<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan human rights PROVEA laments recent outbreaks of political violence typified in the opposition "Assault on Catia" two weeks ago and calls on the State to guarantee public security of demonstrations. 

The organization summarizes the results of the opposition-called protest in Catia, confirming one death, 28 injuries (20 due to firearms, 6 hit with heavy objects and the rest with minor injuries), defends the right of political fractions to undertake pacific political party activities and insists that the State has the duty to ensure that participants in a protest are protected from violence. 

However, the group also calls on political parties to act responsibly when convoking rallies and marches and to ask a basic question whether they are contributing or not towards creating an environment of tolerance and peace. 

"We reject the insistence of political sectors in calling marches without coordinating with the respective authorities .... the right to protest implies responsibility on the part of people those who convoked the rallies."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Amnesty International (AI) Venezuela has criticized what it calls a "cocktail of laws" passed by President Hugo Chavez Frias' government and warns that it could unleash a crisis of human rights. 

AI Venezuela director, Marcos Gomez goes back to laws passed since December 2001, which he claims caused 66 deaths and more than 849 wounded persons, as well as a deterioration of economic, social and cultural rights and the appearance of irregular and armed actors that have been seen acting with weapons. 

Taking the media content law, anti-terrorist law and criminal code reforms as examples of dangerous laws, Gomez says AI-Venezuela is concerned not just about the background of the laws but also the way reforms are brought about, adding that the above-mentioned laws are against constitutional principles, such as continuity, non-discrimination, subordination to the Constitution, international and institutional responsibility to reinforce the rule of law.

The strong-worded criticism comes a day after the National Assembly (AN)  pro-government bench held its first session outside of the Capitolio without the presence of opposition deputies passing internal procedures reform.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

President Hugo Chavez Frias has come out in support of the National Assembly (AN) pro-government bench, accusing the opposition of seeking violence and blood to prevent parliamentary sessions by threatening to take Parliament by storm and prevent sessions ... "the opposition is desperate and full of hatred." 

The President has defended the AN plenary session held at El Calvario last Friday that passed the controversial internal and debate procedure regulations, claiming that the opposition wanted to stage an institutional coup against parliament to avoid the passage of laws, such as media content law. 

10 deputies elected on the Presidential ticket were blasted as traitors for passing over to the opposition. 

The government bench that assembled on the steps of El Calvario after Thursday's stand-off with the opposition bench, drafted in 10 supply deputies to step in for those who had gone over to the other side ... 94 deputies turned up ensuring a majority to pass the regulations. 

The pro-government offensive has taken the opposition by surprise, since the tactic of boycotting sessions by walking out or other tactics had worked successfully up till now to bring in such bodies as the negotiations table and international facilitation efforts and check-mating parliamentary activity. 

The government accuses the opposition of failing to respect majority rule and thus, acting undemocratically, while the opposition retorts that the government bench is trying to steam-roller its political agenda on a minority opposition. The government scored another goal in solving a problem that has always plagued the Venezuelan parliamentary system, namely deputies elected on a political party ticket changing sides and remaining in Parliament. 

Government benches have always argued that such a deputy should leave parliament and hand over to a supply deputy placed by the party in government. 

At El Calvario, the following former MVR deputies were substituted for loyal party men; Ernesto Alvarenga ( Solidaridad),  Jose Luis Farias ( Solidaridad), Nelson Ventura ( Solidaridad), Alejandro Armas  ( Solidaridad),  Luis Salas ( OFM- Vamos), Rafael Simon Jimenez  ( OFM- Vamos), Leopoldo Puchi ( MAS),  Alberto Jordan Hernandez ( Transparencia Revolucionaria), Jess Narvaez  and Carlos Santafe.

