Caracas is getting even hotter. Ahh, for the Good old days, when we could "Send in the Marines!"
washingtonpost.com
Civil Unrest Swells in Venezuela
Fears of Coup Raised as Anti-Chavez Opposition Calls for Elections, Strike
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 23, 2002; Page A16
CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 22 -- Organized opposition to President Hugo Chavez and a campaign to push him from office have swelled dramatically, plunging Venezuela into nonstop civil unrest and once again raising the specter of a coup d'etat.
Street demonstrations in the capital, Caracas, by thousands of mostly middle- and upper-class Venezuelans, have become weekly events. Protesters block major highways with burning barricades. In a sign of what a fixture protest has become, a group of dissident military officers is occupying a plaza in the shadow of a now-closed five-star hotel, giving the wealthy Caracas neighborhood where it is located a festival atmosphere, with opposition booths, round-the-clock speeches and anti-Chavez music.
The increasing frequency of anti-government demonstrations reflects the opposition's new, more ambitious timeline for removing Chavez, a firebrand populist who was elected four years ago on a pledge to improve the lot of the many Venezuelans who remain stuck in poverty despite their nation's oil riches.
Fearing that Chavez will soon move to consolidate his power by declaring a state of emergency, the Democratic Coordinator, as the opposition umbrella group is called, is pushing for a decision on new elections or the president's forced resignation within weeks. Also influencing the opposition's schedule is the start of a holiday season that will thin their ranks for weeks, as many leave for vacation, and dilute support for economic action against the government during the peak shopping season.
In recent weeks, a call-and-response pattern of provocative actions by government and opposition forces has emerged. The most controversial move was Chavez's decision this week to federalize the 9,000-member Caracas police department, which is controlled by an opposition mayor.
The decision, which meant sending troops into 10 police stations, brought thousands of anti-government protesters into the streets. Opposition leaders on Thursday set Dec. 2 as the date for the fourth general strike in the past year, hoping it will become a final blow. The declaration came despite strenuous objections from Cesar Gaviria, the Organization of American States secretary general, who has been mediating talks between the two camps in hopes of reaching a political solution to the tense standoff.
"The opposition is looking for the killer event [from the government] that will outrage everyone, and it has yet to occur," said Janet Kelly, a political analyst who directs the Institute of Higher Administration Studies here. "The threat has been ratcheted up on each side. You're really playing with fire."
After recovering from a disastrous, short-lived coup in April, the opposition is moving into its end-game strategy even as it struggles with questions regarding its own leadership, unity and the best tactic to force a twice-elected president from office.
Chavez, meanwhile, has returned to his strident form after easing off his class-based rhetoric in the weeks after the coup. He appears more convinced of his resilience than ever, even though he has lost influence over the Supreme Court and much of the national legislature. In a national address this week, Chavez said he would not move up the 2006 presidential elections and dismissed as unconstitutional a pending referendum that could remove him from office.
Chavez has shaken Venezuela's traditionally conservative politics ever since he was elected in 1998 on a promise to bring a social revolution to a country whose vast natural wealth has benefited few of its 23 million people. In doing so, the charismatic former army colonel, who led an unsuccessful coup a decade ago, has inflamed class conflict and enlisted a conservative military on behalf of his populist political program.
Those forces have come back to haunt him, however, as even many of his poor supporters have turned against his largely ineffective and at times heavy-handed administration. Senior military officers, long suspicious of his affinity for Fidel Castro's Cuba, stepped in to remove him from office on April 11 after 18 people were killed by gunfire during a protest march on the presidential palace.
Chavez returned three days later when the military withdrew its support from an interim government led by Pedro Carmona, president of Venezuela's largest business group. The interim government had dissolved the National Assembly, the Supreme Court and the 1999, Chavez-engineered constitution, painting the opposition for many as an undemocratic, elite movement.
But no one has been held responsible for the coup or the killings, and that lack of justice has become a major obstacle to any political settlement to the current crisis.
The United States tacitly endorsed the coup, in contrast to much of the rest of Latin America. But it has changed its position since then as the political situation in its third-largest oil supplier has steadily deteriorated. Washington is still no fan of Chavez. But U.S. officials have stated publicly that they would not endorse a second coup attempt. They have also encouraged the negotiations that got underway here Nov. 8 under the auspices of the Organization of American States, the United Nations and the Carter Center.
While fruitless so far, the talks mark the first time the two sides have sought a political solution to the crisis. Gaviria had pleaded publicly for the opposition to hold off on a general strike, warning that it would jeopardize negotiations. He suggested in an interview today that the strike plan, which government negotiators called "a coup-like and terrorist act," was a response to Chavez's move against the metropolitan police.
"These two acts are going to pose great interference to the progress of the talks," said Gaviria, who believes early presidential elections are the best way to resolve the standoff.
The streets, meanwhile, are roiling with political frustration and the potential for violent confrontation. Many of the opposition marches wind through neighborhoods loyal to Chavez.
Much of the city has broken into such pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez areas, a fracturing made worse by the president's move to take over the metropolitan police, an unpopular group. Moreover, the capital's various municipal police forces report to district mayors with different political affiliations, and the military itself remains divided between pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez elements.
"The way to solve this thing, and solve it peacefully and democratically, is to get to elections as soon as possible," a Bush administration official said. "What those elections are depend on the Venezuelans themselves. But you've got to hold an electoral event out there on which people can focus their energies."
In trying to pressure Chavez into accepting early elections or resignation, the Democratic Coordinator is struggling with internal divisions of its own. Those splits are most evident between the opposition's politically savvy and more numerous civilian members and the military dissidents, whose importance is derived from their support in the barracks.
On the eve of Tuesday's protest march, former army Gen. Enrique Medina Gomez, the highest-ranking officer occupying the Plaza Francia, called for an immediate national strike. But he was ignored by the major media, owned by members of the civilian opposition, to minimize what opposition strategists believed was a premature reach for the most potent weapon in their arsenal.
Key sectors of the economy had not declared support for the strike, notably the oil industry, which is scheduled to provide the government with $9.1 billion this year, almost half its revenue. But opposition leaders said after setting the date for their strike that much of the oil industry is expected to participate.
The plaza occupation, which began Oct. 22 and is counted off in seconds on a giant digital clock in the square, has become a major sticking point at the negotiating table. Gaviria suggested that the government should clear the plaza. The Bush administration official said the sight of uniformed military officers in declared rebellion against a civilian government "causes goose bumps throughout the region, and gives us goose bumps too."
But National Guard Gen. Jose Eduardo Rodriguez, who was the inspector general's director of investigations until joining the protest at the plaza, said the 127 dissident officers and soldiers were encouraged by a U.S. State Department declaration this week that criticized Chavez's move against the police and the "cowardly efforts to limit freedom of speech" after a small bomb exploded outside an all-news television station here.
Chavez has noted gleefully that the dissident officers are lodging at the former Four Seasons Hotel, the finest in the city before it closed earlier this year. But the highest-ranking officers are actually staying in about six private apartments in the tower next to the former hotel, taking turns sleeping on mattresses set on the polished marble floors. |
