Associated Press

Caracas — Venezuelan troops fought pitched street battles Friday with supporters of President Hugo Chavez who tried to disrupt an opposition rally in an impoverished area of the capital considered a government stronghold.

At least 14 people were injured.

Troops in armoured vehicles arrived at the scene while Chavistas, as the president's supporters are known, fought back, throwing bottles, rocks and firecrackers at security forces.

They also looted a nearby police station after tearing down the walls with sledgehammers and metal rods.

Hundreds of national guard troops and police in riot gear launched tear-gas grenades to disperse more than 100 rowdy government backers.

Columns of black smoke rose from tires burning in the street and mingled with thick clouds of white tear gas.

Gunfire from unknown sources wounded one police officer and three civilians, said Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno.

At least 10 people were slightly hurt by flying objects, he added.

The tear gas forced the evacuation of 25 children from a nearby hospital.

Ignoring government warnings violence could erupt, opposition parties called the rally as part of a series of events in Caracas slums to make a case that Mr. Chavez's traditional support among the poor has evaporated.

Interior Minister Lucas Rincon pleaded with march organizers to take the protest to an area where there would be less potential for violence.

"We alert the population to the security risks that this act carries," Mr. Rincon said in an address to the nation late Thursday.

"This isn't about impeding a political act. It's about taking it to a less risky one."

Hours before the planned protest, dozens of Chavez sympathizers burned tires in a plaza on the only route to the opposition's chosen site - an eastern Caracas street beneath hills covered by red-brick shanties.

The protest came three weeks after unidentified gunmen killed one person and wounded 10 at an opposition march in a poor neighbourhood on the city's west side. No one was arrested.

"A truly dark story has repeated itself. We had said this was the least appropriate place to stage this demonstration," said Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel.

The opposition COPEI party refused to cancel the protest, insisting it wouldn't be intimidated by what it called government-sponsored violence to silence dissent.

Mr. Chavez denies those allegations.

He counters opponents constantly provoke chaos to justify the ouster of a democratically elected president.

The president was briefly ousted in an April 2002 coup and defied demands he step down during a ruinous two-month general strike that collapsed in February.

Early Friday, federal police sharpshooters stationed themselves on rooftops overlooking the protest site.

The city government dispatched another 3,000 officers to patrol the streets.

At the protest three weeks ago, police snipers fired at public-housing buildings where the shooting apparently originated.

Political violence has killed more than 50 people in Venezuela over the last year, mostly during clashes between pro- and anti-Chavez forces.

The country is deeply divided between those who adore Mr. Chavez as a champion of the poor and those who revile him as a power-monger trying to remodel Venezuela after Cuba's socialist system.

Mr. Chavez's foes are demanding an internationally backed referendum on his rule later this year, insisting it's the only way to restore stability to Venezuela, a key oil exporter to the United States.

First elected in 1998, Mr. Chavez pushed through a new constitution in 1999 that paved the way for his 2000 re-election to a new six-year term.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Executive Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel has met Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR)  National Assembly (AN) deputies, Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores, along with former Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS)  and Podemos (now Vamos) deputy, Rafael Simon Jimenez to exchange views on the situation in Parliament. 

Jimenez says it's important that the House returns to normal and deal with priorities such as the appointment of the new National Electoral College (CNE) authorities.

"People who feel strongly about what happened last Thursday and Friday should be allowed to lodge a complaint at the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ).

Jimenez discards the opposition threat to take the protest to international bodies since he says international organizations are already monitoring events in Venezuela." 

The House re-convened on Tuesday to take a vote on the minutes of last Tuesday. June 3. when the reform of the Internal debate regulation was introduced. 

At the first count the government bench won 81-79 with 2 abstentions and one saved vote. Since the government bench needed 83 to pass the motion, a second count was undertaken with government bench 82, opposition 79, and 3 abstentions.

• AN president Francisco Ameliach started another rumpus declaring a draw based on Article 129. 

However, the exercise has shown that the government majority is somewhat tenuous and dangerously vulnerable.

<a href=www.falkland-malvinas.com>MercoSurPress Almost two thirds of Venezuelans would vote for President Hugo Chavez to abandon office if a referendum on his mandate takes place, according to a public opinion poll released last week in Caracas. Datanálisis, a respected private consulting Caracas company revealed that 64% of those interviewed in the whole of Venezuela during the first week of May would have voted against Mr. Chávez if the referendum had been organized for the last Sunday of May. Even with a technical error of plus/minus 3% the poll also indicated that former paratrooper and coup instigator Mr. Chávez has a 28,8% hardcore support which contrasts with 70% strong critics and miles away from the 80% popularity he mustered when the president was first elected four years ago. According to the Venezuela constitution which was reformed following Mr. Chávez initiative, a referendum can be called at the mid term of any elected official, including the President, and for Mr. Chávez this will happen as of August 19. A fortnight ago the Chávez administration and its fierce opponents who accuse him of wanting to install a Communist regime similar to the Cuban dictatorship, signed a peace understanding to pave the way for the referendum in an attempt to reduce the intensity of the political conflict that has virtually melted the oil rich Venezuelan economy. However the government has since accused opponents of “conspiring” and anticipated that the understanding does not guarantee the referendum, and anyhow the “timetable and convening process” must abide to law. These include a signatures petition of 20% of the electoral roll which must be presented to an Electoral Committee, that still has to be nominated by a Chavez dominated Congress. According to the poll 62,8% of those interviewed would sign the petition to terminate Mr. Chávez rule, but 29,8% also indicate that the government will impede the voting to proceed. Another 23% believes the government will do its utmost to delay the voting process and 10,5 that it will appeal to any form of fraud. In the opposite position 28,6% consider that Mr. Chávez will honour the voting process.

by Marie Sanz

HAVANA, June 7 (<a href=www.eubusiness.com>EUBusiness-AFP) - Cuba has watched its number of friends dwindle after the European Union joined protests against a crackdown on dissidents by the island's veteran revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro.

