VOA News 07 Feb 2003, 18:10 UTC

A Nazi-hunting organization has called on Venezuela to take legal action against an Estonian accused of war crimes during World War II.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem says Venezuela should press charges against Harry Mannil or expel him. Mr. Mannil, now a Venezuelan citizen and businessman, was a member of a police unit in Nazi-occupied Estonia during the war.

Mr. Mannil was in Costa Rica earlier this week when authorities there told him he must leave and not return, citing his Nazi involvement.

Mr. Mannil has not commented, but the Associated Press reports he has said in the past that he never took part in war crimes against Estonian Jews.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, February 07, 2003 - 4:09:19 PM By: Roy S. Carson

Venezuelan businessman Harry Mannil Laul (82) has been kicked out of Costa Rica after allegations that he is a Nazi war criminal. 

A native Estonian, Mannil Laul had been identified in the Central American country by the US Department of Justice and the Simon Wiesenthal Center as having been a member of the Estonian Political Police during the Nazi occupation 1941-1943.  With business holdings in Costa Rica and a home in Venezuela, authorities say Mannil took part in persecuting the Jewish community in Estonia where Jews were arbitrarily detained and assassinated.

Costa Rica's director general of Immigration, Marco Badilla personally told Mannil Laul never to return to Costa Rica and that, if he tries, he'll be sent back as "a threat to Costa Rica's national security, public order and the quality of life."

United States officials apparently collaborated with Costa Rican authorities and say that Mannil Laul was a high-ranking member of the violent Estonian police unit ... he has denied the allegations, claiming he was simply involved in administrative tasks.

Venezuela-naturalized  Mannil Laul (82) had visited Costa Rica on at least 14 occasions last year on tourist visas and was originally suspected of visa violations after admitting he had traveled there on business.

The US Simon Wiesenthal Center has praised Costa Rica's initiative saying that Mannil Laul had tried to gain residency status in Costa Rica but had been denied the status because he has permanent residence in Venezuela.  The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi hunter, Dr. Efraim Zuroff says he would like to see Mannil Laul brought to justice in Estonia but claims the Estonian government is not doing enough to prosecute Nazi atrocities.

See www.amcostarica.com

www.cnn.com Friday, February 7, 2003 Posted: 8:21 AM EST (1321 GMT)

President Hugo Chavez addresses radio and television viewers during a Wednesday address at Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- The band of government supporters surrounded the Televen TV news crew on a highway, punched the driver, stole equipment and shattered the car's rear window.

The same day, emissaries of President Hugo Chavez, accompanied by 1,000 supporters, informed the Venevision TV network it may be fined for its coverage of a two-month strike aimed at forcing Chavez to step down.

The incidents on Wednesday came as Chavez intensifies a longtime offensive against Venezuela's news media, many of which promoted the strike. The protest petered out this week.

His government is investigating all four national private TV networks, whom he likes to call the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Independent lawmaker Alberto Jordan counted more than 60 assaults and threats against reporters in January, up from 60 in all of 2002.

Regional television outlets and a growing number of radio stations are also under investigation, and on Thursday, the Chavez-dominated Congress began debating legislation that would regulate TV and radio programming more closely.

The project would divide the broadcast day into "children's," "supervised" and "adult" hours, and require journalists to divulge documentary sources. It would even monitor the music and language used in commercials.

"They'd tell us what is good sex and what is bad sex, what is good violence and what is bad violence, what health information can be broadcast and what health programs can't," Asdrubal Aguiar, professor of international law at Andres Bello Catholic University, told Venevision.

In a recent prime-time speech, Chavez said the new media law, which needs a simple majority to pass, will protect "our adolescents from the abuses of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ... who trample the truth, who sow terror and fear and create ghosts for our children."

President touts record on media

Most Venezuelan media gave shrill and supportive coverage to the strike and its leaders. Newspapers sometimes refused to publish in solidarity with strikers, and thousands of opposition television commercials were aired.

Ruling party lawmaker Juan Barreto said Thursday the government wants to find out who paid for the ads and collect any unpaid taxes on them. He said that private TV broadcast an average of 700 pro-strike or anti-Chavez ads daily during the protest.

Media owners insist they were forced to play a partisan role with the evaporation of Venezuela's traditional, and corrupt, political parties in the late 1990s.

