VENEZUELA: No Christmas Truce

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Dec 24 2002 (IPS) - Venezuela’s 23 million people are getting ready for their toughest Christmas in years, as the general strike seeking to oust President Hugo Chávez enters its fourth week.

Shortages of gasoline, cooking gas, corn flour, milk, fizzy drinks and beer, and the partial closing of banks and other services have made normally straightforward tasks like shopping, cashing checks, paying bills, planning trips and family holiday gatherings, and preparing traditional Christmas dishes a major headache.

Gisela Padrón, a homemaker in Hato Escondido, a poor neighbourhood in the western Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, told IPS by phone that “the cooking gas cylinders ran out over a week ago in my neighbourhood. We are buying coal, but a two-kg bag, usually worth 600 bolivars (equivalent to 45 cents of a dollar), is being sold at twice the normal price.”

Cooking gas started to run out after gasoline ran short, because managers and thousands of employees of the state oil monopoly Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) have brought activity to a halt in 17,000 oil wells, as well as in refineries, pipelines, pumping stations, docks and oil tankers.

As the strike, which began on Dec 2, drags on, the predominant image in Venezuelan cities is that of long lines of vehicles queued day and night outside service stations, waiting for a truck to arrive with deliveries of gasoline.

Some 200 metres from a gas station in Santa Mónica, a middle-class neighbourhood in Caracas, Luis Palacios played dominos with his friends as they waited through the night to try to fill their tanks the next day. Down the line others were playing cards.

“It is wrong for this to be happening. In this country everything’s nuts,” he remarked to IPS.

“The oil industry doesn’t belong to anyone, it belongs to all of us, and it can’t stop. I’m not with either the government or the opposition. What I want is gasoline,” said Palacios.

The so-called “oil industry battle” has become the heart of the conflict in which Chávez is pitted against a broad opposition coalition of political parties joined together in the Democratic Coordinator, the main trade union (CTV), the leading business association (Fedecamaras), and military officers who have declared themselves in “disobedience” to demand that the president resign and immediately call early elections.

The paralysis of the manufacturing industry, as well as schools and other services, has gradually morphed into the traditional December holidays, mass transit is operating, albeit at a reduced capacity, and small and medium businesses have kept their doors open.

But the fuel shortages have affected everything from cooking to family holiday gatherings.

In a telephone survey carried out Saturday in nine cities by the local polling firm Consultores 21, 92 percent of respondents called for the government and opposition to reach an agreement, while 58 percent blamed the strike on Chávez, 23 percent on the opposition, and 19 percent said they “didn’t know”.

In Venezuela, 3.5 million of the total 6.0 million homes have telephones.

According to 57 percent of those interviewed, the strike has been a success, while 31 percent said it has been a failure. In addition, 50 percent said that if the Catholic Church called for the strike to be suspended over Christmas, the call should be respected, while 44 percent said it should be ignored and the stoppage should continue through the holidays.

Vice-President José Vicente Rangel suggested Monday that those organising the strike should agree on a “Christmas truce”, since “the negotiating table is making slow progress, but it is moving forward.”

Rangel heads the six government representatives who are involved in the talks with six delegates of the opposition. The negotiations, which began in November and are brokered by Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretary-General César Gaviria, are seeking an electoral solution to the crisis.

Timoteo Zambrano, an opposition delegate to the talks, disagreed with Rangel: “The government is not moving forward. It continually leaves us waiting, and we are moving too slowly given the depth of the crisis. The negotiating table should declare itself in permanent session.”

The government, which was elected two years ago for a term that ends in 2006, is offering the opposition a referendum on whether Chávez should stay in office, but not until August 2003 — halfway through the president’s term as established by the constitution.

However, the opposition wants an immediate solution, and is demanding “elections now”, even though they are aware that early elections could only be held if the constitution was first amended.

The opposition — especially the union of PDVSA managers, Gente de Petróleo — is demanding that Chávez immediately resign, as a condition for calling off the walkout.

Chávez, who is upbeat because navy troops loyal to the government have mobilised several of the oil tankers whose crews had adhered to the strike by anchoring off the coast, while oil industry workers got a small refinery running again, is using even harsher terms against the strikers.

The opposition, meanwhile, continues to organise protest demonstrations, to which have been added plans for Christmas Eve candlelight vigils and special celebrations of mass to demand that Chávez step down.

For their part, government supporters are preparing their own “counter-rallies”.

A group of private TV stations that claim to have 97 percent of the audience launched a publicity campaign against the president and in support of the opposition, which they openly back.

One spot states that “There is just one person responsible for so much terror, so much horror, for the human rights violations, crimes, anarchy, murders in the streets, lack of respect for our institutions, the apologia for crime and hatred among brothers and sisters. Don’t let yourself be fooled. Not one step backwards! Democratic Coordinator.”

Some of the ads are accompanied by images of street violence and of the military — which remains largely loyal to Chávez — breaking up demonstrations, while others consist simply of written phrases in white against a black background.

The tense climate of conflict was eased by young members of the opposition who agreed to football matches with pro-Chávez youngsters, to calm things down and “give the violence a red card,” according to the promoters of the initiative.

VENEZUELA: No Christmas Truce

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Dec 23 2002 (IPS) - Venezuela’s 23 million people are getting ready for their toughest Christmas in years, as the general strike seeking to oust President Hugo Chávez enters its fourth week.
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