Venezuela Strikers Keep Pressure on Chávez and Oil Exports

By GINGER THOMPSON -TNYT

CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 29 — Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans filled the streets here today to declare their commitment to a national strike, now in its 28th day, to force the ouster of President Hugo Chávez.

The strike, joined by an estimated 30,000 oil workers, threatens to wreak havoc on this nation, the world's fifth-largest oil producer, for months to come. It has stopped the oil exports that generate about 80 percent of Venezuela's foreign revenue and 50 percent of government funds.

In recent days, the strike has reached a kind of stalemate. Mr. Chávez is using nonstriking workers to try to normalize operations at the state-owned oil company. His opponents, led by a coalition of business and labor leaders, contend, though, that their strike will push the company, and thus the Chávez government, to collapse.

In an interview today, Horacio Medina, president of a group of striking oil managers, said that the first 10 days of the new year would be decisive. He said the opposition leaders would turn up the pressure on the Chávez government by urging their followers to conduct campaigns of civil disobedience, like refusing to pay taxes.

"The only solution" is for Mr. Chávez "to resign," he said. "People are still willing to stay out of work for many more days."

Each day that passes, however, seems to strengthen Mr. Chávez's resolve to ride out this latest and most explosive political storm. He has been able to keep gasoline trickling to the pumps in Venezuela. Almost daily television broadcasts show him speaking at important gas and oil installations, boasting that his government has not been weakened by the strike.

Mr. Chávez, a former paratrooper, speaks like a man at war. He describes his opponents as "traitors" and "coup plotters," who are using oil to overthrow the government without regard for the devastating economic impact of their strike.

He has promised that supplies of gasoline will be restored by mid-January. Once operations at the state-owned oil company recover, he contends, the opposition will run out of cards to play.

"Any card they play is a card that will be burned," he said, "because we have popular force. We have military force. We have moral force. We have reason on our side."

Opposition leaders acknowledge that the oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, has become the principal battlefield and that Mr. Chávez has proved a more resilient foe than even their most pessimistic predictions anticipated.

They say the government's efforts to restore operations at the state-owned oil company have shown that Mr. Chávez was unwilling to negotiate a compromise in the current crisis. They say it leaves them no alternative but to keep up their strike in hopes that the Chávez government will run out of gas — literally and politically — within the next two weeks.

As shortages of gasoline become even more acute, opposition leaders calculated, the pressure on the streets will be too powerful for Mr. Chávez to ignore.

"I do not see how they can stabilize this situation," Mr. Medina said. "Things are only going to get worse, and when they do, Chávez will have to negotiate."

Many say that without a negotiated settlement between Mr. Chávez and his opponents, it may be impossible to stamp out the rage and suspicions generated by the highly charged verbiage from both sides of this political conflict.