A country brought to its knees
JEREMY MCDERMOTT WITH a Venezuelan flag draped over her shoulders, Verónica Narvaez marched through the streets of Caracas, blowing a whistle and banging a pot, one of more than 100,000 protesters who gathered on Saturday to demand the resignation of President Hugo Chavez.
"We do not want an authoritarian regime here. We do not want another Cuba," she said.
In a basement of Caracas’s historic Plaza Bolívar, Lina Ron spent her weekend organising pro-Chavez demonstrations. Pictures of the revolutionary icon "Che" Guevara line the walls, whilst Ms Ron juggles radios and mobile phones, speaking to government supporters and members of the radical "Bolivarian Circles" that are prepared to defend, to the death if necessary, the president and his "peaceful revolution".
"These protests are the final throes of a corrupt oligarchy that has stolen the country’s oil wealth and is trying to resist the president’s plan to redistribute the money in favour of the poor," she said.
There is a grain of truth in both positions, but to the outsider nothing that could justify the polarisation that has ripped apart Venezuela and brought the economy to its knees.
The crisis revolves around one man, the fiery and charismatic president, Hugo Chavez. A former paratrooper colonel who still wears the red beret that has become the symbol of the "Chavistas", he won the presidency in 1998 (and again in 2000) with a massive majority, vowing to overthrow the corrupt political system that had squandered the nation’s oil wealth and left more than 70 per cent of the population living in poverty.
But Mr Chavez’s radical rhetoric, constitutional and land reforms began to alarm moderate Venezuelans who wanted change, but not so much, nor so fast. It did not help that Mr Chavez professed open admiration for Fidel Castro and struck a deal with the Cuban dictator to supply oil at subsidised prices.
In April last year discontent led to street protests which exploded into violence. Nineteen people were killed in battles between protesters and government supporters.
The military led a coup, placing a right-wing businessman, Pedro Carmona, in the presidency. He lasted less than two days after the slums of Caracas disgorged thousands of Chavistas who converged on the presidential palace. The military lost its nerve and Mr Chavez was restored. But instead of moderating his rhetoric, Mr Chavez made it yet more inflammatory and purged the military, insisting nothing would stand in the way of his socialist revolution.
His majority support began to melt away, and in December the fragmented opposition felt strong enough to call a national strike demanding his resignation.
Now, Venezuela is seven weeks into the strike, which has paralysed the oil industry, the nation’s lifeblood and led to a contraction of more than eight per cent of the economy.
Before the strike, Venezuela was the world’s fifth largest exporter of oil, pumping out three million barrels of crude a day. That dropped to nothing in December and Venezuela had to import fuel. Shops closed over the Christmas period and many of the country’s largest businesses ceased production.
But the president refused to be daunted, calling the opposition "fascists and coup-mongerers". He moved onto the offensive, and has set about breaking the strike, particularly in the crucial oil industry.
Soldiers were deployed to petrol stations, striking oil tankers were boarded, striking workers fired. He has managed to get production back up to about 800,000 barrels a day and the strike is crumbling. Troops have been sent into soft drinks and food factories and stocks seized for distribution "to the people".
The opposition has moderated its demands as the strike has weakened, now calling for a referendum on Mr Chavez’s rule next month. The president has insisted that is unconstitutional but that he will call one in August and if he loses it, will go quietly.
But that is not enough for the opposition, so the battle continues and the country bleeds, with more people being killed in political violence and the economy losing money, now estimated at almost three billion pounds.
Despite the mediation of the Organisation of the American States (OAS) and now an international commission called the "Friends of Venezuela", the two sides seems further apart than ever.
"There is no compromise possible any more. Chavez has to go," insisted Mrs Narvaez as she sat in her luxury apartment block in the wealthy suburb of Miraflores.
For Ms Ron the revolution must continue and indeed accelerate. "For the first time the people have woken up to their rights. We demand a share in the country’s wealth, and are prepared to fight against the rich who are trying to cling to their privileges," she said.
But the polarisation is not about the division between rich and poor, or a fight between authoritarianism and democracy. The poor have got poorer and the middle class has been decimated. Mr Chavez has won every election fairly and has acted within the law in all the measures he has applied. The opposition has pursued democratic protest, but does not represent the majority.
Mr Chavez can only count on 25 per cent support at the moment, the die-hard Chavistas. But the opposition is bitterly divided, united only in its desire to remove Mr Chavez. If there were elections called today it is likely Mr Chavez would win.
But the prospects of election or referendum are distant and the president has ordered his troops to seize any stores of food that opposition sympathisers are hoarding.
The vice president, Jose Vicente Rangel, insisted the strike was now "fiction" and "everything is now excessively normal in Venezuela". Normal it is not and, in Venezuela, fact is stranger than fiction.
DIVIDED: CHAVEZ OPPOSITION
PRESIDENT Chavez’s greatest asset is the opposition’s fragmentation. When he won his landslide victory in 1998 he swept away the traditional parties, the Social Democratic party, Democratic Action, and the Christian Democrats, Copei. In their place have sprung up diverse parties and individuals, allies of convenience, not ideology. This is perhaps best illustrated by two of leading lights in the opposition movement.
One the one hand there is the opposition’s main "bruiser", the leader of Venezuela’s largest union, Carlos Ortega.
He is to be seen at most opposition rallies, often passing the microphone to Carlos Fernandez, head of the largest business federation, revealing the paradox of Venezuelan politics that sees businessmen and trade unionists on the same dais.
From more traditional political backgrounds, at least six men are claiming titles as opposition leaders. The strongest of them is Enrique Mendoza, governor of central Miranda State. He has a decent record of efficient administration and has come out top in informal polls on leaders most likely to beat Mr Chavez in an election. Behind him are Julio Borges, a congressman who has achieved a national profile by appearing in a popular television show, and Henrique Salas Romer, a former governor who lost against Mr Chavez in 1998.