caracaschronicles.blogspot.com By Francisco Toro

I’ve been thinking more and more about these little stories, these stories that are rarely seen as important enough to get reported abroad, but that underlie the climate of tension in Venezuela. It’s hard for people abroad to quite understand the feel of the crisis here, in large part because stories like these just fly under the radar screen of the foreign press. But they’re important, so I’m going to write about them.

Pressure

It’s 3 am. You hear some strange noises outside your house. Half asleep, you crack the blinds open. You see a man, standing in the middle of the street right in front of your house. He’s looking straight at you. He has a gun in his hand. He points it up into the air. Suddenly you’re very much awake. He’s staring straight at your window. He shoots once into the air, then again, then four more times, quickly. Once he’s emptied his gun he climbs onto a motorcycle and speeds away.

That’s the worst of it, but only part of a broader pattern. Every day you get death threats on the phone. On email as well. And by fax. They know everything about you. They know where you live. They know where you work. They know your wife’s name, and your kids’. They’re following you. When you park somewhere unusual – a restaurant you don’t usually go to, say – you find notes on your windshield. “We’re following you.” This happens again and again.

Fiction? Not fiction. Just a peek into the daily life of a high-profile opposition activist in Venezuela. (I won’t reveal his identity for obvious reasons.) It’s not an isolated case.

The Chávez government has always hung its claim to respect human rights on the fact that no opposition figures have been murdered or imprisoned in Venezuela. The latter claim collapsed with Carlos Fernández’ arrest last week. The former, thankfully, still stands. But what these claims – and too much foreign reporting – gloss over is the systematic campaign of threats, intimidation and harassment government supporters have launched against all sorts of opposition figures.

The campaign is extraordinarily broad – most opposition politicians and pundits are under threat. Many journalists as well, and almost all private media owners. The threats are sustained, personal, delivered in a variety of ways. They target opposition moderates and radicals equally. Few have so far been carried out, but it’s hard to overstate the way this drip-drip-drip of intimidation poisons the political atmosphere here.

It’s important to keep this in mind when analyzing the private media’s behavior in the crisis. Media owners feel under threat. Personally. It’s not that their ideals are on the line, or their livelihoods. It’s their skin they’re worried about. Together with the high-stress nature of their jobs, the intimidation seem to be pushing some of them over the edge.

“I love my boss,” a friend of mine who works for a major media outlet tells me, “he’s a standup guy who’s taught me a lot. The problem is, he’s out of his mind.” He describes the way the mixture of the president’s threats to move against his company, together with the anonymous threats he keeps getting, have created this kind of siege mentality at the company. “He’s worked his whole life to get to the point where he can run a company like this,” my friend says “and he’s convinced that Chávez is going to take it away from him. He might be right, but the thing is that the pressure’s gotten to him. He’s just not thinking straight anymore.”

That doesn’t excuse the absence of balance in a lot of the media here, but it does help to explain it. They don’t call it psychological warfare for nothing. The unending personal threats, together with sporadic attacks against opposition newspapers and TV stations, are actually driving these people crazy. A lot of media people here have lost their ability to examine the situation in a cool, rational, detached way. The way they see it, it’s not just their livelihoods that are on the line. It’s their lives.

The threats, the torrent of well-orchestrated threats, can’t possibly be a matter of a few rogue chavistas striking out on their own to spook their political enemies. The campaign is too broad for that, too carefully run. If the government had any problem with it, it clearly could have cracked down long ago. Many here are convinced that the state security apparatus is behind it. And as the political violence escalates around the country, most are convinced it’s only a matter of time until these threats start turning into real attacks.

