Anti-Chavez unity frays in Venezuela - Economic concerns force compromises in broad strike bid

www.boston.com By Mike Ceaser, Globe Correspondent, 2/2/2003

CARACAS - Almost two months into a petroleum strike that has crippled Venezuela's economy but has failed in its goal of removing President Hugo Chavez, the unlikely anti-Chavez coalition of business, union, media, and political parties is beginning to fragment.

Across the country, unions and businesses are being forced into hard choices between their opposition to Chavez - whom many accuse of corruption, authoritarianism, and trying to remake Venezuela into another Cuba - and their own economic survival.

Small independent stores and restaurants were the first to give in and reopen their doors. Some did so as early as mid-December, although some business owners admitted to never having completely shut down, as they were partially obligated by a Labor Ministry decree requiring them to meet normal payrolls.

Then the tanker pilots went back to work. Banks, which had restricted their hours, announced last week that they also would return to normal operations. And organizations of shopping malls, fast-food franchises, and private schools are all considering ''flexibilizing'' the strike by reopening at least partially.

Strike leaders said yesterday that they would ease the work stoppage this week to protect businesses against bankruptcy.

The decision was prompted by pressure from the ''Group of Friends,'' a forum made up of the United States and five other nations who are supporting efforts by the Organization of American States to broker an end to Venezuela's bitter political stalemate.

The state petroleum company managers, whose walkout initially slashed Venezuela's crude production by more than 95 percent, have stayed away from work - but they may no longer have a choice. Chavez, who has restored one-third of normal crude production using lower-level employees and foreign workers, has issued many of them pink slips.

''There's no going back,'' said Jose Toro Hardy, a former director of Petroleum of Venezuela whose striking workers have been one of Chavez's most visible opponents.

Even Carlos Ortega, president of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, and the opposition's most aggressive leader, has backpedaled on several points, including a call for a tax strike and his vow to continue the strike until Chavez leaves office.

Another part of the opposition's rhetoric has even shifted into damage control, trying to salvage the jobs of the Petroleum of Venezuela managers who walked off in early December, apparently confident that the collapse of the Chavez regime would follow.

Ortega rejects suggestions that the strikers are softening their stance.

''There can be no `flexibilization' of the strike,'' he said. ''What there can be is a change of strategy, which is something totally different.''

After a ruling on Jan. 22 by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, however, the opposition is groping for a strategy.

The tribunal, considered by critics to be pro-Chavez, used a technicality to annul a referendum Feb. 2 on Chavez's rule.

That decision frustrated opposition hopes that a resounding defeat for the increasingly unpopular president would mortally weaken his government.

Although Chavez had vowed not to step down even if he lost 90 percent of the vote, the referendum also provided the opposition a clear objective - and a convenient date to declare victory and call off the strike.

The justices' ruling ''was temporarily demoralizing,'' said Anibal Romero, a Caracas political analyst and a Chavez critic. ''But that only lasted 24 hours.''

Yet without the referendum to rally them, opposition forces have begun jousting among themselves over which anti-Chavez strategy to try. As a result, they are trying anything they can think of.

In a Caracas plaza, Jorge Antonio Vergara was collecting signatures on one petition to cut the presidential term and another to convoke a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution from scratch. Soon, Vergara said, they would add several more petitions, to cut the terms of legislators and to try another consultative referendum on Chavez's rule.

But all the strategies face major obstacles in the Chavez-dominated government.

''More than anything, it's a fight to keep insisting,'' Vergara added, ''since he has all of the governmental powers controlled.''

Chavez says the opposition is welcome to try any constitutional means to cut short his rule and that he will not oppose a revocatory referendum after August, the halfway point of his six-year mandate.

But a variety of opponents have voiced doubt that Chavez would ever relinquish power democratically.

Meanwhile, as the petroleum strike has extended, the economic picture has darkened. Analysts expect the economy to shrink 40 percent in the first quarter, and they predict another million unemployed this year on top of the government jobless rate of 16 percent last year.

The government plans exchange controls to protect the plummeting currency, the bolivar, and it expects to impose price controls on basic necessities.