reuters.com Thu February 20, 2003 06:57 AM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Armed men, apparently from the Venezuela state security police, on Thursday captured a business chief who led a strike against President Hugo Chavez after a judge ordered him and a union boss arrested for rebellion, opposition leaders said.

Eight heavily armed men grabbed Carlos Fernandez at a restaurant in eastern Caracas early and fired shots in the air to keep back protesters before bundling him into a car, witnesses and opposition representatives said.

Foes of Chavez quickly condemned the order to detain Fernandez, the head of the Fedecamaras business chamber, as intimidation by the leftist leader they accuse of wielding power like a dictator.

"This is one more demonstration of intimidation," said opposition negotiator Rafael Alfonzo. "This is completely outside of the law," he said.

A judge told state television that Fernandez and union chief Carlos Ortega, who spearheaded the two-month opposition strike started in December to try and oust Chavez, were ordered detained for civilian rebellion, sabotage and other charges.

An official from the security police could not immediately confirm that officers from the agency were involved in the incident.

Chavez, who was first elected in 1998 and who survived a coup in April, has taken a hard-line stance against his opponents since strike leaders lifted the shutdown in early February to ease the burden on the private sector.

Branding his enemies "terrorists" and "coup plotters," Chavez has vowed to crack down on foes he accuses of trying to topple him by sabotaging the nation's vital oil industry. He has also introduced tight currency curbs and price controls to shore up the weakened economy.

The strike briefly crippled the oil industry of the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter as part of the opposition campaign to push Chavez into resigning and accepting early elections.

But the combative Venezuelan leader has so far rejected calls for a vote. Using troops and replacement crews, Chavez has fought back against the strikers as he battles to restart the oil exports that provide half of state revenues.

Three months of negotiations between the two sides have made little progress toward hammering out an agreement on elections. But earlier this week government and opposition negotiators signed a nonviolence pact to ease tensions.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, February 20, 2003 By: W. E. Gutman

International commentarist W. E. Gutman writes: A nationwide survey released at year's end by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) shows an increase in the number of Americans manifesting anti-Semitic attitudes, reversing a 10-year decline and raising concerns that "an undercurrent of Jewish hatred persists in America."

Conducted by an independent polling organization, the nationwide survey reveals that 17% of Americans -- or about 35 million adults -- hold views about Jews that are "unquestionably anti-Semitic." Previous surveys commissioned by the ADL over the last decade had indicated that anti-Semitism was in decline.

"We are greatly concerned that many of the gains we had seen in building a more tolerant America have not taken hold as firmly as we had hoped, and have to some degree been reversed," says Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.  "While there are many factors at play, all of the evidence suggests that a strong undercurrent of hared toward Jews persists in America."

One of the most unsettling findings of the ADL poll concerns Hispanic Americans, the fastest growing minority in America. The poll reveals an extraordinary gap between those born in the US and those born abroad. The survey reports that while 20% of Hispanics born in the US express vague feelings of antipathy against the Jews, 44% of foreign-born Hispanics harbor hard-core, fossilized anti-Semitic convictions. This suggests that anti-Semitic views pre-exist entry into the US and that these views continue to flourish in the insular, clannish and xenophobic atmosphere pervasive in Hispanic society in the US.

The anti-Semitic propensities of foreign-born Hispanics are not surprising. Religious background and indoctrination have always played a role in determining one's attitude toward Jews. There is no doubt that this is a reflection of what is being learned about Jews in the schools, churches and communities of Latin American nations, where Jews are, for the most part, a microscopic minority.

According to human rights monitors, anti-Semitism in Latin America appears to be highest in nations that the smallest number of Jews. The larger the Jewish communities, such as in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela, the less palpable and more diffuse are anti-Jewish sentiments. These sentiments appear to be at a peak in Mexico and Central America, as well as in Ecuador and Bolivia where where Jewish families number barely in the dozens.

Survey results conclude that:

-- Anti-Semitic attitudes are up; the most widely held stereotype is that "Jews have too much power in the US."

-- Anti-Semitism is a function of education. Less educated people are more likely to hold anti-Semitic views.

-- Anti-Israel feelings trigger anti-Semitism. For the first time, negative attitudes toward Israel and concern that American Jews wield influence over U.S. Middle East policy are helping to foster anti-Semitic beliefs.