washingtontimes.com EDITORIAL • February 27, 2003

     In Venezuela, the heavy-handed charges against two opposition leaders suggest President Hugo Chavez is determined to prove his harshest detractors right. And the best that can be said of the recent violence perpetrated by Chavez supporters is that the president has become unable to secure the safety of citizens.      At midnight last Wednesday, business leader Carlos Fernandez, one of the leading organizers of a two-month strike that ended Feb. 4, was arrested by armed police agents while at a restaurant and charged with rebellion and incitement, among other things. Labor leader Carlos Ortega, also a strike organizer, faces a warrant for his arrest on the same charges and has gone into hiding. The Venezuelan Embassy didn't respond to our request for comments on these actions.      These grave charges seem inconsistent with involvement in a strike, however injurious it may have been to the economy. But they become even more worrisome when examining their context.      After the strike was called on Dec. 2, Mr. Chavez began threatening extra-judicial retaliation against those involved. Earlier this month, when Venezuela imposed new currency-exchange restrictions, Mr. Chavez said "orders [to officials] will be: not one dollar to coup mongers." And Mr. Chavez had "sentenced" strikers from the bully pulpit. Shortly before Mr. Fernandez was arrested last week, Mr. Chavez said oil-industry strikers were "terrorists" and "coup mongers" and must be sent to jail. On Friday, Mr. Chavez demanded 20-year prison terms for Messrs. Fernandez and Ortega. "These oligarchs believed that they were untouchable. There are no untouchables in Venezuela. A criminal is a criminal," he said.      Mr. Chavez has managed to carry out his extra-judicial designs through the judiciary. And human-rights groups are taking notice. "The judiciary has a key role in preventing these events from triggering an escalation of the human-rights crisis," said Amnesty International in a statement Friday. Amnesty also has expressed concern regarding the vigilantes wreaking violence to counter opposition to Mr. Chavez. Earlier this month, the corpses of three dissident soldiers and one woman were found, with signs of torture. The victims had participated in an anti-Chavez demonstrations. Amnesty called for an impartial investigation into the killings.      The terrorist bombings at the Spanish Embassy and Colombian Embassy yesterday were also perpetrated in Mr. Chavez's name. Leaflets scattered at both sites said, "Our revolution will not be negotiated, only deepened." Interestingly, Mr. Chavez had recently lashed out against the governments of Spain, the United States and Colombia for criticizing the Chavez administration. "I ask of all of the countries of this continent and the world . . . Are you going to stop this meddling?" He said, "It's worth remembering that the Spanish ambassador was here, in this room, applauding the [April] coup," and added, "We say the same thing to the government in Washington. Stop making mistakes."      The timing of the bombings, which injured five persons, was not lost on the White House. "We note that these bombings followed the sharp verbal attacks by President Chavez on the international community as well as Venezuelans," said State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker.      Any of these recent incidents is worrisome enough. Collectively, they suggest that the current Venezuelan government is not merely a left-wing populist regime, but may be evolving into a police state. If Mr. Chavez does not pull back into constitutional government, it will be a tragedy for the Venezuelan people and the beginning of a substantial foreign-policy danger for the hemisphere.

www.globeandmail.com Associated Press

Caracas — A march by thousands of antigovernment protesters forced the suspension of talks aimed at ending Venezuela's political turmoil Wednesday, while the U.S. embassy beefed up security following "credible" threats.

Marching just days after the arrest of a leader of a crippling two-month strike, the demonstrators dared President Hugo Chavez's government to jail them, waving placards reading "Chavez, your mask is off, dictator!" and "Put us all in prison!"

Talks between government and opposition delegates were scheduled to begin mid-afternoon Wednesday, but the marchers' route passed by the negotiations venue, forcing their rescheduling until Thursday.

Protest leader Carlos Fernandez has been ordered under house arrest to face rebellion and other charges for leading the 63-day general strike against Mr. Chavez. Police are searching for strike co-leader and labour boss Carlos Ortega.

The protesters marched past the Fedecamaras business chamber of which Mr. Fernandez is president and ended at the labour confederation headquarters where Mr. Ortega is president. There were no reports of violence.

Authorities were also seeking to arrest seven people who were fired from executive positions with the state-run oil company for participating in the work stoppage. A judge issued the warrants Wednesday night.

Juan Echeverria, an attorney representing the executives, said he had reports that they would be charged with interrupting and "damaging the means used to supply" fuel, which carries a sentence of up to six years upon conviction.

Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy closed Wednesday after receiving "credible information of a threat to its security," a statement said. The closure came a day after two bombs ravaged Colombian and Spanish diplomatic missions, injuring four people and generating fears that the nation's political crisis was entering a more violent phase.

At a U.S. request, Venezuelan officials said they sent more than a dozen federal agents, national guardsmen and municipal police to boost security around the embassy, which wasn't expected to reopen until Friday.

"Practically all the security, protection and surveillance measures have been taken," said Dany Azuaje, police coordinator for the interior ministry.

No one claimed responsibility for Tuesday's bombings, which blew out ceilings and twisted metal street signs. Both sides in Venezuela's conflict blamed each other and the finger-pointing threatened to undermine Organization of American States-sponsored negotiations.

"Negotiations, it seems, are becoming less and less viable as the days go on," said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue think tank.

Leaflets supporting Mr. Chavez were found near both blasts. They were seized on by the opposition as evidence that the attacks were carried out by government sympathizers. Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel ridiculed the suggestions and said opponents of the President might have been involved.

Mr. Fernandez's arrest came just days after the sides signed an agreement rejecting violence and provocative language.

"The government is violating and walking all over the agreement that we signed when the ink has not even dried," said Americo Martin, one of the opposition delegates at the peace talks.

The opposition leader said he would fight the detention order. "I'm a political prisoner," he said from his home.

Mr. Chavez called Mr. Fernandez and Mr. Ortega "terrorists" on Sunday for commanding the opposition movement that paralyzed much of Venezuela and cost more than $4-billion (U.S.), hitting the oil industry hardest. He also lambasted representatives of the Spanish and Colombian governments, together with the United States and OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria, for "meddling in Venezuela's affairs."

These comments, say opposition leaders, directly provoked the embassy attacks.

In a statement, government negotiators said they rejected any attempts to take Venezuela's internal politics to an outside arena. They warned of a "clear break within the opposition and the emergence of an ultra-radical sector which has definitively taken the shortcut of terrorism and risk."

asia.reuters.com Thu February 27, 2003 12:05 AM ET By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela said on Wednesday it would close for one day on Thursday because of a security threat received after bomb blasts at two other foreign diplomatic buildings in Caracas.

