CARACAS: treason charge
www.sfgate.com
Friday, March 14, 2003
(03-14) 11:29 PST (AP) --
Arrests warrants are out for seven executives of the state-oil monopoly, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. The seven are in hiding.
Secret police stormed an opposition march Saturday in an attempt to arrest oil executive Juan Fernandez, who made a surprise brief appearance. The police clashed with protesters, and Fernandez got away.
Opposition leaders have denounced the arrest warrants as political persecution. Chavez says strike leaders must be imprisoned for at least 20 years for inflicting suffering on the population.
Ortega is third Chavez opponent to seek asylum abroad.
Last year, Colombia granted asylum to business leader Pedro Carmona, the figurehead in an April coup that ousted Chavez for two days. El Salvador granted asylum to another alleged coup leader, Vice Admiral Carlos Molina Tamayo.
Chavez opponents accuse him of steering Venezuela's economy into recession with leftist policies. They also say he has accumulated too much power under the guise of a "social revolution" to help the poor.
Chavez says his foes resent his efforts to end social inequality and his success in wresting power from two corrupt traditional parties that ruled Venezuela for 40 years until his 1998 election.
Chavez fired 15,000 workers from the oil monopoly -- almost half the workforce -- for participating in the stoppage. He has threatened to close down four private television stations that gave supportive coverage to the strike.
Venezuela's oil industry -- the source of half of government income and 80 percent of export revenue -- is recovering from the strike. Oil production has reached 2.9 million barrels a day, according to the government. Fired PDVSA executives say it's only 2.1 million barrels a day, about two-thirds of what it was before the strike.
Venezuela was the world's fifth-largest oil exporter before the strike.
A study by Banco Provincial this week predicted Venezuela's economy would shrink more than 40 percent in the first three months of the year. That would follow a 9 percent contraction in 2002.