Chavez, first elected in 1998, proudly notes that his government, unlike its predecessors, hasn't sent agents to abduct reporters or seize newspaper editions right off the presses.

The government insists that balanced media coverage must be guaranteed if early elections, as demanded by the opposition, are to be held.

The issue has come up during talks mediated by the Organization of American States. The Group of Friends, six nations backing the negotiations, urged private channels to limit anti-Chavez and pro-strike commercials.

Not that Chavez has much trouble getting air time.

He has his own weekly talk show. Government television trumpets the revolution's successes. And he gives speeches known as "cadenas" -- television stations have been forced to interrupt their programming to air them at least 29 times since January 1.

Past presidents rarely used the cadena law, designed for matters of national importance.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 02.07.03, 4:47 PM ET By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan store owners and lowly street vendors often compete for customers on the same patch of pavement. But they seem to agree on one thing: the country's new currency and price controls are bad for business. In downtown Caracas, where the spirit of free commerce and competition rules in an atmosphere of bustling chaos, most merchants were uncertain and fearful Friday about the tough economic curbs introduced by President Hugo Chavez this week. Standing inside his men's' clothing store, stocked with neatly displayed merchandise but empty of customers, Horacio Bargiela wondered if things could get any worse. "We have inflation. We have a recession. Now we have currency controls. Where do we go from here?" said the 68-year-old son of Spanish Galician immigrants who has been in the garment trade for 30 years. Seeking to resolve a crippling economic crisis triggered by a two-month opposition strike that failed to oust him, the left-wing president imposed a fixed exchange rate for the bolivar currency Thursday and tight restrictions on the movement and use of dollars. Chavez, who was first elected in 1998, swore in a government committee to control hard-currency transactions in and out of the country. He made clear he would personally supervise the allocation of currency and vowed "not a single dollar" would be granted to opponents he condemned as "coup mongers" and "terrorists" for staging the grueling strike against him. Like the owners of many private businesses, large and small, Bargiela and his wife, Laura, shut their shop for part of December in support of the nine-week opposition strike. The strike, which is still affecting the oil industry, slashed output by the world's No. 5 oil exporter, forcing the cash-strapped government to halt foreign exchange trading to stem capital flight and support the sliding bolivar. The Bargielas said that if Chavez carried out his threat to withhold dollars from businesses that backed the strike, many of them would simply stop importing or producing. In turn, shops and retailers that depended on their supplies would run out of merchandise or would have to look for it elsewhere, probably at higher prices. "If Chavez says he's not going to give dollars to the coup mongers, then we're all coup mongers. We'll just have to shut up the shop," said Laura Bargiela. She said 90 percent of the materials used to make the clothes they sold were imported. Two local importers had already informed them they were closing down their businesses. "We see a pretty uncertain and dangerous future," she added.

POOR SQUEEZED AS WELL Just down the street, Julio Cesar Luz and Doris Tineo are struggling to eke out a living with a sidewalk stall selling cheap plastic party masks imported from China. "We've been here about three months, just getting by. But it's pretty tough," Luz said. In the same week Chavez announced the foreign exchange controls, Luz's local suppliers increased the price of the masks by about 40 percent. "Of course this affects us, everything just keeps going up," Luz complained. Private businesses and economists say the currency and price controls will stifle private enterprise and push the oil-reliant economy even deeper into recession. They predict that already high inflation and unemployment will rise further. Bargiela said he had already cut back his store's small sales team from three to one. "And we're all here twiddling our thumbs with nothing to do," he said. Chavez, who portrays his "revolution" as a crusade to help Venezuela's poor, also announced price controls on a range of goods and services, including basic foods like beans, milk, bread, flour and eggs. Electrical goods store manager Juan de Sousa said: "If you're in electrical goods and even if your business is legal, the government doesn't give you dollars to import, what are you going to do? Sell beans, sell flour?"

www.taipeitimes.com By Kurt Weyland Saturday, Feb 08, 2003,Page 9

With Venezuela's leader determined to hang on to power, allowing the people to go to the polls could well be the only way out of the country's domestic turmoil

Venezuela is mired in a dangerous stalemate. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez clings to power despite the obvious failings of his government in terms of severe economic deterioration and dangerous political polarization. The opposition, tainted by their botched coup of last April, now seeks to force Chavez from office through a costly general strike.

