In Argentina, Chavez Frias says he has doubts about recall referendum

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic news Posted: Monday, May 26, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has  set Venezuela's opposition media in a spin by declaring that he does not know whether there will be a recall referendum.  Speaking in Lima before flying to Buenos Aires to take part in the inauguration of the new Argentinean President, Nestor Kirchner, Chavez Frias has expressed doubts about the opposition's capacity to meet the requirements stipulated in the 1999 Constitution. 

"If they do manage to meet the requisites, we will defeat them once more ... the People will defeat them again on any level."

The opposition, Chavez Frias says, must try to achieve its objective through legal means. Inside the opposition itself,  there are voices alerting to the fact that the recall referendum campaign has been restricted to Caracas and Miranda, forgetting the fact that 81.7% of voters live in the provinces and that President Chavez Frias has been visiting the provinces on a permanent basis.

During the Rio Group Cuzco meeting and the inauguration of the Argentinean President, Nestor Kirchner, Chavez Frias has been promoting his Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas Agreement (ALBA) to counter the USA-backed Free Trade for the Americas Agreement (FTAA). 

The Venezuelan President insists that political union must prelude economic union in the region.  "If South American countries sign the FTAA, they will be signing their death warrant for the future."

Free Trade was high on the agenda when Chavez Frias met Brazilian President Lula da Silva at the Brazilian Embassy in Buenos Aires ... Chavez Frias says the Southern Cone Economic Zone (Mercosur) is intertwined with the Petro America (integrated zone oil industry) project to offset the interests of neo-liberalism on the continent. Petro America will open up an alliance between Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Trinidad & Tobago and Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). 

It has been learned that the President will be pushing his version of continental integration during a meeting with Kirchner. The negative Argentinean experience of neo-liberalism, the Venezuelan President hopes, will bring the two countries closer.