<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."

Correspondents Report - Sunday, 27 April , 2003 Reporter: Neil Weise

HAMISH ROBERTSON: Venezuela's controversial President, Hugo Chavez, who's already survived a coup and a crippling general strike, has embarked on a new course of action design to infuriate his opponents.

Having first agreed to a referendum on his future, President Chavez has suddenly backed away from the agreement.

Our Correspondent, Neil Weise, who makes frequent visits to Venezuela from his base in Miami, says that Mr Chavez is presiding over a potentially prosperous nation, which is now one of the hemisphere's worst economic performers.

NEIL WEISE: Venezuela's economy will shrink this year by between seven and 15 per cent, per capita income is forecast to drop by 50 per cent, and in the past quarter alone, one in three households has lost a working member to unemployment.

Chavez argues that his opponents are responsible for the meltdown, for bringing on a two-month civic strike early this year that cost the Government between six and seven billion dollars, mostly from lost oil revenue.

The opposition says Chavez has bankrupted the country, by taking it down the same socialist path that Cuba's Fidel Castro travelled. Chavez himself says his so-called Bolivarian revolution will not be derailed by the self-serving oligarchy that drove Venezuela's poverty levels to 70 per cent before he was elected for the first time five years ago.

Certainly the opposition coalition comprising some business, union and military leaders failed with their strike to remove Chavez, and even some of their supporters agree they must take part of the blame for the economic upheaval the strike caused.

Their next chance to remove the President will come as early as August when, constitutionally, they can use petitions to force a plebiscite on his rule. A majority of voters could force the President's resignation.

Hugo Chavez last week said he was looking forward to the vote, to see off his opponents once and for all, but this week his Government objected to foreign observers, saying: "Venezuela is not a colony." The President also said a referendum cannot be held until electoral rolls are updated and a new Electoral Commission is appointed by Parliament.

Chavez takes counsel from a group of advisers who include the ubiquitous, Ali Rodriguez, head of oil-rich Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA. Rodriguez is a former guerrilla who graduated from blowing up foreign oil company installations to become the Secretary-General of OPEC.

The two men have long viewed PDVSA, the nation's biggest company, as the Trojan horse of opposition to their Administration, and they've sacked a massive 45 per cent of the company's 39,000 employees since the civic strike.

The strike's effects have depleted Treasury coffers, and Venezuela has put feelers out to foreign lending agencies for loans. President Chavez said this week he would not accept, as a lending condition, the kind of austerity measures the IMF seeks from other nations, saying: "If they don't want to lend us money, then don't. This is a sovereign nation."

It's 11 years since paratrooper, Lieutenant Colonel Chavez, was jailed for leading a failed coup to oust what he called the corrupt government. It's a year since he himself survived such an attempt.

The President may yet subject himself to a referendum this year, but as a disparate and dispirited opposition has already discovered, Hugo Chavez's crisis-honed instincts have taught him how to dodge that proverbial bullet, no matter who's firing.

Neil Wiese in Miami for Correspondents' Report.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, April 25, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Eight (8) Metropolitan Police (PM) officers accused of shooting and killing two persons during the April 11, 2002  disturbances in Caracas have handed themselves over to the Aragua police ... PM commander, Henry Vivas who upholds the men's innocence, accompanied them under heavy armed guard.

Corporals, Jose Arube Perez and Ramon Zapata, Sergeants (second class)  Rafael Nazoa and Julio Ramon Rodriguez, Sub-commissioner Marcos Hurtado, Chief Inspector Hector Jose Robaina and agent, Luis Enrique Molina Serrada stand accused of killing Erasmo Enrique sanchez and Rudy Urbano Duque and injuring another 35 persons. 

It is not certain whether there is in fact another unnamed officer or whether Vivas himself has been charged as commanding officer. 

The officers' lawyer, Jose Rafael Parra says the prosecution's arguments do not tally. "There were two victims each hit with one bullet ... so how is it possible that 8 officers only fired two shots? ... it means that all of them killed the two persons." 

The defense is arguing against putting their clients in prison until the trial comes up, alleging that there is no danger of them fleeing the country because they continue to exercise their functions in the police force. 

• The officers are charged with qualified homicide complicity, personal injuries ranging from light to serious, inappropriate use of war weapons.

State prosecutor Danilo Anderson says he wants the court to impose preventive arrest and does not understand why the accused are allowed on duty as active service police officers.

Forbes.com-Reuters Reuters, 04.22.03, 3:24 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 22 (Reuters) - Venezuelan left-wing academic Jorge Giordani, who served as President Chavez's Planning Minister in the first three years of his rule, is returning to the post, Chavez said Tuesday. Giordani, who had served as Planning Minister until May last year, replaces Felipe Perez, who was dismissed after public disagreements over foreign exchange controls and other official policies in the world's No. 5 oil exporter. "I'm swearing in Jorge Giordani this evening ... he's coming back to the Planning and Development Ministry post," Chavez told reporters during a ceremony to open a new state food store in Caracas.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 By: Dawn Gable

Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 04:58:14 +0000 From: Dawn Gable morning_ucsc@hotmail.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: Chavez the Film

Dear Editor: I would like to publicly express my gratitude to all those who participated in bringing us The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Chavez the Film). 

• As I have stated before I was in Venezuela during the coup and for the 2 years surrounding the coup ... my partner is a Guardia Nacional de la Republica soldier.

I am so touched by this film ... I cannot watch it without crying, reliving the emotions I experienced during those few days of disbelief. I knew all along that Chavez did not resign. I knew it the moment I heard the news. I spent the first day walking around the ranch cussing, sitting in an old irrigation pipe crying, and talking on the phone to the GN at Corozopando.  The guards were itching to go to Caracas and save their President ... but they were told to hang tight and that there was a plan ... they were very frustrated and angry.

The day Chavez returned to power, we went into the city before we heard the news that Chavez had returned. My Venezuelan anti-Chavez co-worker warned me to not wear anything that identified me as a Chavista and warned me that now it would be dangerous to let anyone know I was a supporter ... an American co-worker mumbled “some democracy” in response. I did not heed the advice ... I have never felt so willing to give my life as on that day.

As we approached small towns on the way to the city of Guarico, we noticed cars with shoe polish writing on their windows that said “ Chavez volvio” and "Chavez hasta 2026" (I think that was the date?) ... it suddenly became very clear what had happened as we entered the city. There was a parade of Chavistas driving back and forth through the streets chanting and singing and celebrating. I jumped out the window of the car and joined in while my anti-Chavez driver ate crow.

One of my co-workers and I spent the day watching the state-owned TV station in our room in the city while our anti-Chavez hosts spent the day in their room watching the private stations fabricate a new story.

I will never forget these few days ... they have changed me as much or more than 9/11 changed the people who were here in the States on that horrifying day.

Thanks to all for capturing this on film ... you all are true heroes.

Dawn Gable morning_ucsc@hotmail.com