<a href=www.newsday.com>NewsDay.com

Maracaibo, Venezuela - Six months after Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez turned back nationwide strikes and protests against his rule, his opponents are organizing a new effort to oust him - this time via the ballot box. This country of 25 million people has seen some of Latin America's nastiest politics in recent years as Chavez's leftist policies and pugnacious style have helped divide the country between those who love him and those who would love to see him gone. Starting in December, Chavez's opponents held a nine-week strike that shut down oil exports and the economy, but failed to dislodge Chavez from power. Last year, a coup by military and business leaders ousted Chavez for two days in April before collapsing. Those crises, and periodic street clashes between supporters of the two sides, have raised worries that this country, one of the United States' top four oil suppliers, could slide into civil war. Last month, the Organization of American States, backed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, guided the government and opposition into signing an agreement to fight for power according to the constitution. That allows the opposition to petition for a referendum on a president's mandate after the halfway point of his term, which for Chavez will be Aug. 19. Thus, the opposition, which appeared dispirited after the failure to oust Chavez last winter, is finding new energy. "All of our efforts are for the referendum," said Nerio Romero, regional secretary in Maracaibo for Democratic Action, one of the country's two traditionally dominant parties. Still, the May 29 accord does not guarantee that a referendum will be held, or that Venezuelan politics will be made more polite. The accord is "encouraging," said Michael Shifter, a senior analyst with a Washington-based think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue. Still, "a lot of things need to be worked out," he said. "Will the opposition be unified? Will there be enough international pressure? Will Chavez work in good faith?" Under the accord, the opposition will have to present 2.5 million petition signatures to force a referendum, and the government is barred from altering the ground rules for such a vote. The government and opposition are arguing over the appointment of a National Electoral Commission, which would set the date and the rules for a referendum. The legislature, where Chavez supporters hold a slim majority, has nominated two Chavez backers and two opponents to the five-member commission, but is deadlocked over the crucial final seat. The opposition accuses the government of trying to pack the supreme court and to render the legislature a rubber stamp. On Wednesday, legislators threw papers, shoved and screamed at each other in the National Assembly over government plans to change its operating rules to eliminate some quorum requirements. Venezuela was for generations one of Latin America's stablest democracies, but one in which the vast majority of people live in miserable poverty alongside the wealth of a tiny elite. Chavez, a former paratrooper who attempted a coup in 1992, won a landslide vote six years later with his promise to reduce inequalities with a populist revolution. In office, Chavez has alienated many with incendiary rhetoric and authoritarian tendencies. The opposition coalition - including unions, business groups and media companies - says Chavez has alienated foreign investors and seeks to impose a Cuban-style communism. Chavez denies this. "It looks like [the opposition] is beginning to accept that to get rid of me they'll have to work hard in the streets and follow the constitution," said Chavez, after the OAS-brokered agreement was reached. The new round of Venezuela's political battle will be fought amid the shambles of a weakened economy. The gross domestic product fell 8 percent last year - and 29 percent in this year's first quarter as a result of the December-to-February strike. Unemployment is around 25 percent and the currency, the bolivar, has plunged, sharply escalated the price of imports and thus the cost of living. "There's no money," lamented Franyi Rivas, 28, who sells women's clothing from a stand in a Maracaibo street market. He estimated that his sales have dropped 80 percent from a year ago. Rivas blamed the economy's troubles on the anti-Chavez opposition "for not letting the government work." Chavez consolidated his grip on many national institutions after the coup and strike, firing dissidents and replacing them with his loyalists. But his popularity has stayed low - at 36 percent, according to a prominent polling firm, Datanalisis. "If the opposition motivates the people to vote, they'll beat Chavez," said Luis Vicente Leon, Datanalisis' director. "The [opposition] advantage exists, but it isn't much." Leon said he expects Chavez to use legal mechanisms to delay any referendum and to promote abstention to undermine any vote that is held. Even if Chavez's mandate were revoked in a referendum, the Constitution does not bar him from running in the elections to follow. So unless the fractured opposition manages to rally around a single candidate, Chavez could win re-election with a plurality of the vote.

Posted on Sun, Jun. 08, 2003 TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN New York Times

Attention, shoppers: Iraqi oil is for sale.

On Thursday, exactly two weeks after the U.N. Security Council lifted 13 years of economic sanctions against Iraq and gave the United States a firm grip on one of the world's most bounteous oil spigots, Baghdad put 10 million barrels of crude up for bid.

Although Baghdad is still mired in crime and no weapons of mass destruction have surfaced in Iraq, Washington is helping market Iraqi oil with all due haste. A former Shell Oil executive heads a panel supervising Iraq's oil fields and crude will now be sold directly to refiners, thus eliminating a middleman role once dominated by Russian oil traders. French refiners also once enjoyed a healthy foothold in Iraq before their government wound up on the wrong side of the U.N. war debate, giving a leg up to enthusiastic U.S. and British refiners, which couldn't deal directly with Iraq during the sanctions era.

Call it a coup de petrole.

And since Iraq has the world's second-largest pool of known oil reserves, the Bush administration's handling of the money that flows from those fields is certain to ripple far beyond Iraq's borders -- particularly because some two-thirds of Iraq's estimated oil bounty remains untapped.

Although Iraq's oil industry is being overhauled in a way that creates welcome opportunities for Fortune 500 oil giants, U.S. authorities promise that oil riches will be spent on Iraqi reconstruction and humanitarian aid. Even so, Iraqis and others Middle Eastern countries remain wary about possible U.S. shenanigans with Iraqi oil and are watching sales to see whether the United States waged a war of liberation or a war of occupation.

"People in the region and beyond have a great suspicion of U.S. intentions; and with the U.S. and the U.K. in control of the second-biggest pot of oil in the Gulf region those suspicions will be reinforced," said Judith Kipper, co-director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think they're unfounded suspicions because the U.S. won't play games with Iraqi oil."

"But since the U.S. and Britain have been busy trying to get U.N. sanctions against Iraq lifted, and haven't been perceived as being as busy restoring public services in Iraq, the perception that this is about oil is reinforced," Kipper added. "And in the Middle East, perception is everything."

Iraq's oil numbers are humbling. The country has 112.5 billion barrels of known reserves, second to Saudi Arabia's 262 billion. The United States, Mexico, and Canada combined have only 64 billion barrels, and that supply is aging. Venezuela (78 billion barrels), Africa in its entirety (77 billion barrels), Russia (65 billion barrels, including the Caspian), and the Asia-Pacific region (44 billion barrels) are comparative half-pints.

Other Middle Eastern oil titans like Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have oil reserves in the 90-billion- to 98-billion-barrel range. But those fields pump at a much fuller tilt than Iraq's outmoded, jury-rigged operations.

Once Iraqi oil pumps are back to speed, and the country's untapped fields are probed, it could become an even greater force within OPEC and the world oil markets. As Vice President Dick Cheney observed in warning of Saddam Hussein's oil aspirations, whoever sits atop the Middle Eastern oil market has a "stranglehold" on the global economy.

Oil analysts say it will be at least five years before Iraq's oil output ramps up fully; it will cost at least $5 billion, they say, to rehabilitate its oil fields.