-- Anti-Israel sentiments are used to fuel, legitimize and rationalize anti-Semitism."

-- Anti-Semitism among foreign-born Hispanics is high. Perceptions of "Jewish control," influence and power as well as more traditional canards about Jews, religion and ethical practices appear to be driving anti-Semitism among foreign-born Hispanics.

For example, more than half of foreign-born Hispanics agree with the assertion that "Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind," whereas nearly half were raised to believe that "Jews are responsible for the death of Christ."

Apt to fall into the most anti-Semitic category are:

-- Those who believe that Jews have too much influence over US foreign policy in the Middle East.

-- Those who view US policy tilting too much toward Israel.

-- Those who predict that the US is more likely to be targeted for terrorist attacks because of America's support of Israel.

The tragic events of September 11 and the crisis in the Middle East have clearly had an impact on the growth of anti-Semitism in America. As these life-altering events have transformed us as a nation, they have also resurrected the anti-Semitism that lay dormant beneath the surface.

The explosive spread of Islam, which runs a formidable worldwide proselytizing machine, the spate of conversions to Islam taking place in Latin America and the unusually high rate of anti-Semitism among Hispanics in the U.S. are part of a trend issued from separate but converging dynamic processes. This alarming phenomenon, at a time of unease in a world ever closer to the brink of war, adds yet another dimension to the evil that spawned yesteryear's nightmares.

• W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist. He lives and works in southern California.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, February 20, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

Talks being facilitated by Organization of American States (OAS) secretary general Cesar Gaviria have been suspended for a few days and are expected to resume on February 26. 

The talks which have been continuing for over 100 days and which finally this week produced their first agreement, a rejection of violence, were reportedly suspended following a request from government negotiators. 

The reasons for the suspension are unclear, but the OAS secretary general is understood to have several other commitments early next week as he heads to Washington for OAS meetings and to Spain for a meeting of the Montevideo Group. 

Despite the signing of the agreement, tensions in Venezuela remain high following the discovery of three soldiers who had apparently been bound, gagged and tortured before being shot and killed.

www.guardian.co.uk Owain Johnson in Caracas Thursday February 20, 2003 The Guardian

Three dissident Venezuelan military officers and a young woman have been found dead after apparently being kidnapped, tortured and killed, for what some people fear may have been political motives.

A fifth victim, a 14-year-old girl, survived the attack and is in intensive care.

The three men were part of a group of rebel officers who had declared themselves opposed to the leftwing president, Hugo Chavez.

The officers had been occupying the Plaza Altamira, in the capital's wealthy eastern suburbs, since late October.

Witnesses told police that the group was kidnapped near the Plaza in the early hours of Sunday morning. Armed men reportedly forced them into two cars and drove away.

A farm worker discovered the bodies of Zaida Peroza, 28, a tourism graduate, and Felix Pinto, 25, an air force officer, and the 14-year-old Rosana Rivero on the side of a road east of Caracas on Sunday morning.

Rosana Rivero was still alive and was taken to a nearby hospital, where her condition is described as critical.

The bodies of naval officer Angel Salas and infantryman Darwin Arguello, both 21, were discovered in a park east of the city on Monday afternoon.

All the four dead were found bound and gagged.

Police gave the cause of death as multiple shotgun wounds, and added that the bodies showed additional injuries consistent with the use of torture.

The leader of the dissident military officers, General Enrique Medina Gomez, said the officers were part of a group which took turns to keep watch over the square. He described the murders as "a crime against humanity".

Salas' brother Edwin, who is also a rebel naval officer, said the dissidents' public stand against the Chavez government had made them many enemies.

He said he and his brother had been subjected to constant intimidation since deciding to join the protests.

Mr Salas accused elements within the Venezuelan police and intelligence services of "persecuting" dissident officers. He said that they had also received violent threats from the Bolivarian Circles - groups of pro-government activists - and from the far-left Tupamaro group.

"The murder of my brother and his friends was carefully planned," Mr Salas said. "Everything about the way it was carried out points to a political motive."

Many of the senior military officers involved in the protests in the Plaza Altamira were involved in the short-lived coup against President Chavez last April.

