Venezuelan General Detained, Opposition Goaded
Mon December 30, 2002 07:21 PM ET By Jason Webb
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan police on Monday detained a dissident general, goading the opposition who have blocked massive oil exports with their strike but failed to force President Hugo Chavez to resign.
The leftist leader has thumbed his nose at a 29-day-old strike that has closed down shipments from the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and at huge marches, one of which brought a million demonstrators onto the streets of Caracas.
Police did not say why they had taken away National Guard Gen. Carlos Alfonso Martinez, a prominent member of a group of dissident armed forces officers who have been camping out in a Caracas square since October calling for Chavez to step down.
But the government accuses Martinez and other officers of involvement in an April coup which briefly toppled the leftist president before he was restored to power by loyalist troops.
A lawyer speaking for Martinez said the general had not been charged and that his detention was illegal.
"Whoever is responsible for this, whether it's Hugo Chavez, the interior minister or the head of the National Guard, we'll identify and charge them," said lawyer Cipriano Heredia.
The opposition, backed by business and unions, accuses Chavez of authoritarianism, corruption and economic incompetence in what they say is a quest to establish a Cuban-style dictatorship.
Chavez has kicked many of the renegade officers out of the armed forces and threatened to chase them from the square, but detaining Martinez is the toughest act against them so far.
A few dozen opposition sympathizers gathered outside a police station where Martinez was being held, and were pelted with rocks by supporters of the populist president.
One man, standing with the opposition militants, fell to the ground, bleeding and twitching as blood poured from his head. He was holding a pistol.
Opposition leaders earlier threatened to add a tax revolt to its strike which has sapped an already recession-bound economy of its petroleum lifeblood. Oil normally provides 80 percent of exports and 50 percent of state income.
OPPOSITION WANTS IMMEDIATE VOTE
Strikers demand immediate elections and have refused Chavez's offer of a referendum on his rule in August, saying that if they wait that long he will wreck the country. Chavez says under the constitution August is the earliest date an election may be held to assess popular support for his rule.
The president, a former paratrooper who was jailed after a botched coup in 1992 but was then elected in 1998, has fired bosses from state oil giant PDVSA and ordered troops onto oil tankers.
"We're bashing up against a wall," one of the protest leaders, Carlos Fernandez, president of Venezuela's main business chamber, Fedecameras, told Reuters.
The president, whose term is due to run until 2007, has seen his popularity plunge, even among his core constituency, Venezuela's poor majority. But, with about 30 percent support, he is more popular than any individual opposition figure.
In a major role-reversal for his oil-rich nation, he has imported gasoline to ease lines at filling stations. The government said that oil output would climb back to a third of normal next week, but PDVSA rebels said efforts to kick-start petroleum production were failing.
The squeeze on Venezuelan exports, which normally provide 13 percent of U.S. oil imports, has spooked markets already fretting about possible war in Iraq. U.S. crude futures jumped to a two-year high early on Monday before sliding sharply to $31.37 a barrel as the OPEC cartel indicated its readiness to come to consumers' rescue by boosting output.
Strike leaders are organizing a nonbinding referendum in early February, although Chavez says he will pay no attention to the result even if 90 percent vote against him.
Talks between the opposition and the government brokered by the Organization of American States have made little progress.
(Additional reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez)