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By Letta Tayler LATIN AMERICA CORRESPONDENT January 26, 2003

Caracas - Belen Coronado, a retired court employee, doesn't permit political discussion in the Caracas apartment she shares with her daughter and son-in-law. "If we talk politics, we argue," she explained.

Coronado, 69, is a fan of populist President Hugo Chávez. Her daughter, Natalia Coronado, and son-in-law, Tony Ponce, a food distributor, back an 8-week-old national strike that aims to topple the leftist leader.

Briefly lifting the ban on political discussion for a visitor one recent afternoon, the usually soft-spoken relatives remained polite for about a minute before the barbs began to fly across their comfortable living room.

"We've had it with Chávez, We want him out now," said Natalia, 29, a homemaker, her voice prickling with anger.

"Then you're willing to break with the Constitution," her mother shot back, noting that the law will permit Venezuelans to call a binding referendum on truncating Chávez's six-year term only after its midpoint in August.

"Chávez doesn't respect the Constitution either, and he's ruining the economy," counter-attacked Ponce, 32.

The polarization within Venezuela over Chávez's presidency is widely assumed to pit rich against poor. While in many cases that is the case, the fault line also cuts through social classes, institutions and professions, further complicating efforts to unify a nation teetering on chaos.

"The tensions generated within families who are divided over the president are profound and unprecedented," said Luís Vicente León, who heads the Caracas-based Datanalisis polling company.

"It's turning brother against sister and cousin against cousin," said Elizabeth de Barnola, 54, a Caracas leather merchant whose family is split over Chávez.

In a half-century of democracy, members of Venezuela's tightly knit families often have held divergent political views. In the past, however, "these distinctions were 'light,' generating the kind of discussion one hears among fans of different baseball teams," León said.

In contrast, political experts say, the flamboyant Chávez - a former paratrooper who led a failed coup in 1992 and was elected by huge margins six years later - incites extreme hatred or adulation with his combative rhetoric and autocratic style, particularly as the country slides further into inflation, unemployment and violence. With Chávez having largely failed in his campaign pledges to distribute the nation's vast oil wealth among the poor, numerous polls show him popular among only 30 percent of Venezuelans, far fewer than the 80 percent who live below the poverty line.

At the same time, one in five middle-class or wealthy Venezuelans supports the president, León said.

They include Belen Coronado, a diminutive, unassuming woman who lost 15 years' worth of her modest pension benefits - almost half the total - under austerity measures instituted by one of Chávez's predecessors.

Although she now lives in a comfortable apartment appointed with oil paintings and a crystal chandelier, Coronado remembers waiting in lines for food handouts during acute economic crises under previous regimes.

"Finally, for the first time in more than 40 years, we have a president who wants to help the poor instead of only helping the elite," she said.

"There are more poor children walking the streets now than there ever were before Chávez," rebutted her daughter, momentarily losing her own quiet poise.

"You can't expect a president to turn the country around in a few years," Coronado countered, adding that the opposition is "committing a crime against young children" by closing schools as part of strike actions.

For the indefinite future, Coronado has banned her daughter and son-in-law from watching news on the television in the living room, because all but one of Venezuela's highly politicized networks broadcast almost nothing but criticism of the government and praise for the strike.

If Natalia Coronado wants to join the cacerolazos, the nightly protests in which Chávez opponents march through the streets banging on pots and pans, her mother has decreed that she may do so only from the apartment's fifth-floor window. Should Natalia participate in a march, her mother flatly refuses to baby-sit.

Natalia circumvents that ban by leaving her 2-year-old daughter with her husband, who's been home every day since Dec. 2 because he has joined the anti-Chávez strike.

"I resent it that I can't express myself politically in my own home," Natalia said.

"What you're expressing is a hatred that will eat you up inside," her mother rejoined.

Since the severe rupture over Chávez began a few years ago, "everyone has begun to express their differences," said Caracas sociologist Mercedes Pulido. "The problem is, no one accepts them. What we need is a leader who can heal the wounds."

If the next president is elected peacefully, families will mend their internal rifts more easily, Pulido predicted. "But if it ends by insurrections or violence, it will be more difficult."

Asked if they would forgive and forget their political differences if Chávez is unseated through widespread violence, Belen and Natalia Coronado shifted in their seats and looked at each other expectantly across their marble coffee table. "I hope so," the daughter said.

"I don't think so," the mother answered, gently but firmly.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, January 27, 2003 - 3:43:58 AM By: Robert Rudnicki

Alianza Bravo Pueblo president and Coordinadora Democratica spokesman Antonio Ledezma is proposing a repeat of this weekend's 24-hour protest in the east of Caracas, to be held in the interior of Venezuela. Ledezma says he'll hold discussions with his fellow opposition leaders to examine the possibility of organizing similar protests in Barquisimeto, Maracay, Maracaibo, Merida, San Cristobal and Valencia. 

If the decision to hold the protests is taken,  it is possible that they will simultaneous ... "it's necessary to hold a simultaneous marathon civil protest, above all when Foreign Ministers representing the Friends of Venezuela group arrive in Caracas on January 30."

