www.nytimes.com By JUAN FORERO

CARACAS, Venezuela — The story line is usually simple: poor girl meets rich man, falls in love and is in for madcap high jinks as parallel worlds collide. Or it is about a fiercely independent, successful woman who, following years of loneliness, finds love, loses love, then finds it again.

This is the world of Venezuelan soap operas — the sappy, drippy daily dramas that captivate millions by sticking to a proven formula. For more than 40 years, it has worked — soap operas are as much an symbol of Venezuela as oil and beauty queens. The telenovelas, as they are known, dominate nightly programming and rival their Mexican and Brazilian counterparts for their popularity overseas. Advertisement

However, with Venezuela in political tumult, coming off an economically devastating two-month antigovernment strike, the scriptwriters of such soaps as "My Fat Beauty" and "Intimate Underwear" are asking themselves whether they should not inject something new into the fables.

It is not that love is going by the wayside. "Every telenovela is a story of love," a prominent program director said emphatically.

But several leading scriptwriters are convinced that soaps need to reflect the reality of Venezuela, and that reality is a country roiled by protests and the daily rants of a pugnacious left-leaning president, Hugo Chávez, and his determined opponents. It is a society so polarized that government backers refer to the upper classes as the Squalid Ones, and the president's adversaries see his supporters as uncouth riff-raff.

Leonardo Padrón, a scriptwriter with the huge Venevisión television station, sees delicious possibilities. He plans to be the first to infuse a soap — his next one, "Sweet Thing" — with a bit of today's crumbling Venezuela.

"As a writer, I am absolutely seduced by the idea of making a chronicle about what is happening," said Mr. Padrón, who has made a string of successful soaps over 10 years.

"I'm going to tell a story of love, but in the context of what we are living," he said. "I am going to try to create a cocktail that will have a dose of escapism, a dose of humor, but also a dose of reality."

His work, though, does not promise to be easy in a world where television executives flinch at untested experiments. That is especially true now because Mr. Chávez, angry about antigovernment news programs, is proposing restrictions on the media.

So instead of Mr. Padrón's initial idea — a poor girl from a pro-Chávez barrio falls in love with a Squalid One — his tale will be largely metaphorical. The antagonist, he said, will be the president of a company who becomes intoxicated with power, a clear reference to Mr. Chávez.

"Perhaps by the 15th show, people will say, `That guy is just like Chávez,' but this will be without my saying that I am telling the story of the president," Mr. Padrón said with a wry smile.

Not everyone is convinced a new formula will work. Scripts must speak to the largely poor masses, many of them Chávez supporters who might reject telenovelas with a political bent. Indeed, scriptwriters say the big question they face as they embark on writing 150-hour stories is whether viewers really want more politics in a country where everything is infused with politics.

"The conventional telenovela where the story is about love — that is what the people want to see, romance," said Arquimedes Rivero, a Venevisión producer who has done as much as anyone to create the Venezuelan telenovela. "The people do not want discussion and conflict."

Still, as the two main telenovela studios here prepare to film a new string of soaps this year, scriptwriters and producers are discussing ways of carefully incorporating the everyday into scripts that will remain heavy on love and betrayal, intrigue and jealousy.

"It is inevitable," said José Simón Escalona, who overseas dramatic programming for Radio Caracas Television. "The telenovela looks to appeal to the masses, and to do that it has to explore the intimacies, how the people feel. We look to do telenovelas that talk to Venezuelans, that understand Venezuelans."

It's not that political or social commentary has never made it into soaps. "Along These Streets," a telenovela of the early 1990's written by Ibsen Martínez, used street-smart characters and compelling dialogue to tell stories about poverty, corruption and killings. The program was such a hit that it lasted years, while most telenovelas have eight-month spans.

Scriptwriters like Monica Montañés point to "Along These Streets" as a model for what a political soap could be — and as an expample of how ignoring political realities could lead to a telenovela's downfall.

Ms. Montañés said the telenovela she wrote last year, "La González," sank in the ratings because it avoided mentioning the short-lived coup against Mr. Chávez last April and the turmoil that followed. "It was stupid not to have the characters participating in protests and marches, and I think people resented it," Ms. Montañés said.

That is not to say that scriptwriters are planning hard-hitting real-life dramas about intrigue in the presidential palace.

Instead, there may be subtle references to the political stalemate that has paralyzed Venezuela or plots that incorporate such daily realities as the long gas lines in this oil-rich nation. Radio Caracas Television, in an experiment, is rerunning "Estefania," a 24-year-old telenovela that focused on the waning 1950's-era dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez — clearly drawing a parallel with the Chávez government.

