www.ctv.ca Associated Press

CARACAS — President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to order more raids on striking private food producers and warned that the government may abandon negotiations with opponents trying to force him from office.

Meanwhile, thousands of Venezuelans with roots in Italy, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal and other countries marched for peace, waving the flags of their homelands and Venezuela. Some carried signs that read "liberty'' and "union'' in six languages.

"I've never seen the country so divided,'' said Jose Lopes, 60, a bookstore owner who immigrated to Venezuela from Portugal as a teenager. "We don't want to leave, but if Chavez doesn't leave it's a possibility.''

Opponents accuse the 48-year-old president of running roughshod over democratic institutions and wrecking the economy with leftist policies.

A combination of opposition parties, business leaders and labour unions called for a general strike on Dec. 2 to demand Chavez accept the results of a non-binding referendum on his rule.

Venezuela's National Elections Council scheduled the vote for Feb. 2 after accepting an opposition petition, but Chavez's supporters have challenged the referendum in court. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the issue soon.

Chavez, whose six-year term ends in 2007, insists his foes must wait until August -- or halfway through his six-year term -- when a recall referendum is permitted by the constitution.

The strike has brought Venezuela's economy to a standstill, causing shortages of gasoline, food and drink, including bottled water, milk, soft drinks and flour.

Local producers insist they are still making basic foodstuffs but that fuel shortages and lack of security for their transport workers have hampered deliveries.

"Some businessmen have reflected and have started to open their factories,'' Chavez said during his weekly television and radio show. "Those who refuse, who resist, well, be sure that today, tomorrow or after, we will raid your warehouses and stockpiles.''

On Friday, National Guard soldiers seized water and soft drinks from two bottling plants. One was an affiliate of Coca-Cola, the other belonged to Venezuela's largest food and drinks producer, Empresas Polar.

Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel on Sunday rejected U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro's criticism of the raids, which he said affected U.S. interests in Venezuela. Shapiro also questioned their legality.

"Ambassador, with all due respect, you are not an authority in this country,'' Rangel said Sunday while speaking to supporters in Venezuela's Margarita Island.

Bilateral "relations have to be on an equal plain of mutual respect. This is not a protectorate, it is not a colony,'' Rangel said.

Chavez also warned the government would walk away from negotiations sponsored by the Organization of American States if the opposition continued seeking his ouster through what he calls unconstitutional means.

"We are carefully evaluating the possibility that our representatives will leave the (negotiating) table,'' he said. "We don't talk with terrorists. We are willing to talk with any Venezuelan within the framework of the constitution.''

The talks, which began in November, have yielded few results. Six countries -- Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States -- have begun an initiative called "Friends of Venezuela'' to support the negotiations.

The strike is strongest in Venezuela's oil industry, previously the world's fifth-largest exporter.

Oil production has dwindled to 800,000 barrels a day, compared with the three million barrels a day the country usually produces, according to the government. Strike leaders put the figure at 400,000 barrels a day.

Chavez, who has fired more than 1,000 strikers from the state oil monopoly, said Sunday that production could be restored to two million barrels a day by the end of the month.

But Chavez acknowledged that gasoline shortages have increased. He blamed the difficulties on "sabotage'' by strikers and delayed gasoline imports. He also promised to reinforce troop presence at oil installations and said 60 gasoline trucks were on their way to Caracas, the capital, on Sunday.

"Keep rationing gasoline,'' Chavez urged listeners.

Besides the factory raid, troops have seized striking oil tankers and kept strikers out of oil installations. Five people have died in politically related violence since the strike began.

Also Sunday, Chavez appointed retired Gen. Lucas Rincon as his interior minister, replacing Diosdado Cabello, who was named infrastructure minister last week. Rincon's appointment comes despite his role in April's failed coup and his later resignation as defence minister.

Rincon announced to the world that Chavez resigned after 19 people died during an opposition march on the presidential palace. Loyal soldiers restored Chavez to power two days later after an interim government dissolved the constitution.

Chavez also appointed Gen. Jorge Garcia Carneiro as commander of Venezuela's army, replacing Gen. Julio Garcia Montoya.

www.sun-sentinel.com By Sandra Hernandez staff writer Posted January 19 2003

Miami · Carrying placards that read "Get Out Chávez" and "No Going Back," thousands of Venezuelans and Cuban nationals transformed Miami's Calle Ocho into Little Caracas on Saturday during a march calling for the ouster of President Hugo Chávez.

