation was a product of the efforts of one of his supporters. Soriano was declared an enemy of the revolution.
Last week Soriano organized another soccer match. On Wednesday he visited the Universidad Central de Venezuela, the main university in the capital, to attend a meeting of the student government. Violent clashes erupted as members of the Circulos Bolivarianos, an armed militia sworn to protect the revolution, began throwing rocks and tear gas grenades at the students. The militia identified Soriano and captured him. They then tied his hands and feet, lifted him up, and paraded him through the street like a sacrificial lamb chanting "Judas! Judas!" The entire spectacle was recorded by a cameraman who works for the official government television entity. Soriano was beaten so severely that he was left at the hospital emergency room. At the hospital he was detained by the DISIP, Chavez's secret police, and taken to their headquarters for questioning.
During his interrogation, fingernails in his left hand were torn out. After being further tortured and injected with drugs, the secret police took him into the bowels of the building and placed him in a cell. His cellmate: Joao de Gouveia.
Gouveia has the keys to the cell and comes in and out of the secret police headquarters at will. His only restriction is that he must sleep in the precinct, lest Chavez's police are revealed as allowing a confessed killer to roam free. Soriano's mother (who is also a Chavez supporter) tearfully claimed that Gouveia sodomized Soriano and beat him with such force that Soriano cannot open his eyes.
Soriano was released last Friday afternoon after Roy Chaderton advised Chavez that the case could filter out of Venezuela and could become a "human-interest story" with the potential to derail their PR campaign.
The government denied that Soriano had been mistreated. A thorough medical examination by a civil surgeon reveals that, beyond lacerations, severe bruising, and cracked ribs, Soriano had been repeatedly raped while in custody. His right arm shows that he has been injected. Nails are missing from his left hand. Soriano's internal organs have been crushed to the point that he urinates blood, and he cannot walk without assistance.
Once the medical report was made public, the secret police immediately began saying that Soriano was a member of a "right-wing paramilitary organization." This tactic, engineered by Chaderton, is used frequently to disqualify and discount opponents of the regime. All enemies of the "revolution" are coup plotters and fascists. The government now circulates a photo of Soriano in military fatigues. Carlos Roa, Soriano's attorney, showed me that the picture is a yearbook photo from when he was a schoolboy in military academy.
Although it was obvious that Soriano had been tortured, Iris Varela, a Chavez congressional representative, offered no apologies: "I am glad they did this to him. He deserved it." That such savage treatment is what greets government supporters who seek a peaceful resolution to the current crisis speaks volumes about Chavez's ultimate intentions. Soriano, now recuperating at home, must wonder why he ever supported the Chavez regime. [End]
Thor L. Halvorssen is a human rights and civil liberties activist who grew up in Venezuela. He now lives in Philadelphia.
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