Hardliners conjure up "Cuban Communist" card and meet resistance

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 27, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Baruta Mayor Henrique Capriles Radonski and Cuban Ambassador German Sanchez have been at each other with hammer and tongs about responsibilities for riots outside the Cuban Embassy in Caracas.  

On Friday, opposition Institutional Military Front (FMI) organized a protest outside the Embassy against a supposed "Cubanization" and rise in "totalitarianism" in Venezuela.

Pro-government supporters turned up to defend the Embassy, alleging that they didn't want to see a repeat of April 12, 2002 scenes when a mob of anti-Castro Cuban exiles went on the rampage and threatened to storm the Embassy. 

On Saturday, insults between the two rival groups soon turned into stone and bottle-throwing. 

The Metropolitan Police (PM) used tear gas to disperse both sides. 

Globovision 24-hour news station filmed the incidents ... most of the footage concentrated on the stone-throwing efforts of pro-government supporters ... one newspaper report admits that the first bottle came from opposition groups. 

The FMI's protest comes after the Easter holiday recess when all political groups met to decide on future campaigns. The "Cuban Communist card" has been brought out again, after the "Colombian guerrilla running Venezuela border areas" campaign petered out after the Colombian-Venezuelan presidential summit ended amicably.

Baruta Mayor Capriles Radonski says the march was called because of the Cuban Ambassador's interference in Venezuelan internal  affair ... "he is promoting public disturbances by convoking government sectors ... the Cuban Embassy was not in danger ... it was just an Embassy spin." 

Ambassador Sanchez Otero retorts that Capriles Radonski is to blame for instigating and stimulating the violence between the two groups outside the Embassy, allowing the municipality to become "free territory of fascist and terrorists ... the Mayor is an accomplice not of a protest but an act of aggression against the Embassy by the same terrorists and fascists that attacked the Embassy on April 12, 2002."

Last Thursday before flying off to Brazil, President Chavez Frias denied any attempt on his part to impose a Communist model similar to Cuba. "I have no intention of emulating Fidel Castro ... Fidel is Fidel with his reality and Chavez is Chavez with his reality." 

The President was answering an Easter Week attack from Cardinal Ignacio Velasco, who had said he hoped that Communism would not be installed in Venezuela. Chavez Frias compalins, "those who want to dominate the world, don't want the Venezuelan model to be successful ... they are afraid of its impact on neighboring countries."

Non Coordinadora Democratica (CD) hard-line opposition groups have taken to protesting outside Embassies as part of a tactic to draw world attention to their struggle to topple the government. 

The Indian Embassy was targeted during the December-January national stoppage when it was learned that Indian merchant navy officers were being brought in to move Petroleos de Venezuelan (PDVSA) tankers. 

• Members of Juan Fernandez' Gente de Petroleo took part in the latest Embassy protest. Mr. Fernandez is said to be currently in Miami where he has contact with a number of radical opposition groups.

In an interview with Reynaldo Trombetta, Ambassador Sanchez counts 250 Cuban doctors in 9 Venezuelan States, who have attended 7 million persons and 740 (1,100 in August) sport trainers and coaches teaching approximately 600,000 young persons. "Cuba has exported to Venezuela 20 million high quality generic medicines in three years ... 3,500 Venezuelan patients have been treated in Cuba." 

When asked about the presence of  alleged Cuban security police in Venezuela, the Ambassador denies the charges that Cuban agents are part of president Chavez Frias' security agents. "I think it is a case of racism ... for the first time, one see not just one black person among the President's bodyguards but several and people think there aren't any blacks in Venezuela and all Cubans are black ... Chavez Frias' security chief is black ... I don't know how many blacks are bodyguards but they are all Venezuelan."