The rally was a mirror of the demonstrations that are a near daily event in Venezuela since opposition leaders launched a national strike in December calling for early elections.

And like those rallies, marchers banged pots and pans and waved flags signed by dissident military leaders who turned against the president and now enjoy celebrity status in their homeland.

The event also highlights the push by opposition leaders to draw attention to the crisis. At least three prominent labor and political leaders traveled from Caracas to speak to the crowd, estimated at 50,000.

"We want to tell the Venezuelan people they are not alone," said Carlos Ortega, the head of the country's largest labor group and one of the forces behind the 47-day-old strike. "Leave us alone, Chávez. We don't want you anymore."

Also speaking to the crowd was former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledesma, who is now part of opposition coordinators. "I came because I think it's important to help get the message out and to let people know what is going on in Venezuela," he said. "Chávez wants to portray us as conspirators and coup plotters and we aren't."

Both men stressed the ties to Miami's Cuban community and repeated accusations that Chávez is pushing the South American nation of 24 million toward a communist style of government.

The accusation is getting more attention since Venezuelan troops took control of a Coca-Cola bottling plant and several beer plants Friday.

"I hope that being on the doorstep, the U.S. will take notice and realize they will be affected by everything that is happening," said Saritta Brittan, of All for Venezuela, an umbrella group of 25 organizations that helped coordinate the rally along with local Cuban groups.

Marchers dressed in red, yellow and blue shirts -- a tribute to the Venezuelan national flag -- braved the chilly weather and light rain to push for early elections.

"I'm here because I want the world to know that Venezuelans don't support the government of Chávez," said Luis Matos, who has been living in South Miami since Jan. 4. "This rally is unlike those in Venezuela because if you were there, it would have ended with tear gas and maybe even violence. Here, we can demonstrate peacefully."

Officials at the Venezuelan Consulate in Miami called the march an act of free expression.

The march also drew local Hispanic leaders including U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Miami), who accused Chávez of imposing a "totalitarian government." He added, "We must come out in solidarity," but declined to comment on whether the Bush administration should take a stronger role in the crisis. "This isn't about the Bush administration."

Chávez, a former paratrooper who helped lead a failed 1992 coup, was elected in 1998 with an overwhelming majority. But these days his base of support has narrowed while the country's economic and social woes have mushroomed, creating a powerful movement to oust him.

Opponents are pushing for February elections, but Chávez has refused, saying they must wait until August as permitted in the constitution. The two sides are deadlocked on the issue and international efforts, including those by the Organization of American States, have failed to produce any agreements.

Saturday's march also drew some famous faces, including Latin pop singer Jose Luis Rodriguez, known as "El Puma," and four former Venezuelan beauty queens who stood on stage and waved to the crowd. Rodriguez called on the military to "restore order."

Sandra Hernandez can be reached at 954-385-7923 or smhernandez@sun-sentinel.com.

www.abs-cbnnews.com

CARACAS, Venezuela - More than 100,000 opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez marched in Caracas on Saturday after the populist threatened to quit talks aimed at ending a crisis over his leadership of the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

Holding up flags and torches and banging drums, the huge nighttime rally snaked through eastern parts of the capital where protesters jammed a major highway clamoring for Chavez to step down and call elections.

"These torches light the way for the fall of this regime," Rafael Narvaez, representative of the Coordinadora Democratica opposition alliance, told reporters.

Chavez earlier warned the government could pull out of peace talks brokered by the Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria even as the international community stepped up efforts to break the South American nation's political deadlock.

The negotiations are trying to end the conflict behind a 48-day-old opposition strike that has slashed Venezuela's vital oil output, rattling global energy markets already nervous over a U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The opposition strike, started on Dec. 2, has stoked tensions as Venezuelans deal with serious shortages of gasoline, cooking gas and some food items. The shutdown has pushed Venezuela's oil-reliant economy deeper into recession.

A tough-talking Chavez blasted his opponents as "terrorists and fascists" and said there could be no negotiations with those who are leading the strike against his government. Chavez refuses to quit or call early elections.

