Chavez Wants Strikers Jailed, Warns Media

reuters.com Sun February 9, 2003 05:15 PM ET By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that foes who tried to oust him through a two-month strike should be sent to prison and he threatened to close private television channels that backed the stoppage.

Since the opposition strike fizzled out a week ago, Chavez has been insisting on harsh punishment for those who organized and participated in the grueling shutdown, which has plunged the world's No. 5 oil exporter into an economic crisis.

"I am calling for jail for the saboteurs, the coup mongers, the terrorists ... they have done terrible damage to Venezuela," the left-wing former paratrooper said in a television and radio broadcast lasting five-and-a-half hours.

He said his government was investigating four private television channels which he said had supported the strike by broadcasting calls for protest and rebellion.

"I don't want to shut down any channel, but if they don't change their ways, I'll have to," he said, speaking during his weekly "Hello President" television and radio show.

Chavez's attitude appeared to offer little hope for a peace deal with his political foes, who had failed to force him through the strike to agree to early elections.

His opponents, who include private sector business leaders, anti-Chavez union bosses and rebel military officers, say the populist president is bent on taking revenge against them.

They accuse him of ruling like a dictator, ruining the economy with anti-capitalist policies, threatening media freedom and trying to make Venezuela a copy of communist Cuba.

Chavez rejected opposition calls for the return to their jobs of 9,000 striking executives and employees of the state oil giant PDVSA who have been sacked by the government.

"SHOULD BE IN JAIL"

Opposition leaders demand the reinstatement of the PDVSA strikers as part of any deal with the government on elections. More than 100,000 foes of the president held a big rally in Caracas Saturday in support of the oil industry strikers.

"Sacking them is not enough. Many of them should be in jail for sabotaging the Venezuelan economy," Chavez said.

He read sections of the country's penal code and said the strikers, if convicted, could face prison terms of up to six years for interfering with national energy supplies.

The strike, which slashed oil exports providing around half of state revenues, forced the government to prune budget spending and introduce strict foreign exchange controls to halt capital flight and a slide in the local bolivar currency.

But no criminal convictions against the strikers have been reported so far and Chavez suggested some of the country's judges should be investigated too for failing to do their job.

Opposition leaders, who have pledged to continue a campaign of street protests, reacted angrily to Sunday's tirade against them by Chavez, who survived a short-lived military coup last year. He had staged his own botched coup bid in 1992, six years before winning a landslide election.

"You're a disgrace to this country and the world ... get out once and for all," anti-Chavez union boss Carlos Ortega told Globovision television, which is one of the private channels being investigated by the government.

Chavez said oil production had recovered to close to two million barrels per day (bpd), two thirds of pre-strike levels. But oil strikers put oil output at around 1.3 million bpd.

The president described the currency controls as "a counter-attack" against his foes, whom he portrays as a rich, resentful and privileged elite trying to overthrow him.

"We have to direct the sale of dollars to areas vital for national development," he said, adding the government would concentrate on buying food, medicine and essential imports.