Venezuela opposition against Brazil mediation
www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.13.03, 4:21 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top leader of the Venezuelan opposition said Monday he opposed a move to include Brazil as part of a multinational effort to end a strike that has crippled the vital Venezuelan oil industry.
Political opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have been striking for a month and a half, trying to force the populist leader to resign and call new elections. The shutdown has slashed Venezuela's oil exports and caused widespread food and fuel shortages, but Chavez insists he will not step down.
Brazil, a key trading partner with Venezuela, has been widely mentioned as a possible participant in the Group of Friends, a new diplomatic effort that aims to find a negotiated settlement to the crisis.
But congressman Timoteo Zambrano, a member of the Venezuelan opposition, said Monday that Colombia and Brazil should be excluded because they share borders with Venezuela. "By defining who takes part (in the mediation), a basic prerequisite, which has been the doctrine of the United Nations, is that territorial neighbors not participate in the Group of Friends," said Zambrano, who is in the United States to argue the opposition's point of view at the State Department and the United Nations.
That rule has "given good results so far. I don't think we should change it," Zambrano said, adding bordering nations share "geopolitical interests" that could "complicate decisions that need to be made."
The opposition veto would be a major blow to efforts by Brazil's new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to mediate in the crisis, which has practically halted exports by the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
In December, Brazil dispatched a tanker with much-needed gasoline supplies to Venezuela, a move the opposition dubbed as "unfriendly."
Zambrano mentioned Mexico, Peru and Canada as nations that would be acceptable to the opposition as mediators, although he warned that the Group of Friends would have to act within the framework of a December resolution by the Organization of American States. That resolution backed the mediation of OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria.
The Group of Friends is the latest initiative to jump-start talks that have so far been mediated by the OAS.
Richard Boucher, the spokesman for the State Department, said Monday the United States had not "tried to specify the countries that would be participants in this friends' group to support (the) secretary-general."
The OAS, the United States and others have been working toward finding an "electoral solution" to the Venezuelan problem but the opposition and the government have been deadlocked on the issue of early elections.
Zambrano, who is accompanied by union boss Carlos Ortega, a key figure behind the strike, said that they would also urge the United States to convoke a meeting of the hemisphere's foreign ministers.
Both are scheduled to meet with top State Department officials Monday afternoon.