"We in the government ... are considering withdrawing our team from the negotiating table because those people are showing no sign that they really want to choose the democratic path," the president said.

Opposition leaders, who accuse the former paratrooper of ruling like a dictator and charge his populist government has created economic chaos, said the OAS-backed negotiations remained the only solution to the crisis. They have vowed to stay on strike until Chavez quits.

The opposition is also demanding a nonbinding referendum Feb. 2 on Chavez's government. But the president says they must wait until August when the constitution allows a binding referendum on his mandate.

"Chavez is trying to wriggle out of this; he's cornered. He's trying to block all the international initiatives to help Venezuela," opposition negotiator Manuel Cova told Reuters.

International help, but from where?

Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and survived a coup last year, said his government would consult with Gaviria and decide over the weekend whether to stay in the 2-month-old OAS-brokered talks, which have made little progress.

Gaviria left for the United States for the weekend. The talks he chairs are due to resume on Monday.

While ruling out negotiations with strike leaders, Chavez said his government could talk to moderate "democratic" opposition representatives who were "not coup mongers."

The Venezuelan leader, who led a botched coup himself six years before his election victory, traveled briefly to Brazil Saturday for talks with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on international efforts to back the OAS negotiations.

Regional leaders this week created a six-nation "group of friends" to support OAS efforts to broker a deal on the key issue of the timing of possible elections.

The group comprised the United States, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Spain and Portugal. But Chavez, who held talks this week with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York, said he wanted the "friends" group to be expanded to include other nations like China, Russia and France.

After meeting Lula, Chavez reiterated his calls for the group to include more nations. But he said the expansion could come later.

"We will give Lula and his government our vote of confidence to form this group to help Venezuela," Chavez told supporters during a speech in Caracas after his Brazil trip.

Chavez, whose leftwing reforms are aimed at easing poverty, has vowed to break the opposition strike by sending troops to take over oil fields, refineries and export terminals. But he has had only partial success in restoring oil operations.

Following Chavez's orders, troops Friday seized drink products from a bottling affiliate of Coca-Cola Co. and from a major local brewer.

The confiscation, carried out by a pro-Chavez National Guard general, was condemned as illegal by opposition leaders. U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, Charles Shapiro, said the takeover could also strain ties with Washington and expressed concern over U.S. commercial interests.

But Chavez warned Saturday more raids could follow as his government tries to ensure food supplies. He has also threatened to take action against banks, schools and factories joining the stoppage.

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www.newsday.com

By JORGE RUEDA Associated Press Writer

January 19, 2003, 8:40 AM EST CARACAS, Venezuela -- At least 100,000 anti-government protesters staged a candlelight march in Caracas late Saturday, converging on a city highway waving national flags, flashlights and flaming torches.

Protesters cut off traffic as they demanded President Hugo Chavez's resignation and voiced support for a 7-week-old strike called by business and labor groups to force a nonbinding referendum on Chavez's rule.

"We don't want this totalitarian regime that the president wants to impose," said Carolina Serrano, 25, dressed in jeans colored in the yellow, blue and red of the Venezuelan flag and shielding a candle from the evening breeze. "We're tired of so much abuse of power."

Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno estimated that the march drew at least 100,000 people.

In Miami, about 50,000 protesters jammed into the predominantly Cuban Little Havana, calling for Chavez's ouster. Venezuelan exiles were joined by Cuban-Americans and sympathizers from other Latin American nations.

The strike is strongest in state oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., where 30,000 of 40,000 workers are off the job. Banks have restricted hours and sympathetic media broadcast pro-strike and anti-Chavez commercials around the clock.

Chavez, arriving from a visit to Brazil, promised to use the full extent of the law -- backed up by the military -- to break the strike, which began Dec. 2.

The former paratrooper, who was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, insists his foes must wait until August -- or halfway through his six-year term -- when a recall referendum is permitted by the constitution.

"We've put up with too much," Chavez said in a nationally televised speech. "I've ordered legal proceedings to begin against the banks ... and the media."

Government adversaries pledged to oppose the president peacefully and urged Venezuelans to use their vote in a nonbinding referendum on Chavez's rule, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 2, and avoid violence.

Opposition representatives at talks mediated by the Organization of American States said they would persist with negotiations despite threats by Chavez to pull out.

