100,000 Protest Venezuelan President
By JORGE RUEDA Associated Press Writer
January 19, 2003, 8:40 AM EST CARACAS, Venezuela -- At least 100,000 anti-government protesters staged a candlelight march in Caracas late Saturday, converging on a city highway waving national flags, flashlights and flaming torches.
Protesters cut off traffic as they demanded President Hugo Chavez's resignation and voiced support for a 7-week-old strike called by business and labor groups to force a nonbinding referendum on Chavez's rule.
"We don't want this totalitarian regime that the president wants to impose," said Carolina Serrano, 25, dressed in jeans colored in the yellow, blue and red of the Venezuelan flag and shielding a candle from the evening breeze. "We're tired of so much abuse of power."
Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno estimated that the march drew at least 100,000 people.
In Miami, about 50,000 protesters jammed into the predominantly Cuban Little Havana, calling for Chavez's ouster. Venezuelan exiles were joined by Cuban-Americans and sympathizers from other Latin American nations.
The strike is strongest in state oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., where 30,000 of 40,000 workers are off the job. Banks have restricted hours and sympathetic media broadcast pro-strike and anti-Chavez commercials around the clock.
Chavez, arriving from a visit to Brazil, promised to use the full extent of the law -- backed up by the military -- to break the strike, which began Dec. 2.
The former paratrooper, who was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, insists his foes must wait until August -- or halfway through his six-year term -- when a recall referendum is permitted by the constitution.
"We've put up with too much," Chavez said in a nationally televised speech. "I've ordered legal proceedings to begin against the banks ... and the media."
Government adversaries pledged to oppose the president peacefully and urged Venezuelans to use their vote in a nonbinding referendum on Chavez's rule, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 2, and avoid violence.
Opposition representatives at talks mediated by the Organization of American States said they would persist with negotiations despite threats by Chavez to pull out.
"If we decide to leave the table it's because those people (opposition) don't show demonstrations of wanting to take the democratic path," Chavez told the state-run Venpres news agency Saturday.
Cesar Gaviria, the OAS secretary general, began mediating the talks in November. Little progress has been made while the strike threatens to destroy Venezuela's economy.
"The president can try to leave the table with a characteristically violent gesture but we reply with civilized, democratic and peaceful behavior," Alejandro Armas, an opposition negotiator. "We are going to stay at the table."
On Friday, soldiers battled through protesters to seize food and drink from Venezuela's largest food company, Empresas Polar, and an affiliate of U.S. soft drink giant Coca-Cola to distribute among the people.
Chavez said the companies that owned the plants in the industrial city of Valencia, 66 miles west of Caracas, were denying Venezuelans food and drink during the crippling strike.
U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro said he was "concerned and disappointed" by the seizures, which affect U.S. interests in Venezuela.
"I strongly hope I'm wrong, but it looks like the officers did not act within the law," Shapiro said. "There was no (judicial) order, nor a judge" present.
The Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce and Industry denounced the actions as unconstitutional and offered support to any member companies whose rights were threatened.
Chavez was in Brazil on Saturday to speak with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva about the newest initiative to end the bitter stalemate. A so-called "Group of Friends of Venezuela" is being set up with the participation of Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Chile, Portugal and Spain.
Chavez said he would seek similar meetings with presidents of the group's other member countries. Washington has indicated it believes the best way out of the crisis is through new elections. "I am not afraid of the opinions of the United States in the negotiations of the Group of Friends, because the United States is also a friend of Venezuela," Chavez said.
Venezuela is the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the United States. The Supreme Court is due to decide on the legality of the proposed Feb. 2 referendum.
Venezuela's opposition, which accuses Chavez of running the country's democratic institutions into the ground, says it will ignore any decision trying to stop the vote.
Chavez promised radical change in the oil-rich country where 80 percent of the 24 million people live in poverty. But an economic recession has brought unemployment to 17 percent, and a devaluation of the bolivar currency fueled 30 percent inflation last year.
The strike has caused severe food and fuel shortages and hobbled the oil industry, costing the nation at least $4 billion.