Some scriptwriters said they would follow the old recipe, until Mr. Padrón or others succeed with telenovelas that deal with the political. Perla Farias, a scriptwriter who is sticking to the basics, said, "I do not have anything finished just now, but it is going to be about love, a very complex love story."

www.weeklystandard.com 02/17/2003 12:00:00 AM Fred Barnes, executive editor

THERE WAS A TIME--the 1960s, 1970s--when the political left in America favored wars of national liberation in countries ruled by dictators, some of them fascist dictators. True, the left would have installed communist dictatorships in their place. But at least leftists targeted enemies who were corrupt, brutal abusers of human rights.

Now the left has flipped. The effect of its crusade against war in Iraq would be the survival--indeed, the strengthening--of Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime. The left has brushed aside the pleas of Iraqi exiles, Kurds, and Shiite Muslims who are seeking liberation from Saddam's cruelty. Instead, leftists have targeted those who would aid the Iraqi dissidents, particularly the Bush administration.

The corruption of the left has deepened in recent years. At no time was this more evident than last Saturday when large antiwar protests were staged in New York, San Francisco, and other cities in the United States and around the world, including London. Did the demonstrators march on the Iraqi consulate in New York to demand an end to Saddam's murderous practices? No. Did they spend time condemning him in their speeches and placards? Nope. Did they come to the defense of Saddam's victims? No. The left now gives fascist dictators a pass. Its enemy is the United States.

No one has explained this better than British prime minister Tony Blair in a speech Saturday. If he took the antiwar demonstrators advice, Blair said, "there would be no war, but there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam. But the consequences of taking their advice is he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people . . . There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule, no righteous anger over the torture chamber which, if he is left in power, will be left in being."

In ignoring the 25 million Iraqis who suffer under Saddam's autocratic rule, the left has stripped any moral dimension from the antiwar cause. And its arguments for opposing a war of liberation in Iraq are either uninformed or merely stupid. Here are a few of those arguments:

(1) War will mean thousands of civilian casualties. If there's anything Saddam has produced in his nearly 25 years of rule in Iraq, it's civilian casualties. He ordered the gassing of thousands of innocent Kurds. He had thousands of Shiites murdered. His war against Iran caused tens of thousands of civilian casualties, and his invasion of Kuwait was marked by the killing of thousands of Kuwaiti civilians. Saddam has personally ordered the execution of thousands of Iraqis. He has allowed thousands of Iraqi children to die from starvation or lack of medicine.

Compare that with the few hundred civilians killed in Afghanistan by the U.S. military. In fact, the American intervention saved hundreds of thousands who would have starved to death otherwise. And in the 1991 Gulf War relatively few Iraqi civilians were killed. In truth, a war that deposes Saddam in Iraq will save civilian lives, thousands of them.

(2) It's a war for Iraqi oil. There's an easy way to get all the oil in Iraq that President Bush or anyone else might desire--and it's not war. No, the easy way is to lift sanctions on Iraq and make a deal with Saddam. He's eager to sell the oil and make money. And the United States doesn't need Iraqi oil anyway, what with Russian oil production coming on line. At the moment, America's problem is the cutoff of oil from Venezuela. A war for oil would oust President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Of course there is no such war planned, nor is there one to cut the price of oil. The price favored by Bush and the domestic oil industry--and producers like Saudi Arabia--will be restored when Venezuela is pumping fully again, probably soon.

(3) War in Iraq will stir a new wave of terrorism. We've heard this one before. The Gulf War, it was warned, would arouse the Arab street and subject Americans to a wave of attacks. That didn't happen. When the United States went into Afghanistan and, worse, bombed during Ramadan, it was supposed to prompt a worldwide uprising of Muslims, and Muslim terrorists in particular, against America. Again, that didn't happen. So when the Arab leader most hated by other Arab leaders--a leader who's far more secular than Muslim, is removed, it's highly unlikely to cause more terrorism. Most likely, the result will be less.

