<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

President Hugo Chavez Frias continues to push his "grow vegetables" campaign inaugurating another organic garden based on hydroponics in Caracas downtown Parque Central. "In a short time people will be able to come here to buy a cheap  kilo of tomatoes because the middleman has been cut out and there are no transport fees to add to the price." 

The President says he hopes to have 1,000 hectares of organic, hydroponic, "intensive gardens" and family plots in the Caracas region operative and producing this year.  The first garden started is in Fuerte Tiuna barracks and the President says he wants to see gardens in every Caracas barrio. 

• The opposition came under fire for poking fun at his countryside "conuco" (garden) for every peasant program and other DIY schemes. 

Agriculture & Lands Minister Efren Andrade forecasts harvests of 50 tonnes a year under the new scheme.  Chavez Frias has thanked Cuban experts and the UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) representatives for the technical and financial aid.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Interior & Justice (MIJ) Minister General (ret.) Lucas Rincon Romero has summonsed Sucre and Libertador mayors respectively to complain about the soaring homicide and crime rates in their jurisdictions. 

Rincon Romero has told both mayors that he wants to see a significant drop in  crime and more concern about public insecurity.

The Minister has announced he will use joint patrols consisting of police forces and the National Guard (GN) as well as the State Political & Security (DISIP) Police agents to beef up security, especially in Libertador municipality.

Critics reply that it is not enough and that the government has failed to draw up and propose a coherent public security plan.

PROVEA human rights group agrees that the government has neglected to enforce State policy in security matters ... "combined with the hike in crime, it shows the government's incapacity to exercise the monopoly of violence that puts governance at risk."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Author Alberto Garrido traces the rough relationship between the two main February 4, 1992 (4F)  coup leaders: Lt. Colonel (ret.) Francisco Arias Cardenas and President Lt. Colonel (ret.) Hugo Chavez Frias.  "It has always been conflictive." 

Arias Cardenas, Garrido recalls, was linked to Ramon Guillermo Santeliz, a militant of the Air Force revolutionary movement ARMA led by William Izarra. Santeliz was the group's liasion with army officers. 

Arias Cardenas and Chavez Frias met up in the army's "Bolivarian Army" Group. Chavez Frias then founded the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement (MBR-200) without Arias Cardenas.  The two came together again in 1986 and agreed to plan a coup according to Arias Cardenas' vision, namely silently as opposed to Chavez Frias' call for a revolutionary approach. 

Arias Cardenas went to Colombia to study and reappeared several years later.

Although Chavez Frias had command over his people, Arias Cardenas had more military officers and designed the 4F plan which Chavez Frias didn't like, namely that Arias Cardenas would take Miraflores if successful and Chavez Frias march to Fuerte Tiuna. 

"Chavez Frias preferred to stay put at the Military museum because among other reasons, he did not want to be a museum piece."

In prison, Arias Cardenas defended Chavez Frias against other officers and with Chavez Frias at his side negotiated peace terms. 

Once they left jail, both went their separate ways. Arias Cardenas learned that Chavez Frias would never stop thinking like Chavez Frias. 

They crossed swords electorally and Chavez Frias won. 

On April 11, Arias Cardenas wanted the military to let Chavez Frias leave the country but the active service officers refused. When he discovered that he had been left out of the equation, Arias Cardenas called on Baduel and defended Chavez Frias.  Commenting on the former Lt. Colonel's  last article, Garrido concludes that in asking the Armed Force (FAN) to vote against Chavez Frias in the recall referendum, Arias Cardenas is in effect saying goodbye to Chavez Frias.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) general secretary, Manuel Cova has announced that members of the national executive will visit Costa Rica to consult with CTV president Carlos Ortega.  Political affairs observers suggest that Ortega wants to continue dominating play inside the union leadership and dictating the tune he wants the leadership to dance to. 

It remains to be seen whether Alfredo Ramos and Froilan Barrios, who have been very quiet since Ortega's exile at the Costa Rican Embassy, will attempt to challenge the takeover. 

An attempt to shuffle leadership positions and replace Ortega met with stiff opposition from Cova and the Accion Democratica (AD) apparatus, who seemingly think that Ortega merits honorary membership and has the right to dictate union policy from exile, even though he no longer resides in Venezuela.  

• Meanwhile, Cova has launched a campaign for a 30% hike in Venezuela's  minimum wage in anticipation of an annual government decree on May 1st increasing the minimum basic wage 10%. 

In an attempt to relate to members of his own trade union, Cova says a 30% increase in the minimum wage, would help the construction industry put money into the economy and create jobs.

01 April 2003 By Scott Miller <a href=usinfo.state.gov>Washington File Staff Writer

(Most governments respected citizens' rights, though problems persist) (1040)

Washington -- The majority of governments in the Western Hemisphere respected the human rights of their citizens in 2002, though problems persist in many of these countries as well as in other nations that received poor evaluations in the Department of State's 2002 human rights report.

........

Among the hemispheric nations that the State Department's "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2002", released on March 31, ranked as having a poor human rights record were Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Colombia.

As in Haiti, member's of Venezuela's security forces committed "numerous and serious abuses" in 2002. Despite improvements in some areas, the Venezuelan government's human rights records remained poor.

The report found that Venezuela's police and military committed extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects, with police allegedly linked to vigilante death squads responsible for dozens of killings.

Investigations into forced disappearances by security forces remained extremely slow, the report noted, and the government failed to punish police and security officers guilty of abuses.

Arbitrary arrests and detentions in Venezuela increased in 2002, and impunity was "one of the country's most serious human rights problems."

Police rarely arrested suspects, the report said, and when they did, often the suspects were soon set free. Crimes involving human rights abuses did not proceed to trial due to delays, the report added.

Government intimidation was another serious problem in Venezuela in 2002 as the president, officials in his administration, and member of his political party frequently spoke out against the media, the political opposition, labors unions, the courts, the Catholic Church and human rights groups.

Many persons interpreted these remarks as tacit approval for violence, and threatened, intimidated or physically harmed individuals opposing the government, the report found.

Immediately proceeding a temporary alteration of constitutional authority in April, the government of briefly deposed president Hugo Chavez abused its power by requiring television and radio stations to broadcast speeches favorable to the government and by cutting the transmission of television stations that refused to do so, the report said.

........

The full text of Western Hemisphere section of the 2002 Human Rights Report is available at: www.state.gov

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)

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