Venezuela's Chavez blasts strike "terrorists"
www.alertnet.org 15 Jan 2003 01:23
(Updates with Chavez comments)
By Pascal Fletcher
CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan 14 (Reuters) - One person was shot and wounded in clashes between rival Venezuelan protesters and police on Tuesday as President Hugo Chavez condemned leaders of a six-week-old opposition strike as "terrorists" and said he would not negotiate with them.
Chavez's comments indicated an apparent hardening of his government's position on the 44th day of the strike -- called to press the leftist leader to quit and hold early elections -- that has crippled oil output in the world's No 5 exporter.
The president spoke after scattered skirmishes in west Caracas, in which police fired tear gas and shotgun pellets to repel groups of pro-Chavez militants hurling rocks and bottles who moved to attack a march by anti-government protesters.
Chavez said the opposition could not be seen as having the same legitimacy as his government.
"We know it's not like that ... What we have here is a constitutional government facing subversion," he said at a ceremony to receive new leaders of the National Assembly.
He condemned his opponents as "elite and privileged sectors" which he said were bent on overthrowing him. "You can't negotiate with terrorists,' he said.
He was due to fly later to Quito to attend the inauguration Wednesday of Ecuador's new president, Lucio Gutierrez.
In Tuesday's clashes -- the third consecutive day of street violence -- Chavez supporters, some of them masked, stoned reporters, smashed the facade of a McDonald's restaurant and threw a Molotov cocktail at a TV news van, witnesses said.
One man was hit in the leg by a bullet but it was not clear who had fired it, city fire chief Rodolfo Briceno said.
Fighting to keep the two sides apart, police also used tear gas against some of the opposition protesters.
"FICTIONAL STRIKE"
Earlier, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told foreign correspondents the government aimed to rule until its term ended in 2007. "It's a 'fiction' strike, carried out by people who are obsessed with the idea that by staging a strike, they can get rid of Chavez," Rangel said.
He denied that the shutdown, which has closed many private businesses and caused shortages of gasoline and some food items, had created chaos. "The country is working," he said.
The country's bolivar currency <VEB=> fell 3.2 percent against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday to 1,612.50 bolivars. It has lost about 13 percent of its value this year.
Rangel condemned the oil industry disruption, which has cost the country $4 billion in lost revenue, as "sabotage" and "terrorism." The government has fired 2,000 striking state oil employees and is struggling to restore the industry to normal.
Rangel said the government objected to opposition plans to hold a nonbinding referendum on Feb. 2. Dismissing the poll as "unconstitutional and politically useless", he said the constitution only allowed for a binding referendum on the president's mandate after Aug. 19.
The government has appealed to the Supreme Court against the planned referendum, but Rangel said it would respect whatever decision the court took. Chavez has said he will not resign even if he massively loses the February poll.
Chavez's foes say he is trying to install a Cuban-style communist system. The opposition includes business and union leaders, striking oil executives and rebel military officers.
In a bid to break the deadlock, the United States and other countries are moving to set up a "friendly nations" group to back efforts by the Organization of American States to broker an agreement on elections. Mexico and Argentina said on Tuesday they were willing to form part of such a group.
The Venezuela crisis has helped push oil prices to two-year highs of over $30 a barrel as the market frets over supplies at a time when Washington is preparing a possible war in Iraq.
Before the strike, the United States had been receiving more than 13 percent of its oil imports from Venezuela.
(Additional reporting by Patrick Markey)