(4) Give the inspectors more time. This was a common cry at Saturday's antiwar demonstrations. But of course those cries were entirely disingenuous. By definition, the "stop the war" protesters don't want war, no matter what the United Nations inspectors in Iraq happen upon. The demonstrators are playing Saddam's delaying game: Let the inspections continue until support in the United States for military action in Iraq dissolves and war is averted. Then Saddam survives. The inspections ploy is further proof the left has given up wars of national liberation against oppressive dictators and is now in the business of saving oppressive dictators from wars of national liberation.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

www.ktul.com Sunday February 16, 2003 11:50am  

Gas Prices Continue To Rise Amid Political Unrest, Talk of War Oklahoma City (AP) - Industry experts can't agree on why crude oil prices are high or even when they might return to levels considered normal. Some analysts say there is plenty oil supply and the perceived threat of a war with Iraq is driving the price up. Others say the 11-week strike of Venezuela's oil workers is to blame. Whatever the case, Oklahomans are feeling the pinch. In Oklahoma, diesel fuel is less than a penny away from breaking its record high of a dollar-58, which was set in June 2001. Oklahoma has the second-lowest statewide average for regular unleaded gas which is at a dollar-54. The price has gone up nearly 20 cents in the past month. But it's still below the record high of a dollar-73 set in June 2000. A year ago, regular unleaded gasoline averaged a dollar and four cents in Oklahoma.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: Chile Veloz

Venezuelan radio personality Chile Veloz writes: I have always thought that I am not the ideal person to counsel others ... or to call others to reason ... or to conciliate ... although many people might believe otherwise. However, this time, and only this time, I am going to give advise ... I am going to call to reason, I am going to conciliate. =

What is happening is a mystery to no one, on the contrary, waves of anguish, rage, sadness and anger, of all those feelings human beings are capable of showing when things corner us, overtake us and crush us, in other words, when the rules of the game are changed without any explanations.

Let's go back. Our first error was not having permitted Carlos Andres Perez to complete his second period. This allowed for the puppet, Ramon Velasquez, to be designated for a brief period, to be able to call for elections ... the same elections that served as tribune for the ominous Rafael Caldera to be glorified with his discourse before the Congress, after David Morales Bello had asked for the heads of the 'golpistas' (coup plotters).

Do you remember? With his discourse, Caldera, practically saved Chavez from a sure death, physically and politically ... and more so ... to pay him back for the immense favor of having helped him reach his second mandate.  Caldera liberated Chavez and restored all of his rights, which in turn helped him to rise up as 'savior' of the country ...then (Chavez) asking for the retreat of the one who had been his political benefactor, in other words, to Caldera.

Isn't it true that this is more or less how things happened?

I continue. When Chavez calls for the next elections and wins them ... where were we, those who now disagree with him? I'll give you an example to show where we were. Imagine that you live in a building where there are 24 apartments. On the bulletin board of your building, you are called to a meeting of the members of the condominium, which will take place, for instance, on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m., and you (for whatever reason) do not show up…

A few days later, there's another announcement, calling for another meeting because other people, as you yourself, did not show up at the first meeting.

The next meeting is scheduled for Friday at 8:00 p.m., and you, as many others, do not come ... or just forgets ... or goes to the movies ... or just does not give any importance to it…

This is how, as per the condominium statutes, a third meeting is called for Sunday at the same time, and, according to the statutes, with whatever number of people attending (which could be three or four) it is agreed to paint your building in a bright green color with purple dots…

Then, you go out to work on Monday and when you come back home at night, you find that your dear building has been painted in a bright green color with purple dots…

Your indignation and rage has no way to stop it ... you go up to ring the door bell of the president of the condominium board and complain: "what the heck is this? Do you think this is the Gasca Brothers' Circus?"

Without even allowing the condominium president to respond, you insult him, and push him around and you threaten to sue him, ruin him, with whatever we always threaten … but you have not taken the time to think that you had three opportunities to vote to oppose, to advise, to call to reason, to conciliate, and did not use those opportunities as your combat weapon, YOU WERE SIMPLY NOT THERE TO VOTE…

This, my dear friend, this is Venezuela ... the same Venezuela that called us the tenants, the apartment owners, its citizens, to three condominium meetings ... and we did not go, we did not answer its call, we did not come to its rescue when it asked for help ... and now my dear friends, dear fellow Venezuelans, Venezuela, my Venezuela, your Venezuela, our Venezuela is painted in a bright green color with purple dots ... and now, what do we do?

At this point, nobody misses a condominium meeting (a.k.a. marches) and meeting after meeting we wonder when would it be possible to repaint our country in yellow, blue and red and decorate it with stars?  This is the dilemma, the grand question.

We could say that, if we were absent from the condominium meetings for over 40 years, well, as punishment we will have to wait another 40 years or more for everything to get back to what once was … but that is definitely a very pessimistic way of thinking. I believe that, in order to see things more optimistically, we must tell ourselves that we have learned our lesson and we have learned it in the hardest possible way: with the loss of human lives, wounded people, with a country economically and industrially ruptured, with a country agonizing of itself, with the lowest self-esteem in the world, with an embarrassment that faces us every single day when we see less and less cars on the streets, less consumer goods in the markets, less smiles on the faces, more tears in the lives and more hatred in the hearts. Of course, with this scenario there are actors who prefer the EXIT stage right (we already have more than enough of the left) and pack up their belongings and leave.