Three months after EU Commissioner Poul Nielson and several Cuban ministers opened "a new era" in relations in Havana, a European diplomat said the latest events "will lead to a big freeze".

Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque protested Friday that the EU decision to restrict political and cultural relations was an "over-reaction" and Europe had "caved-in to pressure, to the battering waves of US policy toward Cuba."

For weeks, high level Cuban officials have stayed away from European diplomatic events in Havana, and European diplomats in turn were not invited to the huge May Day celebrations in the capital. European embassies now regularly invite dissidents and their families to their functions.

The United States has been stepping up pressure on Cuba for months but Castro can ill afford to completely lose Europe, which is Cuba's main trade partner, accounting for 34 percent of foreign commerce.

Europe is also the main investor in Cuba and provided 800,000 of the 1.7 million foreign visitors last year.

Castro's island has faced widespread condemnation since its elderly leader ordered a crackdown on dissidents that led to the imprisonment of 75 opponents for up to 28 years. A moratorium on executions was ended when three men who tried to hijack a small ferry to Florida were put to death.

US President George W. Bush promised last month to keep supporting Cuba's dissidents, stressing that "dictatorships have no place in the Americas" in a special radio address to Cuba for the 101st anniversary of the island's independence on May 20.

He also met 11 former Cuban political prisoners and their families, while 14 Cuban diplomats were recently expelled from the United States.

The United States demanded Monday that Cuba provide medical attention to a severely ill jailed dissident, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, and pressed for medical care for others rounded up in a recent crackdown.

Like other countries on the US list of accused terrorist sponsors, Cuba has expressed fears that it will be the next country invaded after Iraq. But the US administration has made it clear military action is not yet an option.

And Castro is not entirely friendless, particularly in Latin America.

The Cuban leader can count on the sympathy of Brazil's left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

Castro recently attended the inauguration of Argentina's new president, Nestor Kirchner, and was cheered by thousands when he gave an anti-US speech.

Even the United States knows it has to be wary in dealings on Cuba. It has agreed that Cuba will not be a top agenda item at the Organization of American States general assembly meeting in Santiago on Monday and Tuesday.

Cuban dissidents welcomed the European measures, announced by the Greek presidency of the EU on Thursday.

"These measures are totally just and necessary," said Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban Human Rights and Reconciliation Commission. His commission is considered illegal and Sanchez is one of the rare opposition leaders still at liberty.

"The EU has clearly shown itself on the side of the Cuban people," he added.

Vladimiro Roca, who was recently released from five years in prison and is now spokesman for another opposition group, "All United", said: "This will put matters in perspective for Cuba, where the government justifies its actions in the name of a bilateral conflict with the United States."

Posted on Fri, Jun. 06, 2003 ALEXANDRA OLSON Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - Meeting in a downtown park to avoid their rivals, lawmakers loyal to President Hugo Chavez adopted parliamentary procedures that allow them to swiftly pass several new laws, including one that would tighten restrictions on the media.

The lawmakers, gathering in tents in a poor neighborhood of hard-core Chavez supporters, adopted new debate rules intended to make it more difficult to block legislation supported by the president. Opposition members of Congress said they did not recognize the legitimacy of the vote.

The bickering boded more turmoil for Venezuela, a major oil exporter to the United States convulsed by a brief coup in 2002 and a ruinous general strike earlier this year. It threatened to further delay efforts in Congress to choose election officials who would run a possible referendum on Chavez's presidency.

Under a recent pact brokered by the Organization of American States, Venezuela's opposition may seek to hold a referendum later this year on Chavez's mandate, which runs to 2007.

The president's supporters hold a slim majority in the 165-seat Congress, but they wanted to cut the opposition out of the debate by meeting Friday in a hostile neighborhood. They argued they were forced to do so after a shoving match with opposition lawmakers disrupted a session at the legislative palace Wednesday.

"I ask Venezuelans to applaud these legislators who have assumed their responsibility with courage and continued legislating," Chavez said of Friday's unusual outdoor assembly.

Opposition lawmakers called the session illegal and said it was a Chavez-sponsored attempt to undercut Congress. They tried to convene a separate session at the legislative palace, but the president's supporters ordered the doors locked.

"If the government persists in the progressive dissolution of the legislature, there will be no path left except popular rebellion," said opposition lawmaker Leopoldo Puchi.

The new parliamentary procedure would make it easier to move legislation through a key 21-member committee in Congress that is dominated by the opposition. Chavez supporters claim that the opposition has used this committee to block legislation.

The opposition plans to ask the Supreme Court to declare Friday's vote illegal.

The new media law would ban "rude" or "vulgar" language, prohibit depiction of sex or alcohol or drug use, and ban violence during daytime.

It would also require that 60 percent of programming be produced within Venezuela, half of which would have to be created by "independent producers" approved by the government.

Broadcasters, who tend to oppose the president, say the law will give too much influence to censors hand-picked by Chavez to crack down on the mostly opposition news media.