Venezuelan crowds keep marching
Tens of thousands of Venezuelan anti-government protesters marched on military headquarters in Caracas on Sunday after leftist President Hugo Chavez threatened to take over private banks and schools hit by a six-week-old opposition strike.
Former paratrooper Chavez, who is refusing opposition demands to resign and call early elections, has vowed to take all necessary measures to beat the strike, which has already slashed oil exports by the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter.
Several hundred National Guard and military police in riot gear, formed up behind barbed wire barricades and backed by armoured vehicles, blocked an avenue leading to Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters in the southwest of the city on Sunday.
Blowing whistles and waving national flags, the opposition marchers headed toward the sprawling military complex in a repeat of a Jan. 3 protest that broke up in violence when anti- and pro-government demonstrators, troops and police clashed. On that occasion, two Chavez supporters were shot dead and dozens more people injured.
Six weeks into the gruelling opposition strike, feelings were running high on the opposition side after defiant speeches by Chavez on Saturday in which he blasted his foes as "terrorists" and said his government would not surrender to the strike.
Hardening his stance, Chavez warned his opponents his government would intervene in banks and schools shut by the strike and would sack directors and staff who refused to work.
As his opponents marched on Sunday, the outspoken populist president began his weekly "Hello President" television and radio show by calling his foes "fascists and coup mongers".
He also threatened to revoke the broadcasting licenses of private TV stations that are fiercely critical of his rule.
The strike has rocked Venezuela's oil-reliant economy and sent its bolivar currency tumbling. It has also sent shockwaves through world oil markets and the oil exporters' cartel OPEC agreed on Sunday to raise production to stave off a spike in oil prices threatened by the Venezuelan strike.
In his tough speeches on Saturday, Chavez said 2,000 striking employees of the state oil giant PDVSA had been dismissed.
"This was a declaration of war. Chavez is not interested in dialogue or reconciliation," glass artist Luz Marina Urrecheaga said on Sunday as she and other opposition protesters harangued helmeted troops blocking their path to Fuerte Tiuna.
"What we want are elections now, and the right to march in peace," said another demonstrator, surgeon Carmen Granados.
Troops set up another cordon several hundred yards (metres) away to keep back angry pro-Chavez militants.
"We will do everything possible to a avoid a clash," military police commander Col. Jose Montilla said.
Daily life disrupted
The strike has increasingly disrupted daily life in Venezuela. Venezuelans have been experiencing unprecedented shortages of gasoline, cooking gas and some food items.
Major private manufacturing industries, shopping malls and cinemas have stayed closed and most private schools have failed to open this year as teaching staff stayed away from work. Most public schools, however, have started classes.
Bank workers staged a 48-hour stoppage last week, but will reopen on Monday under restricted service hours which have caused long daily lines outside banks.
Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and survived a brief coup in April, portrays himself as a champion of the poor and says wealthy and corrupt minority elites are trying to topple him from power. He says his self-proclaimed "revolution" is aimed at helping the majority of Venezuelans who live in poverty.
Chavez's foes, who are largely drawn from the country's middle and upper classes, accuse him of dragging Venezuela toward chaos and Cuban-style communism through dictatorial rule, mismanagement and corruption. They say his support has reached an all-time low, even among the poor.
With government and opposition deadlocked over the timing of elections, fears of a violent outcome have increased after a grenade attack last week against the Algerian ambassador's Caracas residence and bomb threats against several embassies.
The United States and other countries, such as Brazil, are backing the idea of a group of "friendly countries" to persuade the government and opposition to reach a negotiated settlement in talks brokered by the Organization of American States.
Opposition leaders announced plans to travel to the United States this weekend to present their case to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the US State Department.
The opposition is pinning its hopes on a Feb. 2 referendum on Chavez's rule scheduled by electoral authorities. But the president rejects this nonbinding referendum as unconstitutional and says he will ignore its result.
He says his foes must wait until August after which the constitution allows for a binding referendum on his rule. His current term is scheduled to end in early 2007.