www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: Governments often approach the fight against poverty with strategies based on giving rather than on empowering the people to become producers. They claim that since the poor has no land, no money, no food, they should be given all of these things so that they can stop being poor.

Intentions might be good but giving does not work. It seems to produce initial positive results but, after a while, the poor revert to being poor. Still worse, poor and frustrated.  Land distribution and reform has been a recurrent theme in the fight against poverty in many developing countries . The record is, so far, not encouraging.

Some of the better experiences, such as those in Taiwan and South Korea, have included ingredients which are often absent in other land reform programs: financial credits and technical assistance.

In Venezuela the most ambitious land reform program in record was the one undertaken by Accion Democratica in the decade of the 1960s. It was a massive effort based in a detailed study made by the Agrarian Reform Commission. The program was executed entirely within the law. To support the program several Institutions were created or reinforced, such as the Agrarian National Institute, the Agricultural Bank and a Technical Assistance Division at the Ministry of Agriculture. Thousands of tractors were imported, together with other agricultural equipment. Most of the land distributed was public land but some private holdings were duly expropriated. The main efforts at land redistribution took place in the central portions of the country, in the Andes and in the States of Barinas and Portuguesa. Some were very successful such as the Turen Cooperative, in Portuguesa, which to this day is the Granary of Venezuela.

But it soon became evident that land reform does not yield instant results and that the effort has to be sustained over long periods of time to produce significant change.  Three years after starting the program, only 60,000 families had been given ownership titles, half of the target.  A modest 8% gain in agricultural output had been obtained. There is no doubt, however, that this program started by President Betancourt established a new class of small landholders in the country. By 1980 about 200000 families had been given ownership of land and, by 1985, a total of 316000 families were landowners. Very few, however, became organized in cooperatives. After this time, the Agrarian Reform lost drive and probably many of these rural families emigrated to the cities, after receiving little or no permanent government assistance.

Land reform in Venezuela, therefore, has a history. It did not start with Chavez. Moreover, what Chavez has done in this respect is almost nothing. The new Land Law is designed to attack private landowners but not to promote the well-being of the rural poor. The only program started by Chavez, The "Fundos Zamoranos", the Zamora Landholdings, has been a total failure due to the lack of financial and technical support. As a result the people involved in this modest program are now worse off and very angry with the government. They feel that they have been used for political propaganda and are now reacting openly against the program.

In general the failure of these programs has to do with the absence of commitment by the government after the initial ceremony of land "distribution" has been televised. The day after finds the colonies without water, without fertilizers, without guidance. The only thing that the government was interested in was the political impact of the initial events, usually adorned with a long speech by the President.

The efforts by this government to improve the lot of the rural poor are restricted to what the President improvises over TV. These improvisations usually die a merciful death or become laughable programs such as the conversion of rooftops into chicken coops. Others are simply absurd such as the Rural Kit, still in operation, a program through which each rural family obtained a Kit consisting of one pig, 100 chicks, a bag of cassava roots and a set of plows and hoes.

• Predictably the family would eat the pig and sell the chicks. This government advocates a return to  "conuco" farming, the most primitive form of agriculture used by the Arawaks of pre-colonial Venezuela.

These things need to be said in order to challenge the notion that President Chavez is a pioneer in Land Reform. Not only he is not a pioneer but he has done little besides talking about the issue. Today the Venezuelan rural poor are in  a  worse situation than before.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve

www.cnn.com Wednesday, February 19, 2003 Posted: 8:54 AM EST (1354 GMT)

We are conducting the investigation to try to answer these questions. -- Raul Yepez, Caracas police homicide division

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Three military dissidents and a female protester opposed to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have been killed execution-style after being kidnapped, bound and gagged, police said on Tuesday.

Police refused to comment on the investigation.

The victims frequented Plaza Altamira, the site of more than four months of protests against Chavez' government. The military men had joined a call for popular resistance led by anti-Chavez Gen. Enrique Medina.

A 14-year-old girl who apparently witnessed at least one of the killings was hospitalized after being shot, but is talking, police said.

Raul Yepez, deputy director of the Caracas police homicide division, said the four victims had been fired upon with shotguns. It appeared that all of them have been missing since last week.