Both sides justify their intransigence with one-sided interpretations. His sympathizers glorify Chavez as a defender of the poor besieged by a selfish, coup-plotting elite. His fiercest opponents demonize Chavez as an autocrat pursuing a Cuban-style revolution and destroying democracy. Both interpretations are flawed. The Chavez government has not helped Venezuela's poor in any significant way. On the contrary, his belligerent rhetoric and inept governance scared off investors, inciting economic decline and boosting unemployment and poverty. Now Chavez lacks majority backing even among the poor.

The opposition comprises most of Venezuela's organized civil society, not only business, but also trade unions, professional associations, and non-governmental organizations. So Venezuela's polarization does not pit "the poor" against "the oligarchy," but a populist against civil society.

The opposition's view -- shared by rightists in the Bush administration -- is equally unconvincing. Rather than initiating a revolution, Chavez merely spouts fiery rhetoric. While his democratic credentials are dubious, he has not acted in an openly authoritarian fashion. True, he has systematically concentrated power in his own hands and has undermined governmental checks and balances. But while harassing the opposition, he has not overturned the minimal principles of democracy. Indeed, he now invokes his formal democratic legitimacy to fend off demands for his resignation.

But Chavez's insistence on the inviolability of the current constitution is hypocritical. Four years ago, Chavez deviated from the old constitution by using a plebiscite to engineer a new one, tailor-made for him. Now he invokes that charter to block calls for a plebiscite on his continuation in office.

The paradox here is that Chavez's earlier example may provide the solution to today's standoff. As Chavez used para-constitutional means to advance a desire for change in 1999, so the international community should not be confined by the present constitution in pressing to resolve a crisis that is ruining the country.

In fact, the Latin American members of the "group of friendly nations" trying to mediate this conflict can draw on interesting experiences to design such a solution. After all, confrontations like this are not unusual in Latin America's rigid presidential systems. When chief executives with fixed terms of office lose political support, they cannot be removed through a no-confidence vote, as in parliamentary systems. Presidential systems therefore risk lengthy stand-offs that threaten democracy -- as in Venezuela today.

But over the last decade, Latin American politicians have made presidential systems more flexible by finding innovative ways to remove unpopular presidents. One of Chavez's discredited predecessors was impeached on flimsy charges of malfeasance; Ecuador's Congress declared a disastrous chief executive "mentally incompetent;" in Peru, an autocratic president, after months of domestic and international pressure, was forced into exile.

While politicians interpreted the law with a good deal of creativity in these instances, they usually did so to ensure the survival of fragile democracies facing a crisis. As long as these maneuvers do not proliferate and turn into easy ammunition for the opposition of the moment, they may provide a safety valve for presidential systems.

It is to be hoped that the group of friendly nations can help design an innovative solution to Venezuela's standoff. To be acceptable to both sides, such a solution must deviate from the favorite proposals of each. The opposition prefers an "up-or-down" vote on Chavez's continuation in office, which it would most likely win -- and which Chavez will never accept.

Chavez insists on the recall referendum mechanism included in his constitution, which the opposition cannot tolerate -- removing the president in this way would require a larger absolute number of votes than Chavez garnered in the last election. But rising abstention makes this virtually impossible.

Only a democratic mechanism for conflict resolution that has an uncertain outcome has any chance of being adopted. That mechanism is an election, to be held as soon as possible. Both sides will have to work hard if they want to win. The fractious opposition will need to go beyond rejection of Chavez, elaborate a program for the country's reconstruction and unite behind an attractive candidate.

Chavez will need to clarify the content and meaning of his "Bolivarian Revolution." Since Chavez is a skilled campaigner and the opposition so far lacks unity, he will have a realistic chance of winning -- which should make a new contest acceptable to him. Pressure from the group of friendly nations may induce both sides to accept this last chance to avoid a political and economic meltdown.

Elections can be made legitimate through a constitutional amendment shortening the presidential term, as proposed by former US president Jimmy Carter in his recent mediation effort. Since this is designed to defuse an exceptional crisis, it would not become a precedent that encourages frivolous attacks on Latin America's democratically elected governments. An election now in Venezuela will save, not undermine, democracy.

Kurt Weyland is an associate professor of government at the University of Texas and author of The Politics of Market Reform in Fragile Democracies: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela.