www.sltrib.com BY JUAN FORERO THE NEW YORK TIMES

    CARACAS, Venezuela -- With large numbers of businesses across Venezuela opening to offset huge financial losses from a 62-day-old general strike, opposition leaders said Saturday that they would scale back the walkout this week so that factories, shops, malls and schools could reopen.

    The strike, which has failed in its originally stated mission to force President Hugo Chavez to resign or to call early elections, will continue only in the all-important oil industry.

    But the decision, which opposition leaders said would be explained in detail in a news conference today, was seen as a clear victory for Chavez, who has played down the walkout while calling its organizers fascists and coup plotters.

    The government's opponents characterized their action as a new phase in their efforts to unseat Chavez. They asserted that the strike, which began Dec. 2, had led to international participation in Venezuela's political crisis and pressed the government into negotiations that could lead to an electoral solution.

    "Now that there is a concrete proposal for elections, the Venezuelan conflict is going into a new phase where the key to the protest is no longer the strike but negotiations," said Jesus Torrealba, executive secretary of the opposition group's coordinating committee.

    But the fact is that for many days the strike has been one in name only, with Venezuelans having tired of a walkout that had devastated their economy while bringing none of the results promised in December. The blow to the Venezuelan economy, Latin America's fourth-largest, is estimated at $4 billion in lost oil revenues alone.

    "We share the opposition's opinion, but we live by working," said Maritza Rondon, owner of a wholesale hardware store in Venezuela's second-largest city, Maracaibo, that reopened weeks ago. "Our business has nothing to do with our politics."

    Alfredo Chirino, owner of an auto parts factory in Caracas that reopened last week, said he could not keep his business closed any longer. "We wanted to have some income, and we had to meet some commitments dating back to November," he said. "We needed to bring in income to pay our workers."

    The reopening of businesses appears to give Chavez the upper hand in negotiations with the opposition that are being mediated by the Organization of American States. The government's position could be further solidified as the state-owned oil company continues to reactivate oil production.

    "The opposition has basically lost the strike," said Gregory Wilpert, an American here who is finishing a book about the Chavez era. "They gambled that the strike would get rid of Chavez, and the strike failed. They now don't have many other options."     Opposition leaders, who called their decision Saturday a goodwill gesture toward the government, said they would continue to apply pressure.

    Today, they plan to hold what is being called El Firmazo -- loosely translated as "the big sign-up" -- a petition drive. Organizers are hoping to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures to support a constitutional amendment to shorten the president's term and lead to new elections.

www.boston.com By Mike Ceaser, Globe Correspondent, 2/2/2003

CARACAS - Almost two months into a petroleum strike that has crippled Venezuela's economy but has failed in its goal of removing President Hugo Chavez, the unlikely anti-Chavez coalition of business, union, media, and political parties is beginning to fragment.

Across the country, unions and businesses are being forced into hard choices between their opposition to Chavez - whom many accuse of corruption, authoritarianism, and trying to remake Venezuela into another Cuba - and their own economic survival.

Small independent stores and restaurants were the first to give in and reopen their doors. Some did so as early as mid-December, although some business owners admitted to never having completely shut down, as they were partially obligated by a Labor Ministry decree requiring them to meet normal payrolls.

Then the tanker pilots went back to work. Banks, which had restricted their hours, announced last week that they also would return to normal operations. And organizations of shopping malls, fast-food franchises, and private schools are all considering ''flexibilizing'' the strike by reopening at least partially.

Strike leaders said yesterday that they would ease the work stoppage this week to protect businesses against bankruptcy.

The decision was prompted by pressure from the ''Group of Friends,'' a forum made up of the United States and five other nations who are supporting efforts by the Organization of American States to broker an end to Venezuela's bitter political stalemate.

The state petroleum company managers, whose walkout initially slashed Venezuela's crude production by more than 95 percent, have stayed away from work - but they may no longer have a choice. Chavez, who has restored one-third of normal crude production using lower-level employees and foreign workers, has issued many of them pink slips.

''There's no going back,'' said Jose Toro Hardy, a former director of Petroleum of Venezuela whose striking workers have been one of Chavez's most visible opponents.

Even Carlos Ortega, president of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, and the opposition's most aggressive leader, has backpedaled on several points, including a call for a tax strike and his vow to continue the strike until Chavez leaves office.

Another part of the opposition's rhetoric has even shifted into damage control, trying to salvage the jobs of the Petroleum of Venezuela managers who walked off in early December, apparently confident that the collapse of the Chavez regime would follow.

Ortega rejects suggestions that the strikers are softening their stance.

''There can be no `flexibilization' of the strike,'' he said. ''What there can be is a change of strategy, which is something totally different.''

After a ruling on Jan. 22 by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, however, the opposition is groping for a strategy.

The tribunal, considered by critics to be pro-Chavez, used a technicality to annul a referendum Feb. 2 on Chavez's rule.

That decision frustrated opposition hopes that a resounding defeat for the increasingly unpopular president would mortally weaken his government.

Although Chavez had vowed not to step down even if he lost 90 percent of the vote, the referendum also provided the opposition a clear objective - and a convenient date to declare victory and call off the strike.

The justices' ruling ''was temporarily demoralizing,'' said Anibal Romero, a Caracas political analyst and a Chavez critic. ''But that only lasted 24 hours.''

Yet without the referendum to rally them, opposition forces have begun jousting among themselves over which anti-Chavez strategy to try. As a result, they are trying anything they can think of.

In a Caracas plaza, Jorge Antonio Vergara was collecting signatures on one petition to cut the presidential term and another to convoke a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution from scratch. Soon, Vergara said, they would add several more petitions, to cut the terms of legislators and to try another consultative referendum on Chavez's rule.

But all the strategies face major obstacles in the Chavez-dominated government.

''More than anything, it's a fight to keep insisting,'' Vergara added, ''since he has all of the governmental powers controlled.''

Chavez says the opposition is welcome to try any constitutional means to cut short his rule and that he will not oppose a revocatory referendum after August, the halfway point of his six-year mandate.

But a variety of opponents have voiced doubt that Chavez would ever relinquish power democratically.

Meanwhile, as the petroleum strike has extended, the economic picture has darkened. Analysts expect the economy to shrink 40 percent in the first quarter, and they predict another million unemployed this year on top of the government jobless rate of 16 percent last year.

The government plans exchange controls to protect the plummeting currency, the bolivar, and it expects to impose price controls on basic necessities.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 12:47:33 AM By: Robert Rudnicki

Hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters have marched through the streets of Caracas, massing outside the hotel where Coordinadora Democratica leaders were meeting Deputy Foreign Ministers from the Friends of Venezuela group, made up of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

The demonstrators called for an end to legal action against the out of four of Venezuela's privately-owned national TV stations, RCTV, Televen and Globovision, as well as to call for early elections, which they hope will see the removal of President Hugo Chavez Frias from office.

The Infrastructure Ministry has launched investigations against the three stations, after the President accused them of waging a campaign against his government after suspending normal advertising and broadcasting only pro-opposition and anti-government ads.

• However, it now seems that the stations will be returning to normal programming, with a return to soap operas and normal advertising.

Despite this apparent concession, it is still unclear if this will be enough to pacify the government and prevent legal action from being taken. Globovision, however, got its dates mixed up and in an obvious typo said the stoppage would continue until Monday, December 3.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 02, 2003 - 12:30:57 AM By: Robert Rudnicki

Deputy Foreign Ministers from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States have begun their push for a resolution to Venezuela's political conflict after holding lengthy talks with President Hugo Chavez Frias and opposition leaders. 

The group made it clear that they see early elections as the only way to end the deadlock, "we reaffirm the need for a solution agreed by both sides that is constitutional, democratic, peaceful and electoral ... we ask both sides to make every effort to seek a negotiated solution," the group's statement read. 

President Chavez Frias made clear to the high level delegation that he and his government are all democratically elected and that he represents a legitimate government.

However, it seems that the group will encourage the President to agree to one of the two proposals put forward by Former US President Jimmy Carter, either a constitutional amendment that would cut the President's term from six to four years, allowing for a early vote on his rule, or holding a revocatory referendum in August this year, an option that is already permitted by the current Constitution. 

www.dailynews.com209541152366,00.html Article Last Updated: Saturday, February 01, 2003 - 10:19:32 PM MST By Juan Forero The New York Times

CARACAS, Venezuela -- With large numbers of businesses across Venezuela opening to offset huge financial losses from a 62-day-old general strike, opposition leaders said Saturday that they would scale back the walkout this week so that factories, shops, malls and schools could reopen.

The strike, which has failed in its originally stated mission to force President Hugo Chavez to resign or to call early elections, will continue only in the all-important oil industry.

But the decision, which opposition leaders said would be explained in detail in a news conference Sunday night, was seen as a clear victory for Chavez, who has played down the walkout while calling its organizers fascists and coup plotters.

The government's opponents characterized their action as a new phase in their efforts to unseat Chavez. They asserted that the strike, which began Dec. 2, had led to international participation in Venezuela's political crisis and pressed the government into negotiations that could lead to an electoral solution.

"Now that there is a concrete proposal for elections, the Venezuelan conflict is going into a new phase where the key to the protest is no longer the strike but negotiations," said Jesus Torrealba, executive secretary of the opposition group's coordinating committee.

But the fact is that for many days the strike has been one in name only, with Venezuelans having tired of a walkout that devastated their economy while bringing none of the results promised in December. The blow to the Venezuelan economy, Latin America's fourth-largest, is estimated at $4 billion in lost oil revenues alone.

"We share the opposition's opinion, but we live by working," said Maritza Rondon, owner of a wholesale hardware store in Venezuela's second-largest city, Maracaibo, that reopened weeks ago. "Our business has nothing to do with our politics."

Alfredo Chirino, owner of an auto parts factory in Caracas that reopened last week, said he could not keep his business closed any longer. "We wanted to have some income, and we had to meet some commitments dating back to November," he said. "We needed to bring in income to pay our workers."

The reopening of businesses appears to give Chavez the upper hand in negotiations with the opposition that are being mediated by the Organization of American States. The government's position could be further solidified as the state-owned oil company continues to reactivate oil production.

"The opposition has basically lost the strike," said Gregory Wilpert, an American in Venezuela who is finishing a book about the Chavez era. "They gambled that the strike would get rid of Chavez, and the strike failed. They now don't have many other options."

Opposition demands that Chavez resign, often heard in December from his foes, have dissipated. Instead, the two sides are now expected to mull over two electoral solutions to the crisis that were proposed last month by former President Jimmy Carter and have the support of the United States and five other nations whose representatives met on Friday with Chavez and his opponents.

But opposition leaders, who called their decision Saturday a goodwill gesture toward the government, said they would continue to apply pressure.

On Sunday, they plan to hold what is being called El Firmazo -- loosely translated as "the big sign-up" -- a petition drive. Organizers are hoping to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures to support a constitutional amendment to shorten the president's term and lead to new elections.

In the meantime, Torrealba and other opposition leaders said that the movement would continue to hold street demonstrations and that some businesses would open their doors but reduce their hours of operation as a sign of protest.