Chavez foes trim protest

www.dailynews.com209541152366,00.html Article Last Updated: Saturday, February 01, 2003 - 10:19:32 PM MST By Juan Forero The New York Times

CARACAS, Venezuela -- With large numbers of businesses across Venezuela opening to offset huge financial losses from a 62-day-old general strike, opposition leaders said Saturday that they would scale back the walkout this week so that factories, shops, malls and schools could reopen.

The strike, which has failed in its originally stated mission to force President Hugo Chavez to resign or to call early elections, will continue only in the all-important oil industry.

But the decision, which opposition leaders said would be explained in detail in a news conference Sunday night, was seen as a clear victory for Chavez, who has played down the walkout while calling its organizers fascists and coup plotters.

The government's opponents characterized their action as a new phase in their efforts to unseat Chavez. They asserted that the strike, which began Dec. 2, had led to international participation in Venezuela's political crisis and pressed the government into negotiations that could lead to an electoral solution.

"Now that there is a concrete proposal for elections, the Venezuelan conflict is going into a new phase where the key to the protest is no longer the strike but negotiations," said Jesus Torrealba, executive secretary of the opposition group's coordinating committee.

But the fact is that for many days the strike has been one in name only, with Venezuelans having tired of a walkout that devastated their economy while bringing none of the results promised in December. The blow to the Venezuelan economy, Latin America's fourth-largest, is estimated at $4 billion in lost oil revenues alone.

"We share the opposition's opinion, but we live by working," said Maritza Rondon, owner of a wholesale hardware store in Venezuela's second-largest city, Maracaibo, that reopened weeks ago. "Our business has nothing to do with our politics."

Alfredo Chirino, owner of an auto parts factory in Caracas that reopened last week, said he could not keep his business closed any longer. "We wanted to have some income, and we had to meet some commitments dating back to November," he said. "We needed to bring in income to pay our workers."

The reopening of businesses appears to give Chavez the upper hand in negotiations with the opposition that are being mediated by the Organization of American States. The government's position could be further solidified as the state-owned oil company continues to reactivate oil production.

"The opposition has basically lost the strike," said Gregory Wilpert, an American in Venezuela who is finishing a book about the Chavez era. "They gambled that the strike would get rid of Chavez, and the strike failed. They now don't have many other options."

Opposition demands that Chavez resign, often heard in December from his foes, have dissipated. Instead, the two sides are now expected to mull over two electoral solutions to the crisis that were proposed last month by former President Jimmy Carter and have the support of the United States and five other nations whose representatives met on Friday with Chavez and his opponents.

But opposition leaders, who called their decision Saturday a goodwill gesture toward the government, said they would continue to apply pressure.

On Sunday, they plan to hold what is being called El Firmazo -- loosely translated as "the big sign-up" -- a petition drive. Organizers are hoping to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures to support a constitutional amendment to shorten the president's term and lead to new elections.

In the meantime, Torrealba and other opposition leaders said that the movement would continue to hold street demonstrations and that some businesses would open their doors but reduce their hours of operation as a sign of protest.