Chavez refuses to quit despite four-week strike

Associated Press

CARACAS — Police fired tear gas to separate supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chavez in a western city Monday, as leaders of an anti-Chavez strike called for protests in the president's strongholds in the capital.

Chavez opponents broke past police lines and tried to tear down a tent set up by supporters of the president in Maracaibo. Police firing tear gas shoved the two sides apart.

The four-week strike has depleted gasoline supplies in the world's No. 5 oil exporter but failed to force the president from office.

"The strike will continue until the last consequences," said Carlos Ortega, president of Venezuela's largest labour confederation. "This regime is only prolonging its agony. Venezuelans, your indignation is just. The people never give up."

Ortega's comments Sunday came after hundreds of thousands of Chavez opponents marched through the street of Caracas, the latest in countless protests that have accompanied the strike since it began Dec. 2.

Opposition leaders are threatening more civil disobedience, including urging citizens not to pay income taxes.

Venezuela's strike and the crisis in Iraq sent European benchmark Brent crude oil futures soaring to a 15-month high of $30.70 US a barrel Monday.

The opposition called rallies in two of poorest neighbourhoods in the capital on Monday, trying to chip away at Chavez's support in the slums, where many still consider him the first leader in generations to stand up for their interests.

Chavez's popularity has slipped to about 30 per cent, as discontent grows over a wrenching economic recession and political turmoil. The former army paratrooper, however, still counts on almost 45 per cent support in the poor regions.

On Sunday, Chavez again vowed he wouldn't quit. He insisted he was foiling a strike that has slashed oil exports from three million barrels a day to 160,000 and forced Venezuela to look abroad for food and fuel.

"I think I'm never going to leave. I feel so loved that I am never going to leave," Chavez said during his weekly television show. "It's a treacherous oligarchy that wants to break the government and break the Venezuelan people."

Chavez hosted the show outside the Yagua gasoline distribution centre in the western state of Carabobo, and applauded every time a gasoline truck left the installation. Two hundred trucks left, said Chavez, who replaced striking managers at Yagua.

Gasoline shipments were coming from Venezuela's La Isla refinery in Curacao and Trinidad, Chavez added. One oil tanker has already arrived from Brazil.

Lines as long as 1? kilometres persisted at service stations. Many Venezuelans were doing without products like fresh milk, soft drinks, beer and toilet paper.

Ali Rodriguez, president of state oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. or PDVSA, said Venezuela is currently producing between 600,000 and 700,000 barrels a day. Striking PDVSA executives saying it is producing less than 200,000 barrels a day. Production is normally about three million barrels a day.

Venezuela's largest labour confederation and business chamber called to demand Chavez accept a nonbinding referendum on his rule. Many in the opposition now demand early elections, which constitutionally can only take place if Chavez resigns.

They accuse the president of running roughshod over democratic institutions and wrecking the economy with leftist policies.

Chavez says opponents should wait for a possible recall referendum midway through his term, or August 2003, as permitted by the constitution. He was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, and his term ends in 2007.

Negotiations sponsored by the Organization of American States, which have produced few results, were to resume Jan. 2 after a brief break for the holidays.