Movimiento al Socialismo secretary general Leopoldo Puchi also backed the proposal, stating that such a 24 or 48-hour demonstration would put pressure on President Hugo Chavez Frias to reach a negotiated settlement to the crisis.

A high level delegation of the six friends of Venezuela members, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States are set to arrive in Caracas on Thursday as part of their mission to push through a negotiated settlement.

www.dailynews.com209541138579,00.html By Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelans awaited details of new currency controls, while protesters continued to press for the ouster of President Hugo Chavez in a nearly two-month-long strike that has severely hampered the economy, although oil production was slowly increasing.

Chavez last week suspended foreign currency dealings through Tuesday and said he would announce new currency controls to halt the rush of nervous Venezuelans trading in their currency, the bolivar, for dollars.

Details about the new controls and even when they will be announced have not been revealed, but there are fears that the government will largely limit the availability of dollars to Chavez supporters while cutting off those taking part in the strike, which began Dec. 2.

Production and Commerce Minister Ramon Rosales was quoted in the El Nacional newspaper saying that importers and exporters who do not back the crippling strike will get priority for access to dollars.

That would drive many businessmen to a new but flourishing black market for the American currency, sending already-rising prices even higher.

Rosales also said dollars will be guaranteed for food and raw materials for agriculture, health and education.

Meanwhile, a demonstration on a central Caracas highway continued Sunday morning after thousands spent the night on the asphalt to protest a Supreme Court decision indefinitely suspending a Feb. 2 referendum to ask Venezuelans whether Chavez should resign.

sg.biz.yahoo.com Monday January 27, 4:02 PM

The top 10 oil companies operating in Venezuela are losing nearly $7 million a day because of a sharp decline in Venezuelan oil production. For most of them, that's a small price for what is proving to be a financial bonanza, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported.

Venezuela's prolonged strike has helped push oil prices to more than $30 a barrel and resulted in production increases for several member nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, where many of the same companies operate. Since the amount of oil major companies produce in Venezuela is a tiny fraction of their overall production, they are benefiting along with virtually every other oil producer in the world. One exception: Petroleos de Venezuela SA, Venezuela's national oil company.

"Oil companies are crying all the way to the bank," said Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Fahnestock & Co.

Earnings among major oil companies for the fourth quarter of 2002, to be released this week, are expected to be 51% higher than a year earlier, in part because of Venezuela's turmoil, according to Bruce Lanni, an analyst at A.G. Edwards Inc. Exploration and production profit at ChevronTexaco Corp., whose 120,000-barrel-a-day production in Venezuela has been roughly halved, are expected to triple, Mr. Lanni said. The reason: robust prices in addition to merger savings.

"We had to shut all of our production," said an official at BP PLC, which produces almost 50,000 barrels a day in Venezuela. "But the financial loss was more than offset by the rise in the world price of oil."

Oil prices have risen more than 20% since the Dec. 2 start of a strike aimed at forcing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from office. Industry analysts attribute some of the rise in price to growing concern about a possible war with Iraq, another major oil producer, and cold weather. But they say the primary driver has been Venezuela, adding as much as $6 a barrel to the price of oil.

On Friday the U.S. benchmark settled $1.03 higher at $33.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. European Brent rose 77 cents, closing at $30.49 on the London Petroleum Exchange.

Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters Bhushan Bahree and Thaddeus Herrick contributed to this report.

www.miami.com Posted on Mon, Jan. 27, 2003

CARACAS - (AP) -- President Hugo Chávez said Sunday he would put in place price and currency controls as Venezuela's economy heads for a tailspin stemming from an opposition strike, which entered its ninth week today.

''So that these [currency] controls do not hurt the poor, we will institute price controls,'' Chávez said in Porto Alegre, Brazil, at the World Social Forum. He did not give details of the controls.

Hundreds of thousands of his foes occupied a central Caracas highway for the entire weekend to protest a Supreme Court decision suspending a Feb. 2 referendum on Chávez's rule.

After extending the protest well beyond the 24 hours planned, protesters finally rolled up their national flags -- and, in many cases, their tents -- and let traffic flow again.

Opposition leaders said that, instead of the referendum, they would collect signatures Feb. 2 petitioning for Chávez to resign, for his term to be cut and for pro-Chávez lawmakers to be replaced.

Chávez suspended foreign currency dealings for five business days last Wednesday to halt the rush of nervous Venezuelans trading in their bolivars for dollars.

The currency has lost 25 percent of its value this year alone.

On Sunday, he said he will soon propose a tax on all financial transactions in Venezuela, saying it would be ''a kind of Tobin tax.'' Tobin taxes, named after Yale University economist and Nobel-laureate James Tobin, are designed to tame currency market volatility.

Chávez did not provide more details, but said Venezuela's dollar-based reserves dropped $3 billion in December and January as a national strike dried up oil exports. Dollars are needed to buy food -- about half of which is imported -- medicines and other essentials, some of which already are in short supply.

Chávez also said Sunday that oil production has risen to 1.32 million barrels a day. But dissident oil executives put the figure at about 957,000 barrels.