www.vcrisis.com By Stephen Gibbs BBC correspondent in Havana   The world's longest serving political leader, Cuban President Fidel Castro, has been re-elected for another five-year term. Members of Cuba's National Assembly approved the 76-year-old leader's nomination as president. He was the sole candidate.

With an ease which many world leaders might envy, Fidel Castro comfortably secured his sixth presidential term.His nomination had been put to the 609 members of Cuba's National Assembly. They duly lined up to vote in secret, and all voted for Mr Castro.

Anti-US attack    The veteran revolutionary has been the unchallenged leader of Cuba since 1959. Despite numerous assassination attempts and a US economic embargo intended to remove him from power, he has outlasted nine American presidents.Speaking after his re-election, he launched a blistering attack on the current US administration's policy towards Iraq. He said the US should not be allowed to intimidate the world, and promised to continue to lead the people of Cuba for as long as they wished. He also said that he now understood it was not his destiny to rest at the end of his life.

www.upi.com From the National Desk Published 3/7/2003 4:31 PM

MIAMI, March 7 (UPI) -- A small number of supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have formed groups around the United States, including the first one in a Miami suburb.

In Miami at least, however, Chavez supporters are outnumbered, as evidenced by a recent demonstration opposing the Venezuelan leader that drew 60,000.

The 17 groups from Connecticut to Wyoming are known as Bolivarian Circles, after Simon Bolivar, the general who liberated several Latin American countries from Spain in the 1800s.

The Miami circle was formed a year ago on the anniversary of Chavez's failed coup in 1992. It has only 180 members but is still the largest in the nation.

Jesus Soto, 36, announced the establishment of the first circle in downtown Miami, wearing a red beret and military fatigues.

"Our work is to try to change the image that Chavez is a dictator," said this week from his home.

"In Venezuela is a deep democracy. We elected this president," he said. "The opposition here is telling the media lies."

The circles in the United States will hold their first national assembly in New York this month, and Chavez representatives from Venezuelan plan to attend.

The Venezuelan government also has scheduled a circle meeting next month in Caracas.

"There are circles in Bilbao (Spain), Madrid, Denmark, all over the place," Guillermo Garcia Ponce, Chavez advisory committee coordinator, told The Miami Herald in Caracas. He agreed that south Florida has become a stronghold for opponents of Chavez. "I suppose (the Miami circle) will have to keep a low profile," Garcia said.

Chavez's leftist government and the opposition remain at odds despite intensive international mediation efforts. The opposition's recent two-month general strike further wounded a weak economy and left the country facing an economic trouble that could to lead to serious shortages of many basic goods.

Venezuela is highly reliant on imports, but the strike closed ports and affected the oil production that pays for most of the imports. In response, the government has imposed strict currency controls and price restrictions on basic goods.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, March 07, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

National Assembly president Francisco Ameliach has rejected accusations the the Venezuelan Armed Forces (FAN) is permitting rebel groups from neighboring countries to base themselves on Venezuelan territory. 

Ameliach criticized some opposition members for spreading these kinds of rumors, insisting "they have a total lack of understanding " of the armed forces.

The National Assembly president claimed that certain sectors of the opposition are spreading these rumors because they are trying to damage relations between Venezuela and Colombia.

He also pointed to Colombia's withdrawal of a large troop presence along its border with Venezuela, stating that Colombia should be responsible for its own conflicts.

athena.tbwt.com By Alicia  Torres Pacific News Service Article Dated 2/28/2003

Editor's Note: Beyond gaining support from the military and portions of the underclass, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has channeled the historical, mythical, and to some, mystical figure of 19th century General Simon Bolivar. PNS contributor Alicia Torres examines a popular religion with indigenous roots to find one secret to Chavez's continuing rule. Torres has published several books of poetry in Venezuela and was a columnist for Caracas daily El Universal. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As Venezuela's fate seems locked between President Hugo Chavez's militant, underclass supporters and the middle class, media and business communities arrayed against him, a third force lurks behind the scenes.

Pacing the labyrinth of Venezuela's popular imagination, the unnamed actor is the magical, long-dead General Simon Bolívar, the nation's founding father. The Bolivar myth, skillfully channeled by Chavez, is key to the former paratrooper's grip on power.

After leading a failed and bloody coup attempt in 1992, Chavez famously spent many months in jail and emerged from his "captivity" with a powerful rhetorical and symbolic ace card. Reaching into the confusing current of Venezuela's political history, he found one untainted image, a myth untouched by decades of rampant political corruption and squandering of the country's vast oil wealth, a messy recent history that started long before Chavez.

Hugo Chavez's deft ability to incorporate into his campaign persona the historical legacy of the brilliant general who liberated half of South America from the control of the 19th century Spanish empire helped propel Chavez to the Venezuelan presidency in 1998 with over 80 percent of the vote. Today, Chavez's cult of personality is centered on his image as Bolívar's heir, the modern-day liberator of Venezuela's poorest.

In the United States, no figure commands the same kind of reverence as Bolívar does in Venezuela. The country's currency, plazas and universities carry his name. His maxims are taught in schools, broadcast on radio and emblazoned on government buildings. Bolívar is a liberator idealized in oral culture by small-town storytellers, and in the lyrics of traditional music such as contrapunto.

Chavistas, as the president's supporters are known, call the areas they control the "liberated zones of the Bolivarian Republic" and adorn offices and homes with giant portraits of Bolívar. Chavez trumpets Bolívar's dream of a politically unified South America, calls his political movement the Bolivarian Revolution and he has organized poor neighborhoods into political cells called Bolivarian Circles.