Certainly, that's a solution ... a very comfortable one ... but a solution nonetheless, but (the “buts” of always) not all of us -- who are majority -- can do that; therefore, we have to stay ... moreover I would say must stay, and why?

Not to be too much of an advisor, I will share with you the reasons which as Segeant Hunter used to say (remember the police series on TV?) “WORK FOR ME”: One reason could be; I stay because it is here where I have everything that I have: my house, my son, my family, my friends, my job, my things, my roots … and all of these might sound quite sentimental … but … to continue…

Another one could be; that if in an epoch we: greens, whites, reds, blues and all other colors of the spectrum were capable of living together, but not mixed up, with a certain level of peace, in a very sus generis harmony, very tropical, then I do not see why we could not go back to that … and this way, I could make a long list of reasons -- some more credible than others -- to explain to you why I do stay, but in the end, I believe that only one reason is valid:

I stay just because! I stay here because this is my country, my nation, my land ... and it will be that of my son and of his sons, and that is how it should be.  This is why I am not willing to leave it to those who do not deserve it, those who have made of her (here is the joke) a building painted in bright green color with purple dots…

Think that this is the only country that we have, and, if compared with others, we are a country; beautiful like no other, with richness like no other, with a territory to be developed like very few, with good people (because Yes, there are) with its own, unique and intimate, dearly and beautiful flavors, colors and scents.

If what I write here can help you think of whether to stay or to leave, then it was worth writing. Lastly, if your decision is to leave, please, I don't want to hear you complain, about anything, or anybody ... do not talk about Cuba because you are doing what Cubans did : they left their country alone. The resistance is here, now and forever. How long is it going to take? I do not know ... I wish I knew ... but whatever the length, it would make more pleasant the flavor of the triumph for those of us who were here when a condominium meeting was called.

I will finish here with one of those phrases that one would have liked to have thought of, but you see, in the world there are people who have lived situations like these and worse and are still capable of saying: “Victory is to those who believe in it the longest!"

Chile Veloz chveloz@927fmtotal.com

Note: If you know someone who has not attended the condominium meetings, copy this and give it to him/her, and tell them to remember that it is his/her fault if the building is painted in a bright green color with purple dots.  To never again fail to vote ... that this is not the time to complain, and that each time s/he is called again to vote ... to go and vote; that because by not voting, this is why we are now all painted bright green color with horrible purple dots.

www.liberation.fr Pro et anti-Chavez se rejettent la responsabilité de la situation économique.

Par Jean-Hebert ARMENGAUD samedi 08 février 2003

epuis une semaine, la vie quotidienne a repris normalement son cours à Caracas. Restaurants et centres commerciaux ont rouvert. Les banques, qui n'ouvraient leurs guichets que trois heures par jour, sont revenues à des horaires normaux. L'opposition a en effet renoncé, lundi, à poursuivre le mouvement de grève «politique» lancé le 2 décembre pour forcer à la démission le président Hugo Chavez, l'ex-lieutenant-colonel des parachutistes élu en 1998. Ses méthodes de plus en plus autoritaires ont déclenché depuis plusieurs mois une vague de contestation, notamment des classes moyennes (Libération du 31 janvier).

Officiellement, la grève s'arrête parce que les tentatives de médiation internationale entre le gouvernement et l'opposition donnent de vagues signes de progrès. Officieusement, depuis quelques semaines, l'opposition, réunie autour de la confédération patronale Fedecamaras, de la Centrale des travailleurs du Venezuela et de la Coordination démocratique ú qui rassemble une vingtaine de partis de droite comme de gauche, et diverses organisations civiles ú, cachait mal ses divisions sur la poursuite ou non de cette grève. «Le 2 décembre, une bonne partie de l'opposition pensait mettre Chavez à terre en une semaine, une idée totalement utopique. Aujourd'hui, on se retrouve avec un pays en faillite», explique Teodoro Petkoff, fondateur du parti MAS (Mouvement au socialisme), aujourd'hui directeur du quotidien TalCual.

