Protest targets Venezuela's leader - Gainesville woman joins Atlanta demonstration

www.gainesvilletimes.com Local News  -   Monday, March 10, 2003 From staff, wire reports

Estella Pifano-Steffen of Gainesville has a question for the international community: "Why are you silent about Venezuela?"

Pifano-Steffen, a Vene-zuelan native, joined about 100 protesters Sunday in Atlanta to bring attention to that country's economic and political distress.

"There were protests in 36 cities around the world today," Pifano-Steffen said, "but we're not going to hear about it. The oil spills at Lake Maracaibo are horrendous. Why isn't Greenpeace doing something?"

In January, USA Today reported oil is spilling into the lake since oil workers joined a national strike against President Hugo Chavez in December. The lake, 325 miles west of Caracas, has about 8,000 active oil wells with 15,000 to 28,000 miles of pipes and tubes snaking along the bottom.

"This is so difficult to understand," Pifano-Steffen said. "Greenpeace makes a big commotion about other things, but nothing about Venezuela as far as I can see. The world is focused on Iraq."

But Chavez claimed Sunday an international campaign involving the United States was trying to discredit his government, and he warned other countries not to be fooled by the so-called smear tactics.

"There are still newspaper headlines in various parts of the world (and) officials from some governments ... that are spreading lies," said Chavez, who has been fighting a national movement attempting to force him to resign or call early elections.

Sunday's protest was the fourth for Pifano-Steffen. Chavez opponents from Washington to Atlanta to Santiago, Chile, also marched.

Two weeks ago, Chavez strongly criticized the United States, Spain and Colombia for allegedly meddling in Venezuela's domestic affairs. Within days, bombs ripped through the Spanish and Colombian diplomatic missions in Caracas.

The U.S. Embassy later closed temporarily because of a security threat. No one has been arrested for the bombings.

Pifano-Steffen's nephew, Juan Ernesto Lossada, said he wants the United States to pressure Chavez into submitting to early elections.

"Chavez is the only president of a constitutional nation to visit (Saddam) Hussein," said Lossada, who has been visiting Gainesville for two months from Venezuela. "There are pictures to prove he visited him."

Lossada said inflation and unemployment are crippling the country's middle class and the poor.

"How can he say he is the president of the poor?" Lossada asked. "He has impoverished the nation, and the middle class is against him."

Venezuela is trying to emerge from a failed two-month general strike against Chavez. The protest, which ended last month, was strongest in the oil industry, the source of half of the government revenues and 80 percent of export earnings.

Venezuela was the world's fifth-largest oil exporter before the strike began Dec. 2 and still is importing gasoline because of difficulties in bringing refineries back online.

Chavez, who was first elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, says his foes want to replace him with old status quo, when an elite minority held power for decades.

Lossada will return to Venezuela on Friday and said he will continue to work to free the country from Chavez' rule.

"I will not allow that man to become the owner of Venezuela," he said.

Originally published Monday, March 10, 2003