"We are conducting the investigation to try to answer these questions," he said.

Despite occasional violence in Venezuela's political standoff, there have been no confirmed selective killings of Chavez's allies or enemies. Still, street clashes have claimed at least seven lives and left scores injured since December.

The Venezuelan leader says his self-styled revolution for the poor is a peaceful one. His opponents, however, blame his aggressive class-warfare rhetoric for inspiring supporters to take up arms.

Government and opposition negotiators on Tuesday signed an anti-violence agreement meant to tone down hateful language and discourage street clashes. The declaration, which has no enforcement mechanism, is the only signed agreement after three months of painful negotiations over early elections.

Forensics report

Police said the victims were army soldier Darwin Arguello, marine infantry corporal Angel Salas and air force soldier Felix Pinto.

A forensics report seen by Reuters indicated that at least of two of soldiers had been dead for about 72 hours. Their bodies were abandoned on the side of a multilane highway heading out of Caracas.

Yepez said at least one other victim was found on a farm on the outskirts of the capital.

The civilian victim, Zaida Perozo, had already been wounded once -- during a December 6 shooting at Plaza Altamira, where she was protesting, said Carlos Bastidas, a lawyer for the dissident military officers.

At least one gunman left three people dead and more than 20 injured in that attack, which opposition leaders blamed on the government. Pinto was a witness and had been considering testifying against the alleged shooter, Joao de Gouveia, said Bastides.

"It's very easy to put forward ideas or personal judgments ... but there is an element between this case and the case of Joao de Gouveia: that is one of the victims and a witness to December 6 have died," Bastidas said.

Chavez is struggling to consolidate his power after surviving a coup in April. He has rebuffed calls by his opponents for early elections to cut short his term in office, which is set to end in 2007.

Some top brass gathering at the Plaza Altamira were the ringleaders of last year's coup attempt. The military officers have been sidelined from the talks by civilian negotiators, but still sign autographs for loyal fans.

www.rnw.nl Radio Nertherlands by our Internet desk, 19 February 2003   Hello president: Mr Chavez is well known for his tempestuous speechesAn anti-violence pact signed by both sides in Venezuela's bitter civil struggle has been dismissed by commentators as symbolic and of little value in returning the nation to normality. Even as President Hugo Chavez and the opposition agreed on the seven-point statement, news of the execution-style killings of four anti-Chavez demonstrators emerged in the capital Caracas.

Venezuela has been in a state of turmoil for more than a year, deeply divided over President Chavez's socialist policies and his confrontational style of leadership. In April last year the President withstood a military-led coup attempt, an event which polarised the nation to an even greater extent. Analysts estimate that about 70 people have been killed in street and political violence as pro- and anti-Chavez factions clash, and the Venezuelan economy has been crippled by strikes and loss of market confidence.

No solution The pact signed Tuesday represents a poor antidote to the strife, according to Venezuelan journalist Fred Pals. What the country really needs is an agreement on when elections will be held.

"They have agreed to respect democracy, peace, to make all efforts to end violence which has been rampant in Venezuela the past couple of months, they said they respect freedom of expression, condemning verbal abuse, but after a hundred days of negotiations it's rather meagre, and still a far cry from reaching an electoral deal."

GRISLY FIND: Caracas police announced the discovery of the bodies of four anti-Chavez protestors on Tuesday. Three soldiers and one civilian woman had been killed at close range with shotguns, after being bound and gagged. The bodies were found dumped at separate locations outside Caracas.

The four, who have all been identified, were well known as demonstrators  who frequented Plaza Altamira, a focal point for the Venezuelan opposition. A lawyer for one of the victims said his client had been a witness to a shooting at Plaza Altamira on December 6, in which three people were killed.Clauses which reject "verbal intemperance, mutual recrimination, verbal attacks and any rhetoric aimed at confrontation" are particularly hard to reconcile with Mr Chavez's behaviour. He is well known for multiple-hour-long harangues on television, in which he condemns his enemies as ‘terrorists' and incites his impoverished followers to class war.

