Strike gives political twist to daily tasks in Venezuela - Embattled President digs in for long fight; middle- and upper-class foes do the same

www.globeandmail.com By MIKE CEASER Special to The Globe and Mail Monday, January 27, 2003 – Page A10

CARACAS -- Engineering major Felipe Marquez fears that the loss of a full semester of university will delay his graduation and increase his education costs. That hasn't stopped him from rallying against the resumption of classes at Central University in Caracas, where students have been grappling with a strike against President Hugo Chavez that enters its eighth week today.

"We might lose our holidays, our summer vacation," said Mr. Marquez, 19, "but make [Mr. Chavez] leave."

The plight of the universities shows how the strike, led by a coalition of business and union leaders and most stridently implemented in the petroleum industry, has affected nearly all aspects of life for Venezuela's 24 million people.

Students say a gasoline shortage makes commuting difficult, that the capital's near-daily political violence makes the campus dangerous and that the strike has slashed even basic services; the campus cafeteria, for example, has stopped serving dinner.

Shortly after the strike began, university directors told students and professors to decide on their own whether to attend classes. The school's green lawns and covered walkways were quickly deserted.

Since then, students and professors have begun trickling back to classes. Chemical-engineering student Maria Eugenia Velasquez, 20, has been collecting signatures on a petition against the strike. Although she too opposes Mr. Chavez, she doesn't see the strike as the right way to oust him.

"This could set me back a semester, maybe more," she said. "The right to an education shouldn't be subject to politics."

Venezuelans are being forced to make choices in an environment where simply pursuing an education or serving a meal has become a political gesture.

When strikers shut down Venezuela's oil industry in early December, demanding that Mr. Chavez either resign or agree to early elections, few expected the confrontation to last this long. After all, petroleum exports normally produce 70 per cent of the country's international revenues and half of government income.

But Mr. Chavez has fought back, partly restarting the industry and importing gasoline to a country that is ordinarily the world's fifth-largest exporter of crude.

The strikers, who accuse the President of authoritarian rule and ruinous economic policies, have refused to back down too. Many middle- and upper-class Venezuelans say the upheaval and sacrifice are worthwhile if it means victory.

Leocadio and Carolina Sanchez were in a Caracas bookstore recently looking through workbooks for their six-year-old son Daniel, whose private school shut when the strike began. Even though the strike has left their real-estate business moribund, the Sanchezes recently joined 117 out of 120 of the school's parents in voting against a resumption of classes.

There is also a major economic motive for the Sanchezes. Since Mr. Chavez's election in 1998, their business has dwindled so much that they have had to reduce their staff from 35 to four.

For some small businesses, the cost of striking has been even higher. Many owners who joined the strike in its early days have chosen to reopen, even at the risk of being considered traitors by other strikers. A few blocks from the Sanchezes, a line of cars waited to park at the Mamma Mia Italian restaurant. Mamma Mia closed when the strike began, but in mid-December it reopened part-time. Now it operates normally.

"We endured 15 days" closed, manager Duarte Batista said. "One wants to take part, but there are too many costs."

Unintentionally, the strikers have fulfilled one Chavez goal. The President is a fervent opponent of globalization. Now, although many small independent businesses are open, most larger franchises and malls are not. Across from Mamma Mia, a Subway sandwich shop and a Domino's Pizza restaurant were closed and dark.

For other enterprises, cut off from gasoline and oil, there is no choice. Many plants and warehouses have ceased distributing their products; bakeries are running low on flour, and beer has been a rarity for weeks.

The shortages have combined with Venezuela's plummeting currency to double the cost of many goods, including food. On Wednesday, the central bank suspended trading in foreign exchange for a week to try to keep the bolivar from dropping further.

One of the most conspicuous costs of the strike can be seen at the country's gas stations. Citizens used to subsidized fuel and gas-guzzling SUVs must choose between leaving their vehicles at home or facing kilometres-long lines at the pumps.

At 5 p.m. one recent Friday afternoon, Juan Carlos Trejo, 34, pulled his blue Chevy Vitara into the line for a Mobil station near downtown Caracas. The station closed that evening before he could fill up, so he returned the next morning at 6 a.m., only to have the gasoline run out at noon, just as he pulled up to the pump.

With hundreds of cars waiting behind him, Mr. Trejo held his ground and waited.

"They say some could arrive during the afternoon," he said with a grimace.

And it did, the next afternoon. Mr. Trejo and others in line spent all of Saturday night in their cars.