Chavez threatens to revoke TV broadcasting licenses
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez threatened to revoke the broadcasting licenses of Venezuela's main TV and radio stations, accusing them of supporting opposition efforts to overthrow him through a six-week-old strike.
Chavez said Sunday the stations were abusing their power by constantly broadcasting opposition advertisements promoting the strike, which has dried up oil revenue in the world's No. 5 oil exporter but hasn't rattled the president's resolve to stay in power.
Venezuela's main television stations have not broadcast any commercials during the strike except the opposition ads.
Media owners say they adopted that stance because Chavez incites his supporters to attack reporters.
"They are worse than an atomic bomb,'' Chavez said during his weekly radio and television show Sunday. "If they continue to use their licenses to try to break the country or oust the government, I would be obligated to revoke it.''
He spoke as tens of thousands of his opponents marched on Los Proceres park outside the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas, seeking military support for the strike.
Troops lobbed tear gas at the protesters but they quickly regrouped, shouting "cowards'' at hundreds of soldiers facing them with armored personnel carriers.
Troops also kept back dozens of Chavez supporters protesting nearby.
The first marchers to arrive at Los Proceres park, which is outside the Fort Tiuna military base, stomped down barbed wire blocking the entrance, but they did not try to break past security lines.
Hector Castillo, a photographer for the local newspaper El Mundo, was injured by rubber bullets that some soldiers fired into the air, Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno said. Eighteen other people were treated for tear-gas asphyxiation, he said.
The park is one of eight security zones in Caracas decreed by Chavez. Protests are banned in those areas unless authorized by the Defense Ministry.
The military - purged of dissidents after a brief April coup - has supported Chavez during the strike, with troops seizing oil tankers, commandeering gasoline trucks and locking striking workers out of oil installations.
Top commanders have professed their loyalty to the government.
In Colombia, Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton dismissed the possibility that Venezuela was heading toward civil war.
"To have a civil war, two (sides) are needed, and the government doesn't want that,'' Chaderton told The Associated Press.
"We are not preparing ourselves for civil war but to preserve peace and reconciliation.''
Venezuela's largest labor confederation, business chamber and opposition parties began the strike Dec. 2 to demand that Chavez resign or call early elections if he loses a nonbinding referendum on his rule.
The National Elections Council scheduled the referendum for Feb. 2 after accepting an opposition petition signed by 2 million people.
Chavez says the vote would be unconstitutional, and his supporters have challenged it in the Supreme Court.
He was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, and his term ends in 2007. Venezuela's constitution allows a recall referendum halfway through a president's term - August, in Chavez's case.
Chaderton said the government would consider providing funds for the vote if the Supreme Court upheld it.
"An opposition that contributes ... to strangling the country's economy and calls for tax evasion ... is demanding funds for a vote. How curious,'' he said.
"But at an opportune time, after the judicial institutions make their decision, we will decide.''
Opponents accuse the president of running roughshod over democratic institutions and wrecking the economy with leftist policies.
The opposition has staged dozens of street marches, called for a tax boycott and held a two-day bank strike last week.
Chavez accuses opponents of trying to provoke a coup.
He has fought the strike by firing 1,000 workers from the state oil monopoly, where some 30,000 of 40,000 workers are off the job.
The strike, which is strongest in the oil industry, has caused fuel shortages and is costing the country an estimates US$70 million a day.
The country's crude output is estimated at about 400,000 barrels a day, compared with the pre-strike level of 3 million barrels.
Exports are a fifth of the 2.5 million barrels a day the country usually produces.
In Vienna for a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez vowed production would be 2.5 million barrels a day by mid-February. - AP