INSTITUTO N. S. DE LAS AMERICAS CATEDRA PARA LA GOBERNABILIDAD DE LA DEMOCRACIA Y La Sociedad Venezolana de la Florida Central

Lo invitan a participar a la presentación "A traves de una Ventana" Representada por JUAN FERNANDEZ Presidente de la "Asociación Civil Gente del Petróleo" y José Manuel Boccardo, Alberto Parra y Fanny Guédez Propulsores de un nuevo modelo de la democracia en nuestro país.

Fecha: Sabado 5 de Abril Hora: 10:00 AM Lugar: Salón Cristal - Hotel Hilton 350 S. North Lake Blvd, Altamonte Springs,Florida 32715 Confirme su asistencia al Telf: (407) 228-4404

E-mail: angelini1992@c...! sp; E-mail: aselo@v...

Capacidad Limitada Tu donación a la Asociación Civil Gente del Petróleo será bien recibida.

INVITA A TUS AMIGOS Y TRAE TU BANDERA

Acompañanos a construir la Venezuela que todos soñamos.

Pravda 14:42 2003-04-01

After the fierce clashes with the government, Chavez's foes see how the President normalizes the country under his authority. Opposition leaders are under arrest or went into exile.

Once powerful and combative, the Venezuelan opposition has fallen into a deep crisis after the two months strike failed. Chavez looks plenty of power and no anticipated elections can be forecasted in view of the current scenario. Not even Washington is a factor now, as US hawks are trapped in the sands of Iraq.

Also the main government's detractors, the national media, looks more interested on what is going on in Middle East than on internal affairs. People came back to work, oil plants to pump crude at normal levels and Chavez to upset people's ears by singing popular songs on radio stations. As per reports from Caracas, the new regulated economy keeps the macroeconomic variables under control; markets did not go haywire and the forecasted shortage has been sorted out.

On Thursday, the rebel trade-unionist leader, Carlos Ortega, went into exile in Costa Rica after spending the last week inside the Embassy of that Central American Country. Ortega had been charged with treason for organizing a national strike to oust President Chavez and was allowed by Venezuela's government to leave the country.

Ortega was one of the organizers of Venezuela's two-month crippling general strike that failed to force President Chavez to resign and call early elections. In a statement sent to Venezuelan news organizations, Mr. Ortega called President Chavez a dictator in training and pledged to keep fighting to end his rule. In the new environment, Ortega's statement is not expected to generate a reaction in the anti-Chavez population.

Therefore, Ortega will join the frustrated 24 hours President, Pedro Carmona, who led the coup, that briefly overthrown Chavez in April 11th 2002. Colombia had granted asylum to Carmona, the leader of the businessmen association. The list of exiled opposition leaders is not complete yet: Carlos Molina, a retired naval officer who faced an investigation for his role in the coup enjoys a political asylum in the Central American republic of El Salvador.

But apparently, they are the lucky ones. By the end of February, Carlos Fernandez, president of Venezuela's largest business federation FEDECAMARAS, was arrested and faces the same charges than Ortega, but in jail.

By that time, the bodies of four anti-Chavez activists were found in the suburbs of Caracas showing signs of torture: hands tied and faces wrapped with tape. Darwin Arguello, Angel Salas Felix Pinto and Zaida Peraza, 25, had multiple bullet wounds and showed signs of torture. According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, a witness saw the victims being forced into two vehicles by men wearing ski masks, not far from Plaza Altamira, the place that had become the opposition's central rallying point. "The circumstances strongly suggest that these were political killings," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch to the foreign press in Caracas, in February.

Despite Human Rights organizations' intervention, those cases were never clarified and remain unpunished.

Hernan Etchaleco PRAVDA.Ru Argentina

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 By: Garett Sloane

Garett Sloane of A.M. Costa Rica reports: A political asylum seeker from Venezuela was welcomed into Costa Rica Thursday where the government is protecting him for humanitarian reasons.

Carlos Ortega, president of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela, left the Costa Rican Embassy in Venezuela under heavy police protection en route to the airport, according to reports. He had been in the embassy since March 13 seeking asylum to leave Venezuela where he said he was not safe from political persecution.

Ortega was one of the leaders responsible for organizing the two-month strike that attempted to dislodge Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, from power. The strikes toward that aim were unsuccessful.

He went into hiding last month after the Venezuelan government sought his arrest on treason and rebellion charges for his role in the strike. Ortega later took refuge at the embassy, saying he feared for his safety.

The Costa Rican government granted the opposition leader asylum because it is convinced of Ortega’s claims that he is not safe in Venezuela where he may be a target of violence, according to the executive order allowing the asylum signed by Abel Pacheco, president of Costa Rica.

The friendship between the governments of Costa Rica and Venezuela will not be affected by this  incident, said Roberto Tovar, Costa Rica’s foreign minister. The Venezuelan authorities were cooperative in the effort to transfer Ortega from the country, Tovar said.

Tovar and Ortega met here in the Casa Amarilla upon the Venezuelan’s arrival. Tovar welcomed Ortega on behalf of the Costa Rican people and then Ortega thanked them. The union leader is here to work and not vacation, he said. Ortega said he could make plans to go to the United States or Spain. Other opponents of Chavez have been granted asylum in other nations.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, March 31, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

In his weekly column Lt. Colonel Francisco Arias Cardenas, who has been a firm believer in the recall referendum from the start, calls on active service military officers to exercise the right to vote granted them by the Bolivarian Constitution. "Officers, NCOs and troops could dismiss their Commander-in-Chief, President Hugo Chavez Frias through the ballot box."

"The Armed Force (FAN), Arias Cardenas ponders, has plenty of reasons to vote NO.  The President has:

• made a laughing stock of the uniform
• done everything possible to prostitute discipline and order submitting the military to public scorn
• has promoted unworthy people to top positions demoralizing the organization and turning it into a praetorian guard
• has neglected maintenance and training of military apparatus, using public resources for personal and partisan use
• has weakened the FAN's operational readiness, placing it at a disadvantage when it comes to defending Venezuela against possible enemies
• has increased corruption inside and outside the FAN to blacken, divide and demoralize the institution.

The President and C-I-C has had a golden opportunity to push the country and the FAN towards modernity."

Concluding, Arias Cardenas states that the military must use their vote to discharge a commander that has neither moral stature nor capacity to lead the FAN.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela´s Elecronic News Posted: Monday, March 31, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

According to a poll carried out by pollsters Consultores 2, President Hugo Chavez Frias may win a general election with 32% of the overall vote if opposition candidates run separately in any upcoming general election.

In the Consultores 21 model, if Primero Justicia leader Julio Borges and Miranda State Governor Enrique Mendoza both stood as opposition candidates they would each obtain around 14% of the vote, with rebel Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) executive Juan Fernandez coming in with 10% despite the fact he is not a politician.

The poll has carried out in several Venezuelan cities and involved a sample of 1,200 people. Of the people questioned, 53% said they didn't believe the President would still be in office at the end of his term in 2006, while 41% said he would still be in power.