Bataille des chiffres. Dans un pays déjà en crise, la grève aurait provoqué, selon certains économistes, la perte de 200 000 emplois et causé la faillite de près de 20 000 PME. La chute du PIB atteindrait 10 % ú elle atteignait déjà 7 % avant le 2 décembre. La monnaie nationale, le Bolivar, a perdu près de 30 % de sa valeur en deux mois. Les réserves en devises s'épuisent : Hugo Chavez a d'ailleurs restauré, jeudi, le contrôle des changes. Et sur ce tas de ruines, chaque camp s'épuise à rejeter la responsabilité sur l'autre. «Le gouvernement, en ne voulant rien céder, a montré qu'il se foutait de la destruction de notre économie», estime Vladimiro Mujica, de la Coordination démocratique. Hugo Chavez a de nouveau traité les grévistes de «terroristes» et de «fascistes» : «Ils ont été vaincus par le peuple (...), il n'y a pas de négociations avec les traîtres, les conspirateurs, les putschistes et les saboteurs.»

Malgré la fin de la grève, la crise politique est plus aiguë que jamais. D'abord parce que le mouvement se poursuit dans l'industrie pétrolière, la plus importante du pays. Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), l'entreprise publique nationale ú 50 % des recettes de l'Etat ú, est toujours semi-paralysée. Parmi les grévistes, 5 000 employés ont été licenciés, et Hugo Chavez a tenté de «militariser» la production, tout en ayant recours à des retraités et des spécialistes étrangers.

La bataille des chiffres continue : le gouvernement affirme que la production atteint 1,8 million de barils/jour. Les grévistes assurent qu'elle ne dépasse pas 1,3 million de barils/jour. En temps normal, le Venezuela, cinquième exportateur mondial, produit plus de 3 millions de barils/jour.

Nouveau front. Par ailleurs, Hugo Chavez a ouvert un nouveau «front» dans sa «révolution bolivarienne». Dans sa ligne de mire : les quatre chaînes de télévision privées du pays qui ont pris fait et cause pour l'opposition. Durant la grève, elles ont renoncé à tout spot publicitaire pour diffuser en lieu et place des annonces de soutien à la Coordination démocratique et aux manifestations. RCTV, Globovision, Televen et Venevision (propriété du magnat Gustavo Cisneros qui possède notamment, à travers Hughes Electronics, le bouquet satellite Directv, soit 300 canaux dans 28 pays) sont désormais sous le coup d'une «procédure d'enquête administrative» qui pourrait leur coûter une suspension, voire une suppression, de leur licence.

Le gouvernement doit également présenter, mardi, à l'Assemblée ú où il ne dispose plus que d'une courte majorité depuis que Chavez y a perdu de nombreux soutiens politiques ú un projet de loi de «responsabilité sociale de la radio et de la télévision», dont le seul intitulé fait frémir et qui pourrait prévoir des sanctions en cas «d'atteinte à la dignité du Président». Sur le mot d'ordre de la liberté d'expression, l'opposition a réuni des centaines de milliers de personnes, il y a une semaine, dans les rues de Caracas.

Efforts diplomatiques. Grève ou pas, les positions semblent donc toujours irréconciliables. Aux efforts diplomatiques infructueux que mène depuis octobre le secrétaire général de l'OEA (Organisation des Etats américains), le Colombien César Gaviria, sont venus s'ajouter ceux de l'ex-président américain Jimmy Carter. Le récent prix Nobel de la paix a proposé, le 21 janvier, deux scénarios de sortie de crise. Soit un amendement constitutionnel qui ramènerait le mandat présidentiel de 6 à 4 ans, qui devrait être approuvé par un référendum, le 19 août, qui renverrait en même temps Chavez devant les urnes. Soit un référendum, à la même date, qui révoquerait directement le mandat du président.

Dimanche dernier, l'opposition affirme avoir rassemblé quatre millions de signatures, soit un tiers de l'électorat, en faveur de ces deux propositions, mais Hugo Chavez s'est refusé à donner suite, en tout cas d'évoquer la moindre date. «Comme tous ceux qui se croient désignés par une force divine pour réécrire l'Histoire, Hugo Chavez a refusé de voir l'impact de ces signatures», écrit Teodoro Petkoff dans TalCual.

Autre tentative diplomatique : celle du Groupe des amis du Venezuela qui réunit, à l'initiative du président brésilien Lula da Silva, le Brésil, les Etats-Unis, le Chili, le Mexique, l'Espagne et le Portugal. Une première rencontre a eu lieu entre Hugo Chavez et des diplomates du Groupe. Selon le quotidien brésilien Folha de Sao Paulo, certains de ces derniers en seraient ressortis déjà «fatigués de l'arrogance de Chavez».