The dissidents accuse Mr Chavez of authoritarianism and of using the armed forces to bolster his social reform projects. They also allege that Mr Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution" in favour of the poor masks a long-term project to introduce Cuban-style socialism to the oil-rich nation.

Despite international mediation, the political divide between Chavez supporters and opponents has widened since last April's coup, and the opposition recently held a damaging two-month strike with the aim of forcing the president's resignation.

As political tension has grown, violent incidents between the two sides have become increasingly common.

Government and opposition representatives signed an agreement on Tuesday to tone down verbal attacks on one another, but it remains unclear what influence this will have on their supporters.

The head of Venezuela's human rights association, Rafael Narvaez, who is representing the families of the four latest dead, said he had little hope that those responsible would be caught or punished.

"There are no credible institutions left any more, and there is currently no rule of law or due process in Venezuela," he said. "We will push as hard as we can for the authorities to investigate the murders, but if we hit a brick wall, we will ask the international community to apply pressure," Mr Narvaez said.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: Governments often approach the fight against poverty with strategies based on giving rather than on empowering the people to become producers. They claim that since the poor has no land, no money, no food, they should be given all of these things so that they can stop being poor.

Intentions might be good but giving does not work. It seems to produce initial positive results but, after a while, the poor revert to being poor. Still worse, poor and frustrated.  Land distribution and reform has been a recurrent theme in the fight against poverty in many developing countries . The record is, so far, not encouraging.

Some of the better experiences, such as those in Taiwan and South Korea, have included ingredients which are often absent in other land reform programs: financial credits and technical assistance.

In Venezuela the most ambitious land reform program in record was the one undertaken by Accion Democratica in the decade of the 1960s. It was a massive effort based in a detailed study made by the Agrarian Reform Commission. The program was executed entirely within the law. To support the program several Institutions were created or reinforced, such as the Agrarian National Institute, the Agricultural Bank and a Technical Assistance Division at the Ministry of Agriculture. Thousands of tractors were imported, together with other agricultural equipment. Most of the land distributed was public land but some private holdings were duly expropriated. The main efforts at land redistribution took place in the central portions of the country, in the Andes and in the States of Barinas and Portuguesa. Some were very successful such as the Turen Cooperative, in Portuguesa, which to this day is the Granary of Venezuela.

But it soon became evident that land reform does not yield instant results and that the effort has to be sustained over long periods of time to produce significant change.  Three years after starting the program, only 60,000 families had been given ownership titles, half of the target.  A modest 8% gain in agricultural output had been obtained. There is no doubt, however, that this program started by President Betancourt established a new class of small landholders in the country. By 1980 about 200000 families had been given ownership of land and, by 1985, a total of 316000 families were landowners. Very few, however, became organized in cooperatives. After this time, the Agrarian Reform lost drive and probably many of these rural families emigrated to the cities, after receiving little or no permanent government assistance.

Land reform in Venezuela, therefore, has a history. It did not start with Chavez. Moreover, what Chavez has done in this respect is almost nothing. The new Land Law is designed to attack private landowners but not to promote the well-being of the rural poor. The only program started by Chavez, The "Fundos Zamoranos", the Zamora Landholdings, has been a total failure due to the lack of financial and technical support. As a result the people involved in this modest program are now worse off and very angry with the government. They feel that they have been used for political propaganda and are now reacting openly against the program.

In general the failure of these programs has to do with the absence of commitment by the government after the initial ceremony of land "distribution" has been televised. The day after finds the colonies without water, without fertilizers, without guidance. The only thing that the government was interested in was the political impact of the initial events, usually adorned with a long speech by the President.

The efforts by this government to improve the lot of the rural poor are restricted to what the President improvises over TV. These improvisations usually die a merciful death or become laughable programs such as the conversion of rooftops into chicken coops. Others are simply absurd such as the Rural Kit, still in operation, a program through which each rural family obtained a Kit consisting of one pig, 100 chicks, a bag of cassava roots and a set of plows and hoes.

• Predictably the family would eat the pig and sell the chicks. This government advocates a return to  "conuco" farming, the most primitive form of agriculture used by the Arawaks of pre-colonial Venezuela.

These things need to be said in order to challenge the notion that President Chavez is a pioneer in Land Reform. Not only he is not a pioneer but he has done little besides talking about the issue. Today the Venezuelan rural poor are in  a  worse situation than before.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve