<a href=www.voanews.com>VOA News 14 Jun 2003, 01:39 UTC

Venezuelan authorities have fired tear gas to disperse dozens of government supporters who tried to disrupt an opposition rally in a Caracas slum. At least 14 people were injured.

Riot police and national guard troops took action Friday as pro-government demonstrators pelted them with rocks, bottles and firecrackers in the Petare neighborhood. Ambulances evacuated patients from a nearby hospital amid thick clouds of white tear gas.

While authorities clashed with the supporters of President Hugo Chavez, a block away opponents demanded a referendum on his rule. The opposition center-right COPEI party organized Friday's protest to call for President Chavez to leave office.

The trouble comes less than one month after unknown gunmen fired on an opposition rally in another impoverished area, killing one person and leaving 17 people injured.

Political tensions over the Chavez government have troubled Venezuela for months. Scores of people have been killed in street clashes and violence since April of last year when the president survived a brief coup. In December, Mr. Chavez's opponents began a nationwide general strike in a failed bid to force him to resign and call new elections. The walkout ended in February.

Chavez critics accuse him of leading Venezuela toward economic ruin and trying to model the oil-rich country on communist-run Cuba. President Chavez blames the economic downturn on the failed strike. Venezuela's Central Bank says the economy fell 29 percent in the first three months of the year.

June 13 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled the firing of about 18,000 oil workers by the government during a two- month strike was illegal because the workers were union members, El Nacional said.

The court said the workers status as members of the Unapetrol union prevented the government from firing them, the newspaper said. Labor Minister Maria Cristina Iglesias said the government would not rehire the workers and that the firings were justified because the workers had abandoned their jobs for more than three days, the paper said.

The strike in December and January, which cut oil production by as much as 95 percent, cost the economy $7.4 billion. Labor unions, business leaders and former oil executives organized the national work stoppage to pressure President Hugo Chavez to step down and hold elections.

Venezuela may hold a binding referendum later this year on Chavez's rule.

(EN, 6/13 B1)

To see El Nacional's Web site, click on {NCNL } Last Updated: June 13, 2003 09:52 EDT

Friday June 13, 2003 3:29 AM By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - A court ordered the government on Thursday to restore thousands of oil workers' protection against being fired - a decision that could force the rehiring or employees dismissed for staging a strike aimed at toppling the president.

Labor Minister Maria Iglesias rejected the ruling and said the government would not rehire some 18,000 employees it has fired at the state-run oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA.

There is no turning back in regard to these firings,'' Iglesias told the state-run television channel. A firing freeze for those (workers) has no value.''

The labor law in question had protected workers from being fired during the period when they were forming their union.

Last year the labor ministry stripped management level workers belonging to the Unapetrol labor union of that right, but the court temporarily reversed that measure as well to study its legality.

Unapetrol leaders, who claim to represent all of the 18,000 workers who were fired, said they would use the ruling to get their jobs back.

``This is excellent news, which tells us that we have (the right to) a firing freeze and that our dismissal was unjustified,'' said Horacio Medina, president of Unapetrol.

President Hugo Chavez said the workers were fired out of the need to cut a bloated bureaucracy and rid the industry of ``coup-plotting'' employees who were only interested in removing him from office by unconstitutional means.

In December 2002, executives at PDVSA staged a strike that caused severe fuel shortages and temporarily paralyzed Venezuela's oil industry - the world's fifth largest oil exporter - before it ended in early February.

Venezuela's largest labor union and business chamber joined the strike, accusing Chavez of riding roughshod over the nation's democratic institutions, scaring off foreign investment with left-leaning economic policies and dividing the South American country along class lines.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who is facing the worst crisis of his four-year rule, denied the allegations and accused his opponents of trying to grab power by any means possible. He said strikers should be punished for the hardships they caused among the population.

During the months since the strike, the government has succeeded in bringing oil production back to normal levels.

Venezuela's opposition is pushing for Chavez's ouster through a referendum, which the Constitution allows halfway through a president's term - in Chavez's case, August.

In a related development, ruling party lawmakers boycotted a parliamentary session Thursday to avoid what they said was planned opposition violence.

The boycott has virtually paralyzed the National Assembly at a time when it must ahead with organizing a referendum on whether Chavez should step down later this year.