And, as Chavez well knows, besides the historical Bolivar there is a supernatural one, a figure of popular religious devotion who takes his place alongside other cult figures on home altars.

Alongside the Catholic religion, another spiritual tradition thrives in Venezuela, a popular religion with indigenous, African and Catholic roots called the religion of María Lionza. Based on the worship by Indians of a fertility goddess known as María Lionza, the syncretic faith predates any other touchstone of Venezuela's national identity. Many Venezuelans would not inhabit a home lacking an altar to the religion's principal divinities, each of which represents Venezuela's vibrant ethnic mixture of white, Indian, and black.

These religious altars usually feature a portrait of Simón Bolívar, and the religion's priests hold ceremonies in which the spirit of Bolívar is channeled through a medium who coughs when the general is present, since Bolívar had tuberculosis.

The official Bolívar celebrated in textbooks, statues and hymns still elicits the respect and devotion of Venezuelans, even if they inhabit luxury apartments. But in the figure of Chavez, some in Venezuela, including some of the nation's poorest, also see the spirit of Bolívar incarnate. The tradition of María Lionza has fed Chavez's grip on the country's imagination.

Chavez encourages this by echoing Bolívar's words and making his nationally televised speeches with a portrait of Bolívar placed next to his head. Venezuelans joke that Chavez always sets an extra place at his dinner table for Bolívar, and say that he parades the long hallways of his presidential mansion wearing the famed general's cape. Whether the stories are true or not, Chavez is definitely obsessed with Bolívar's legacy and exploits it to maintain power.

The president's posturing as a 21st century manifestation of Bolívar has helped radicalize the conflict in Venezuela. On one side, he is still revered by a significant part of the population as Venezuela's last hope -- a second liberator. The enraged opposition, on the other hand, thinks Chavez has betrayed Bolívar's legacy and 50 years of Venezuelan democracy with his authoritarian style and incendiary class rhetoric. It's one reason the new Bolivarian Revolution is in danger of ending in a civil war.

(c) Copyright PNS For more discussion on this article and to see what others have to say click on the link below to go to discussion forums. Send your comments and suggestions about this article to: editors@tbwt.net

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, February 28, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes:

In a recent letter from Daniel Burnett, comments on my editorial: "President's Chavez Bedside Manners."  Mr. Burnett and I have exchanged some messages before, and I find him very articulate and persuasive. However, we are not watching the same "ball game," he from New York and I from Venezuela.

Mr. Burnett finds Chavez "very funny" ("he had me rolling in laughter"). I consider him a clown. And so do the people of Maracaibo, where he went to give a speech and tried to talk in the regional accent of the locals. Not well accepted since presidential humor should not be at the expense of others. Presidents are Statesmen, not clowns. Mr, Burnett adds that he rather listens to Chavez than to Ortega. I say that the tasks of government are no oratorical tournaments. In fact, the less blah-blah the better.

Mr. Burnett makes two claims I strongly disagree with. One, that the "cadenas" on TV imposed by Chavez have been the result of the anti-Chavez propaganda in the commercial media. Two, that Chavez would be truly governing if it was not because of the opposition efforts to "overthrow" him. The truth is exactly the opposite. Chavez is a charlatan and he can not be stopped from talking. When he started his term he had the support of most sectors, including the media.

• The first Information Director of his government was Mrs. Otero, the wife of the Editor of "El Nacional". Otero was with him. Pena, the director of "El Nacional" was his Secretary to the Presidency. Gustavo Cisneros and VENEVISION were with him. TELEVEN likewise.

As Chavez started to abandon plural democracy and became intent in leading Venezuela the Cuban way, these people and many others who had supported him broke ranks. Chavez, Mr. Burnett, can not govern because he is an incompetent. Picking a fight with all sectors is the way to build up the excuse that you concede to him so generously.

Mr. Burnett rightly criticizes Chavez's vocabulary, except for the word "coupster," as applied to the opposition. The only real coupster we have had in Venezuela during the last 10 years has been Chavez, who led a bloody coup in 1992 against a democratic government, causing more than 100 innocent deaths.

This coup failed because he was a coward then.

Today, millions of Venezuelans want him out democratically ... not "overthrown" ... by means of an election which he has refused to accept. Gaviria and Carter have recommended this solution to him and he has rejected them as well. He says that "even if 99% of the people vote against me, I will not resign." How is this for democracy, Mr. Burnett?

For Mr. Burnett "Chavez is generally quite calm, composed and soft spoken during his speeches." Obviously we are not watching the same man. His words are invariable mordant, his manner vulgar, his way to deal with dissenters inconsiderate. He is no President but a person intent on promoting hate and resentment.

Mr. Burnett says that "the same people who made economic policy during the last half century are now leading the opposition". This is inaccurate.

Economists like Ochoa, Vivancos, Guerrero, Gustavo Garcia, Francisco Rodriguez, the leading current critics of the "Mickey Mouse" economic policies of Chavez are young people, not connected with past politics. On the other hand, Chavez' economic advisers are members of the pliocene generation: Maza Zavala, Mieres, Castellanos, Parra, Giordani, Bastidas, Vallenilla.

I must say that I respect Daniel Burnett's commentaries and opinions. He is sharp and very civilized. If he comes to Venezuela soon I would like to meet him personally and show him my version of the country.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve