Torn on Both Continents - Dispute on Chávez also divides NY

www.newsday.com By Bart Jones STAFF WRITER March 3, 2003

To some, he is the next Fidel Castro. To others, he is the "poor people's president" and the last hope for saving one of the world's most corrupt nations. President Hugo Chávez has sharply divided Venezuela, which has been shaken in the past year by a coup attempt, massive street protests and a devastating work stoppage at the huge state-owned oil company. Now the clash over the fiery former paratrooper is coming to Long Island and New York City, where the Venezuelan emigrant community is facing off over him. Take Alex Romero. Normally a mild-mannered Wall Street banker who lives on a quiet block in Merrick, he seethes and can barely contain his anger when the topic turns to Venezuela's president. He says Chávez is ruining the economy, fomenting class hatred and assuming authoritarian powers. Chávez "has not only turned out to be more corrupt than previous administrations, but he's trying to take away all the freedoms," said Romero, 34. He's taken to painting homemade signs that he brings to street protests that say things such as "Chávez, Fidel and Hussein - All Bloody Terrorists" and "Mr. Bush: En Route to Iraq, Make Pitstop in Venezuela." Lourdes Gomez, 33, of Bay Shore, is equally passionate about Chávez, but she thinks he is the greatest thing that ever happened to Venezuela. Like other supporters, she says Chávez is the first president in Venezuela's history to stand up for the country's masses of poor people and to fight against an elite, wealthy class that pillaged the country's oil wealth. She says the president is a proven democrat who has given land titles to thousands of slum dwellers, boosted school enrollment by nearly a million children and made rich businessmen pay taxes for the first time. "Chávez is the president who has had the most guts because he hasn't let himself be bought off by the corrupt ones," Gomez said in Spanish, adding that the news media has unfairly demonized the president. Venezuelans are one of the smallest Latino immigrant groups on Long Island, with 832 people, and in New York City, where 6,713 natives of the South American country live, according to the 2000 Census. That's mainly because few people have wanted to leave oil-rich Venezuela, long one of the wealthiest nations in Latin America and a major supplier of oil to the United States. But years of political corruption and mismanagement sent the economy into a tailspin starting in the 1980s. By 1998, it helped catapult Chávez - a leftist who pledged to break up what he calls the elite political "mafia" he says ruined the country - into the presidency in elections that international observers say were free and open. The pro-Chávez Venezuelan immigrants have coalesced around a Queens-based group called the Venezuelan Solidarity Committee, which is headed in part by William Camacaro, a Queens College student and part-time taxi driver. The anti-Chávez forces have their own group: Civil Resistance of Venezuelans Overseas, led by journalist Miguel Hernandez Andara of Jackson Heights. The clash in New York, like the one in Venezuela, is breaking down largely along class lines. Chávez opponents often live in places such as the Upper East Side and sometimes attend protests clad in fur hats or coats. Many Chávez backers are blue-collar and show up in work boots, although some such as Gomez, a former teacher, are professionals. The conflict reached a peak in mid-January when the U.S. Secret Service raided Hernandez's apartment. With a police helicopter hovering overhead, the agents and local police sealed off his street and banged on his door at 2 a.m., he said. The agents then rifled through his tiny apartment, searching for weapons and interrogating him about an alleged plot to assassinate Chávez, who was set to visit the United Nations the next day. Hernandez scoffed at the allegation and told the dozen agents the only weapons he had were pieces of anti-Chávez literature. "They came looking for arms," Hernandez recalled recently in Spanish, "and they left with the truth about Venezuela." Some critics compare Hernandez's group and others like it elsewhere in the United States to the hard-line Cuban- Americans in Miami who won't rest until Castro is gone. "We now have a new radicalized segment of the Latino population in this country," said Larry Birns, an expert on Venezuela at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. "Basically, what they want is for the CIA to go in and take out Chávez." Hernandez denies that his group and its allies condone violence. "Our position is completely pacific," Hernandez said. "We don't agree with Chávez, but we aren't going to kill him, either." The Secret Service did not return telephone messages seeking comment on the raid. While Chávez is admired by millions of poor Venezuelans, he also has provoked not merely dislike but deep hatred and what some critics call hysteria among his opponents. "He's a dictator. He's a traitor. He's a terrorist. He's an assassin," hissed Upper East Side resident Nelly Gouvernor at a protest at the UN in January attended by both sides. The opponents have found a friend among many Cuban-Americans, including some who helped stage a march in January in Miami that attracted thousands. Hernandez and his group accuse Chávez of everything from extracting opponents' fingernails with pliers to playing host to al-Qaida terrorist training camps to sending Osama bin Laden $1 million. The president said he sent the money to Afghanistan to help war victims. He denies the allegations of torture. Birns said the assertions underscore the opposition groups' growing desperation as Chávez holds on to power despite attempts to unseat him through street protests, the oil company work stoppage and the failed April 11 coup. "The anti-Chávez opposition in both New York and Florida are becoming more and more radicalized, and they have the resources to put into effect some pretty scary scenarios," Birns said. Hernandez dismissed the allegations and said his group merely wants to save democracy in Venezuela. "Venezuela isn't prepared to accept Communism," he said, "and we're not going to allow it."