"If we decide to leave the table it's because those people (opposition) don't show demonstrations of wanting to take the democratic path," Chavez told the state-run Venpres news agency Saturday.

Cesar Gaviria, the OAS secretary general, began mediating the talks in November. Little progress has been made while the strike threatens to destroy Venezuela's economy.

"The president can try to leave the table with a characteristically violent gesture but we reply with civilized, democratic and peaceful behavior," Alejandro Armas, an opposition negotiator. "We are going to stay at the table."

On Friday, soldiers battled through protesters to seize food and drink from Venezuela's largest food company, Empresas Polar, and an affiliate of U.S. soft drink giant Coca-Cola to distribute among the people.

Chavez said the companies that owned the plants in the industrial city of Valencia, 66 miles west of Caracas, were denying Venezuelans food and drink during the crippling strike.

U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro said he was "concerned and disappointed" by the seizures, which affect U.S. interests in Venezuela.

"I strongly hope I'm wrong, but it looks like the officers did not act within the law," Shapiro said. "There was no (judicial) order, nor a judge" present.

The Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce and Industry denounced the actions as unconstitutional and offered support to any member companies whose rights were threatened.

Chavez was in Brazil on Saturday to speak with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva about the newest initiative to end the bitter stalemate. A so-called "Group of Friends of Venezuela" is being set up with the participation of Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Chile, Portugal and Spain.

Chavez said he would seek similar meetings with presidents of the group's other member countries. Washington has indicated it believes the best way out of the crisis is through new elections. "I am not afraid of the opinions of the United States in the negotiations of the Group of Friends, because the United States is also a friend of Venezuela," Chavez said.

Venezuela is the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the United States. The Supreme Court is due to decide on the legality of the proposed Feb. 2 referendum.

Venezuela's opposition, which accuses Chavez of running the country's democratic institutions into the ground, says it will ignore any decision trying to stop the vote.

Chavez promised radical change in the oil-rich country where 80 percent of the 24 million people live in poverty. But an economic recession has brought unemployment to 17 percent, and a devaluation of the bolivar currency fueled 30 percent inflation last year.

The strike has caused severe food and fuel shortages and hobbled the oil industry, costing the nation at least $4 billion.

www.falkland-malvinas.com Mercosur Sunday, 19 January

Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said here Saturday that he would give a vote of confidence to the "Friends of Venezuela" group being formed to mediate the crisis between his government and the opposition.

"We are endorsing the group so it can act, organize, negotiate and analyze," Chavez said after a more-than-two-hour meeting with Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Chavez made a quickly arranged visit to Brasilia to discuss with Lula, as he is universally known, the configuration and role of the group of friendly nations, which was first proposed by the Brazilian president.

Lula's initiative was approved Wednesday by a group of regional leaders in Quito and would comprise Brazil, the United States, Chile, Mexico, Spain and Portugal. Chavez, however, wants China, Russia, France, Algeria and Cuba, among others, to join the group.

The Venezuelan president said that while he liked the makeup of the group as proposed, other governments had also expressed an interest in helping find a solution to the protracted political crisis in his country.

But at yesterday’s meeting, Lula explained to Chavez that the six-nation group was sufficiently balanced to pursue a solution to Venezuela's problems, according to Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, who also attended the meeting.

"Additions (to the group) are a future consideration, and the future is in God's hands," Amorim told reporters.

Chavez said that he heads a democratic government seeking a "revolution" in his country.

When asked if that revolution could mean a loss of lives, Chavez said "many lives have already been lost in Venezuela, and the revolution will prevent the loss of more."

Chavez insisted that "some coup-mongering businessmen" had promoted "terrorism" in his country, leading the government to take over some companies considered vital.

He was referring to Friday's raid by the Venezuelan National Guard on bottling plants to seize soft drinks and beer, allegedly to distribute to the country's citizens.

The Venezuelan economy has been paralyzed since Dec. 2, due to a opposition-led general strike and the shutdown of the oil industry designed to force Chavez to resign.

Chavez said upon his arrival in Brasilia that he was willing to accept the involvement of any nation, including the United States, in the group of friends, "as long as Washington clearly understands that Venezuela has a democratic government, over which I preside."