12 Jun 2003 19:14:11 GMT By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela, June 12 Reuters) - Venezuela's divided National Assembly broke up in confusion on Thursday as supporters and foes of President Hugo Chavez deepened a parliamentary dispute that is delaying steps toward a possible referendum on the leftist president's rule.

Lawmakers loyal to Chavez refused to enter the assembly chamber, alleging the opposition planned to disrupt a scheduled vote on procedural reforms aimed at speeding up the passage of anti-terrorism and media laws drafted by the government.

Opposition deputies in the 165-member assembly accused government supporters of shying away from the vote because they could not muster the 83 votes needed to win.

The week-long dispute in the assembly, where Chavez supporters are struggling to hang onto a slim majority, is blocking the appointment by the parliament of a new National Electoral Council, the country's electoral authority.

"The country knows that without a National Electoral Council, there will be no elections," pro-Chavez deputy Nicolas Maduro told reporters as deputies from both sides traded accusations and recriminations in the assembly courtyard.

Naming a new electoral council is a key requirement for holding a referendum on Chavez's rule after Aug. 19, halfway through his current term.

The referendum was recommended in a peace accord signed by the government and its foes last month. The Organization of American States is backing the referendum as the best way to defuse the long-running conflict over Chavez's rule in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

Pro-government lawmakers accuse the opposition of blocking controversial draft laws in parliament.

These include an anti-terrorism bill and legislation regulating television and radio broadcasting. Opposition leaders say they fear the laws will be used by the government to silence criticism and restrict anti-Chavez protests.

"They (the government side) are on the run because they can't hold a majority," opposition deputy Cesar Perez said.

Maduro said pro-Chavez lawmakers would try to negotiate with their opponents to reconvene the parliament next Tuesday.

Former paratrooper Chavez, who survived a coup last year, has said he is ready to submit to a referendum. But his foes, who accuse him of trying to install Cuban-style communism, say they fear he will attempt to avoid a poll.

AP, Thursday, Jun 12, 2003, Page 6

In their first-ever defeat, pro-government legislators narrowly lost a vote that would have ratified new parliamentary procedures aimed at speeding up passage of legislation backed by President Hugo Chavez.

The vote was over the legality of an outdoor session held Friday in a poor Caracas neighborhood considered a bastion of support for Chavez. Pro-Chavez lawmakers convened there to approve the new parliamentary debate rules two days after ruling party and opposition legislators ended up in a shoving match inside the legislative palace. They argued the session was necessary to prevent the opposition from "sabotaging" the National Assembly.

The 79 opposition legislators boycotted the session, saying they feared being attacked by Chavez sympathizers.

After a five-hour debate, Tuesday's vote ended with 82 in favor of the legality of Friday's session, 79 against and three abstentions. It was one vote short of the 50 percent plus one needed for approval. One member of the 165-member unicameral National Assembly didn't attend the debate.

It was the first defeat for Chavez's multiparty ruling coalition since the 2000 general elections that gave the president an almost two-thirds congressional majority. That majority has eroded to a handful of seats over the past three years after several allies defected to the opposition.

The government's loss Tuesday is another headache for a president facing calls for a referendum on his rule later this year. The opposition is trying to organize the vote under a pact brokered by the Organization of American States designed to bring stability to a country convulsed in the past year by a failed coup and a ruinous general strike.

Chavez 's opponents accuse the former army paratroop commander of trying to install an authoritarian regime modeled after Cuba's. Chavez says that a resentful "oligarchy" is sabotaging his efforts to bring social equality to Venezuela.

The vote Tuesday could mean that Chavez may have trouble passing several key laws, including one to tighten restrictions on the media. That law would 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 say the law would give too much influence to censors hand-picked by Chavez to crack down on the mostly opposition news media.

A shouting match erupted Tuesday after ruling party legislators demanded a third recount, which the opposition said would be illegal under both the new and old rules. National Assembly President Francisco Ameliach refused to accept the defeat and suspended the session until Thursday.

"We've been tolerating your majority for four years and you for the first time are incapable of accepting a defeat gracefully," opposition lawmaker Cesar Perez Vivas shouted in Ameliach's face. "Get used to it. It's the first of many."

Opposition legislators have also challenged the legality of Friday's session in the Supreme Court.