By Estrella Gutiérrez
CARACAS, Mar 12 1997 (IPS)

A march of university staff, students and other unions in conflict with the Refael Caldera government and its neoliberal economic programme, here Wednesday, loosed a wave of destabilising rumours.

Interior Minister Jose Andueza, released a communique asking the public to remain calm and to ignore the propagation of rumours on the supposed death of the 81 year-old president, and alleged military movements.

The protest of between 2,000 and 3,000 people, progressed as normal, but as is usual in this country, it degenerated into disturbances in the closing stages, with confrontations between people the demonstrators classed as “police infiltrators.”

The clashes left one reporter wounded, and a dozen people arrested.

The government decision to give public employees the afternoon off – as their offices are along the route of the march – and the suspension of the weekly Council of Ministers only fanned the flames and increased the tension.

High ranking official, Asdrubal Aguiar, said “rumour is the national sport and an inherent attribute of the Venezuelan condition,” explaining the cabinet had suspended its meeting as Caldera had spent the day preparing his annual report to be presented to Congress Thursday.

The centre of the city was virtually taken over by police officers, while helicopters overflew the area, in action the ministers insisted on calling “normal preventative measures for a demonstration of this size.”

The march was given authorisation for the afternoon, as the organisers had asked, causing the closure of many businesses and the paralysis of the centre of the city, while news of a strike to begin Thursday in the telephone monopoly increased the tension.

The “march of flags,” as the organisers named it, comes against a background of a difficult labour situation since January when a wave of strikes began, with the 17 public universities currently about to reach their 50th day of stoppages.

This protest was promoted by the university professors and lecturers, but was supported by a further 80 union groups, according to the organizers.

The loss of purchasing power of the frozen Venezuelan salaries has totalled 40 percent over the last two years, according to figures from the InterAmerican Development Bank, against inflation of 103.7 percent in 1996.

The limited unblocking of salaries depends on a backdated agreement being reached between the unions, entrepreneurs and the government on the modification of labour rules, including the controversial indexing of accumulated rights.

Caldera’s government returned the nation to political stability following the institutional crisis of 1992 and 1993, but has had an erratic economic record, with two years of failed control policies, before returning to the road of neoliberalism in April 1996.

The measures adopted then assumed a strong devaluation, a fivefold increase in fuel prices, increased taxes and tariffs on all services, and massive increases in the price of basic consumer goods.

The “Agenda Venezuela,” as the plan agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was dubbed, had good macroeconomic effects, but made the situation of the Venezuelan population – 80 percent of whom live in poverty – even more precarious.

Meanwhile, the nation’s reserves stand at over 15 billion dollars, mostly earned from increased oil income, the basis of the local economy, and due to the stabilisation measures.

The IMF, which has had a mission in Caracas since Monday, has refused more than a partial answer to the salary demands asking for a new increase in petrol prices, which has been rejected by the government.

The protest, which ended in disturbances and the deactivation of several home-made bombs, had been preceded by violent demonstrations in several satellite towns around Caracas, and in the industrial centre, Valencia, 150 km away.

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