CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, <a href=www.sfgate.com>Associated Press Writer Wednesday, May 7, 2003
(05-07) 22:46 PDT CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) --

After months of talks, diplomats trying to broker a peaceful end to Venezuela's political troubles have little to show for their efforts -- save for a moribund accord to end verbal insults.

The so-called Group of Friends of Venezuela made up of diplomats from six countries was created in January to help the Organization of American States broker a solution to Venezuela's crisis.

But Chavez's government embarrassed OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria by backing out of an April 11 deal for a referendum on Chavez's presidency.

It was a blow as well to the efforts of the six Friends -- Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

Government negotiators now say that opposition delegates at the OAS talks don't represent all sectors opposing Chavez and suggest the OAS-mediated talks be replaced by debate in the Chavez-dominated National Assembly.

Lawmakers, they say, are better suited for the task because they were elected by the people, while the delegates at the OAS talks are chosen by political parties.

The six months of talks between Chavez's government and Venezuela's opposition have produced just an agreement in February to end verbal insults and political violence.

And even that pact has been forgotten.

The mudslinging reached a new low after an opposition general strike curbed Venezuelan oil production and cost the economy $6 billion but failed to oust Chavez.

When a protester was slain during an opposition May Day march, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel blamed the opposition and said that government adversaries were obsessed with "necrophilia."

Interior Minister Gen. Lucas Rincon told cadets at a police academy graduation that opposition leaders were "brain-damaged" because of excessive expectations on fighting crime.

Carlos Ortega, a labor boss granted asylum in Costa Rica after leading the general strike, said Chavez was "not well in the head."

Chavez routinely assails what he calls a "fascist," "terrorist" and "coup-plotting" opposition.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who led a failed 1992 coup attempt, was elected president in 1998 and re-elected to a six-year term in 2000. His opponents accuse him of mismanaging the economy, dividing the country along class lines and becoming increasingly authoritarian.

The president says a reckless opposition is more interested in his unconstitutional ouster than helping govern.

Reuters, 05.07.03, 7:40 PM ET  

CALGARY, Alberta, May 7 (Reuters) - Enbridge Inc. <ENB.TO> does not expect to resume operating a Venezuelan oil terminal after the state oil firm enlisted troops and replacement workers to run the facility when it was shut down during the protected strike, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

Enbridge, Canada's No. 2 pipeline firm, has a 45-percent stake in the operating company for the major eastern terminal at Jose, but Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez late last year accused it of abandoning and sabotaging the facility, which the company has denied.

At the time, strikers opposed to Chavez crippled the oil industry in the OPEC member nation, cutting exports.

"We moved out of that operatorship when the general strike occurred in December in Venezuela. We have not been able to get back in to operate," Enbridge Chief Executive Officer Pat Daniel told reporters before his firm's annual meeting. The contract with Petroleos de Venezuela allows for compensation if Enbridge does not return, Daniel said.

"We're expecting that they will not let us come back in and that we'll have to negotiate the financial settlement," he said.

The Jose operating entity also includes Oklahoma-based Williams Cos. Inc. (nyse: WMB - news - people).

PDVSA and Venezuela's energy ministry are now in control of the site in what Daniel described as a nationalization driven by new management at the state oil firm.

Enbridge operated the facility safely over three years, and it generated C$3 million ($2.1 million) in net income annually for the company, he said.

"I think that they had to have some rationale for having us not go back in, and we were excluded from operating the facility so it was impossible for us to have sabotaged it because we weren't even there," he said.

<a href=www.lapress.org>LatinAmerica PressAndrés Cañizález.  May 6, 2003

Democratic Coordinating Group loses influence and moderates stance.

Since the unsuccessful coup attempt against President Hugo Chávez of April 22, 2002 (LP, April 22, 2002), the opposition Democratic Coordinating Group (DCG) has tried in various ways to bring about the downfall of the President: proposals to cut short the presidential term; constitutional reform; the creation of a new Constituent Assembly. None of them have worked.

