Tens of Thousands Oppose Venezuelan President

www.voanews.com VOA News 26 Jan 2003, 01:55 UTC

At least 100-thousand opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have jammed a major highway in Caracas to back a 55-day opposition strike that has crippled the nation's economy.

Protesters flooded the highway Saturday chanting anti-Chavez slogans and waving Venezuelan flags. Many of them brought tents and sleeping bags, vowing to spend the night to press their demand that the president step down.

The massive street demonstration follows a recent Supreme Court ruling that suspended a referendum scheduled for February second that would have been a non-binding vote on the president's rule.

Opposition leaders are now concentrating on collecting signatures for a new petition for a constitutional amendment that could cut the president's six-year term to four.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter proposed a similar plan while attending negotiations between the government and opposition last week. The former president's Atlanta-based Carter Center, along with the United Nations and the Organization of American States are co-sponsoring the talks.

President Chavez, in an interview published Saturday in a Canadian newspaper, La Presse of Montreal, called the Carter proposals "interesting" but not necessarily new ideas that should be discussed with the democratic opposition.

With Venezuela's petroleum output severely slashed by a general strike begun by oil industry workers, the international community has stepped up efforts to end the political deadlock.

Officials from six nations, the recently-formed "Group of Friends" of Venezuela, met in Washington on Friday. The group is expected to send a high-level team to Caracas next week to help find ways to break the political impasse. The six-nation group brings together the United States, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal and Spain. Opposition leaders blame the country's worsening economic woes on Chavez policies and remain determined to see him leave office. The strike has paralyzed Venezuela's oil production, the mainstay of its economy, and pushed up global oil prices.

Some information for this report provided by AP and Reuters.