"The U.S. Embassy in Caracas has received a credible threat to its security and will be closed to the public on Thursday, February 27, 2003," the embassy said in a statement.

"We received sufficiently reliable information of a possible attack so we decided to close for the day," embassy press counselor Phillip Parkerson told reporters.

The mission was expected to reopen Friday, he added.

Embassy officials declined to give further details or say whether the threat was related to powerful bomb attacks that badly damaged the Spanish Embassy cooperation office and the Colombian consulate in Caracas early on Tuesday.

The explosions injured five people less than 48 hours after leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sharply accused Spain, Colombia and the United States Sunday of meddling in his country's political crisis.

In Washington, U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States Roger Noriega repeated U.S. condemnation of the bomb attacks. But he also questioned the Chavez government's commitment to honoring a non-violence agreement it had signed with political opponents last week.

"There can be little doubt that President Chavez' belligerent rhetoric has contributed to a climate of tension that does not contribute to the search for a peaceful solution," Noriega told the OAS' Permanent Council.

He added the recent events in Venezuela, including the arrest of a prominent anti-Chavez business leader, "raises questions about the Government of Venezuela's commitment to honoring the non-violence agreement."

Ambassador Jorge Valero, Venezuela's representative to the OAS, said the United States was "making very doubtful interpretations" by linking the bombings to Chavez' rhetoric.

"In the name of the Venezuelan government," he said, "I categorically reject these interpretations."

U.S. OIL INTEREST

The United States, Spain and Colombia had expressed concern over the arrest last week of Carlos Fernandez, one of the leaders of an opposition strike in December and January that slashed oil output by the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter.

Clients affected included the United States, which normally got more than 13 percent of its oil imports from Venezuela.

The State Department said Wednesday it wanted to see Venezuela restore full oil production and resume its traditional position as a "reliable oil supplier" to the U.S..

"We hope that Venezuelans -- both the government and those involved in the strike -- will take the necessary additional steps to return (state oil company) PDVSA to its full production capacity," spokesman Lou Fintor said in Washington.

He was speaking after Assistant Secretary of State Anthony Wayne had talks at the State Department with Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez and PDVSA President Ali Rodriguez.

Anti-Chavez business chief Fernandez is currently under house arrest facing charges of rebellion.

Several thousand anti-government protesters marched in Caracas Wednesday in a show of support for Fernandez and Carlos Ortega, another strike leader who is in hiding after a judge also ordered his arrest.

A Caracas court issued new arrest orders Wednesday for seven other alleged oil strike leaders, local media reported.

Chavez's government has firmly rejected any link between Tuesday's bomb blasts and the president's recent aggressive criticism of the United States, Spain and Colombia.

Ministers suggested the opposition would have more to gain by trying to isolate the government internationally.

Senior government officials met with foreign ambassadors in Caracas Wednesday to coordinate tightening security at diplomatic missions in the Venezuelan capital.

Chavez, who was first elected in 1998 and survived a coup last year, is accused by foes of being a dictator and trying to drag his country toward Cuba-style communism. He says a rich minority elite is opposed to his self-styled "revolution."

No one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attacks but leaflets were found at the scene signed by the "Bolivarian Liberation Force -- Coordinadora Simon Bolivar urban militias," a known pro-Chavez radical group. Government officials said the leaflets were intended to mislead investigators.

Noriega said the United States supported ongoing efforts by OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria to try to broker a negotiated agreement on elections between the feuding Venezuelan government and its foes.

Gaviria, who was also publicly warned by Chavez Sunday not to meddle in Venezuela's affairs, was due to chair the next session of negotiations in Caracas scheduled for Thursday.

news.bbc.co.uk Last Updated:  Thursday, 27 February, 2003, 03:42 GMT
By Adam Easton BBC correspondent in Caracas

Protesters are supporting those detained

A judge in Venezuela has ordered that seven former managers of the state-owned oil company be arrested for their role in the country's two-month strike.

The order follows the arrest last week of Carlos Fernandez, one of the strike's two main organisers.

He is now facing charges of rebellion.

Opposition leaders have accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of leading a witch hunt against the country's opposition.

Thousands fired

The seven former Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) managers are all members of the opposition civil group Petroleum People, which was the public face of the oil strike.

They were among 12,000 already fired for taking part in the strike, which virtually brought Venezuela's oil industry to a standstill.

The oil strike cost the country $4bn in lost exports alone, and Venezuela's wells are still only producing between a half and two-thirds of normal production.

President Chavez has called the strikers saboteurs who deserve to be behind bars.

House arrest

The arrest warrants will fuel accusations that Mr Chavez is taking revenge on the strike's leaders.

One of the strike's two main organisers, business leader Carlos Fernandez, is already under house arrest on rebellion charges.

Mr Fernandez heads the Fedecamaras chamber of commerce.

The other organiser - trade union leader Carlos Ortega - is in hiding after an arrest warrant was issued last week.

A source close to the former oil managers told the BBC they were in a safe house awaiting instructions from their lawyers.

It is still not clear what charges they are facing.

Earlier, several thousand people marched in the capital, Caracas, in support of the strike's leaders. Some held placards accusing Mr Chavez of being a dictator.