Now, following an April 11 preliminary agreement between the government and the opposition, a referendum is likely to be held on the future of Chávez as President. It was Chávez who incorporated this mechanism in the 1999 Constitution, applicable to any elected public figure (LP, Dec. 27, 1999).

By STEPHEN IXER <a href=www.newsday.com>Associated Press Writer May 5, 2003, 9:04 PM EDT

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Three U.S. legislators said they were willing to stand as election monitors in Venezuela but stressed that a stable political climate must be established before any vote can be held.

"We ourselves have expressed our willingness to participate as observers," U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said Monday after meeting with Venezuelan congressmen. "But the key is to have impartial media, negotiation between the parties and the formation of a new electoral council, which is the most important step."

Meeks, who was joined by Reps. Cass Ballenger, R-N.C., and William Delahunt, D-Mass., met with President Hugo Chavez for three hours Sunday. They encouraged Chavez to strengthen the autonomy of Venezuela's National Assembly and offered their services as independent observers in any future elections.

Chavez, whose six-year term ends in 2006, is facing calls for a midterm referendum on his rule any time after August this year. Opponents say his government is corrupt and incompetent, and claim his left-wing policies are destroying the economy.

The opposition says it has collected far more than the 2.4 million signatures _ or 20 percent of the electoral register _ required by the constitution to petition for the recall referendum.

An opposition NGO verifying names from a mass petition drive held in February said Monday it had counted almost 2.8 million valid signatures out of a total of 3.2 million names.

The signatures have not yet been officially validated by the National Electoral Council. Its board members were stripped of their election-organizing powers by the supreme court in January and the National Assembly must agree on a new council before the referendum process can advance.

The government also maintains no elections can be held while the commercial media continues in its strong anti-Chavez stance. The opposition says Chavez is not to be trusted and claim he will do his utmost to block any referendum unless it is guaranteed by international organizations.

Almost six months of peace talks sponsored by the Organization of American States have so far failed to end the fierce political standoff.

The opposition's all-out bid to oust Chavez with a two-month general strike fizzled in February without achieving its goals. The strike cost Venezuela over $6 billion and throttled oil production at the world's fifth-largest supplier.

05 May 2003 20:59:42 GMT By Patrick White

MONTREAL, May 5 (Reuter-Alertnets) - Cesar Gaviria, head of the Organization of American States, said on Monday he was concerned about Cuba's crack-down on dissidents and the OAS was working on a statement about the Latin American country.

"I am personally concerned about the situation of human rights and public liberties in Cuba, and I am waiting for the OAS permanent council to express (this) politically," Gaviria told reporters in Montreal.

He would not say when the statement would be issued and stressed some countries did not only want to deal with the human rights issue in Cuba.

"Many countries do not just want to talk about human rights. They want a statement (on Cuba) that is more comprehensive of the current situation," Gaviria said.

President Fidel Castro's government has come under heavy international criticism after sentencing 75 dissidents to long prison terms last month, and executing three men who hijacked a ferry in a failed bid to reach the United States.

Havana has said the crackdown is in response to what it says is a U.S. plot to topple the Castro government.

Gaviria, a former president of Colombia, also said he was expecting an agreement "in a few weeks" on a referendum on the rule of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

The OAS last month brokered a deal on a referendum after talks between Venezuelan opposition leaders and government negotiators. But a week later the government backed away from signing the accord.

Gaviria is scrambling to patch up the agreement and said he hoped the deal would not lead to confrontations like those last year, when Chavez survived a brief military coup which was followed by months of protests and street clashes.

"Politics in Venezuela today is very very confrontational. We may have risks of violence as we have seen in the last few months," Gaviria told a news conference.

Chavez, elected in 1998 on promises to ease poverty, and his foes have been locked in a political struggle since last year's failed coup.