Questionable respect The opposition has been pushing for an amendment to the constitution that would allow an immediate referendum on the presidency; at the moment such a referendum is due in August, half-way through Mr Chavez's six-year term. But it is not clear whether Mr Chavez and his supporters will respect the poll, in any case.

Pals says that for this reason, the opposition will keep pushing for a more substantial agreement.

 Fred Pals speaking to Newsline´s Claire Cavanagh 2´21"They will definitely go further, especially the opposition, because they need a formal agreement signed by the government that somehow elections will be respected, and will be funded by the government. So they will keep pushing."

 www.islam-online.net

"We hope to bring about a climate of understanding between all Venezuelans with this declaration," said Gaviria 

CARACAS, February 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In what is seen as the first concrete step in three months of talks, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and opposition forces signed late Tuesday, February 18, a non-violence pact, curtailing a 63-day general strike called on December 2 to oust Chavez.

The seven-point pact rejected "verbal intemperance, mutual recrimination, verbal attacks and any rhetoric aimed at confrontation," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Cesar Gaviria, head of the Organization of American States (OAS), as saying.

"We hope to bring about a climate of understanding between all Venezuelans with this declaration," said Gaviria, who has been heading negotiations backed by a six-nation group led by the U.S.

One of the aims of the pact, in effect, is to tone down the rhetoric between Chaves and his opponents.

Before inking the pact, Chavez and his opponents had been trading insults and swear words.

Chaves frequently described his opponents as "squalid ones" or "fascist coup-plotters", while his opponents called him a "tyrant".

The pact urged all political and social factions to "create a climate of peace and calm in the country".

It also called on the legislature to form a "Peace Commission" to investigate the 70 deaths during the April bloody coup.

"The document is a confidence-building measure that does not carry any sanctions, " BBC News Online quoted some political analysts as saying.

For his part, oopposition leader Timoteo Zambrana told BBC that he hoped the pact would help reduce tensions in Venezuela.

Political tensions have run extremely high since April, when the leftist-populist elected president was briefly ousted for 47 hours.

There have been almost 70 political killings in Caracas, in addition to massive rallies against and in defence of Chavez's government.

Aimed at ending the political and economic standoffs that have gripped the country for more than a year, the mediation talks were centred on proposals by co-mediator former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

Carter had proposed a constitutional amendment allowing early elections or a referendum on continuation of Chavez's term of office, to be scheduled for August 19, the mid-point of the president's term.

Accusing him of being too authoritarian and blaming him for the country's economic woes, the opposition wants President Chavez to stand down and call a referendum on his rule.

But the president, who was re-elected in 2000, has refused to consider a vote before August.

During the strike, Chavez said he would order military takeovers of food plants allegedly holding back products on the government list of staple items.

Trying to rule with an iron-fist, Chavez had warned Sunday, February 16, that if businessmen close food plants to protest his government's recently-introduced currency exchange and price controls, he would order the military to take them over.

"Oligarchic businessmen ... will not take away the people's arepa," Chavez said, referring to a cornmeal patty that is a staple of the working class dinner table.

He also stressed on the weekend that his government would step up its "war" on large landowners in Venezuela.

"War against large landholdings -- the land is for those who work it, not for the country's Little Lord Landholders," Chavez promised.

He also said Venezuela's daily oil production was back up to 2.1 million barrels per day as he pushed for the crucial industry to get back on its feet after the crippling two-month strike.

Before the strike, Venezuela, the world's eighth oil producer, and fifth exporter to the U.S., was exporting 2.8 million barrels a day.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

The government and the opposition have signed a declaration condemning the use of violence in Venezuela's ongoing political crisis following a successful proposal by Organization of American States (OAS) secretary general Cesar Gaviria, who is facilitating the talks.

The agreement sees both sides rejecting aggressive rhetoric and acts of violence and vandalism, as well as acknowledging the role the media has been playing in the conflict. This is the first formal agreement that has resulted from the talks which have now been going for 100 days.

Both the government and the opposition have agreed to respect articles 57 and 58 of the Constitution, which guarantees Venezuelans the right to freedom of speech and to impartial sources of information. The agreement also provides for the setting up of a Commission to help facilitate peace and will be made up of both opposition and government representatives.