VENEZUELA: Oil Industry Battle Heats Up

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Dec 27 2002 (IPS) - Assemblies of employees and executives of Venezuela’s state oil monopoly PDVSA responded to the dismissal of 90 managers who had joined the 25-day general strike, by voting to continue participating in the shutdown until President Hugo Chávez resigns.

PDVSA managers and employees meeting in Caracas and cities based in oil-producing regions reiterated Thursday that they would continue the walkout ”until Chávez steps down and calls early elections.” They also blamed the government for any environmental damages or disaster caused by running oil industry installations without qualified personnel.

In addition, the assemblies demanded that a solution to the oil industry conflict form part of the agreements sought by the talks between representatives of the government and opposition, which are brokered by Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretary-General César Gaviria, in search of an electoral solution to the crisis.

Brazil, meanwhile, sent Venezuela 525,000 barrels of gasoline, which would cover domestic supplies for two or three days of normal consumption in this country of 23 million, where there are 2.5 million vehicles on the road.

But the opposition immediately complained that the transaction was an act of ”interference” in support of the government.

Outgoing Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said last week that Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobrás would respond to Venezuela’s request for fuel imports, defending what he described as ”a gesture designed to bring closer together the two factions” into which Venezuela has been split.

Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who takes office Jan 1, also declared himself in favour of selling oil to neighbouring Venezuela.

”Lula wants to become a strikebreaker for the Venezuelan government, to try to break the national civic stoppage, a stance we see as totally unacceptable,” said social democratic leader Timoteo Zambrano, an opposition delegate to the negotiating table.

Brazil ”is abandoning the neutral stance it should take and that it has maintained in the OAS Permanent Council,” Zambrano maintained.

The thousands of PDVSA managers and engineers who have brought to a halt activity in oilfields, refineries, pumping stations, docks and oil tankers have become the hub of the general strike declared on Dec 2 by the broad political, business and labour opposition coalition seeking to topple Chávez.

Long lines of cars can be seen day and night outside the few gas stations that are still open. Entire regions are suffering shortages of cooking gas, activity has slowed or stopped altogether in many workplaces, and alerts have been issued on the scarcity of food, medicines, electricity and other basic goods and services.

The government has put oil installations and tankers under military control, and the Supreme Court ordered all public and private employees to restart oil industry operations – a ruling that has been obeyed by PDVSA workers, but not by the industry’s executives, managers, engineers and oil tanker crews.

The captains of the tankers that have been commandeered by the navy, and the merchant marine union complained of ”damages…to the physical and psychological integrity, and the torture and cruel treatment, to which the crewmembers have been submitted.”

Several members of the crews of oil tankers were detained and held for several hours before they were released on habeas corpus petitions.

Lawyers across the country are preparing petitions demanding that the judiciary guarantee the right of the striking oil tanker crews and PDVSA managers to continue the ”civic strike,” on the argument that it is not a measure based on labour demands.

On the other side of the divide, PDVSA President Alí Rodríguez accused executives of the company opposed to Chávez of ”directing the strike, and trying to use oil as a weapon to gain control over the country.”

Chávez ordered the heads of military garrisons to arrest anyone who stands in the way of getting the oil industry – the lifeblood of the Venezuelan economy – moving again.

But ”at no time can any oil industry worker be detained for supposed contempt” of the Supreme Court, Luis Valdivieso, a lawyer for the union of PDVSA managers, Gente del Petróleo, argued in a conversation with IPS.

”Forced labour is prohibited by international conventions. If PDVSA authorities want to sanction workers, they can deprive them of their pay or dismiss them, but they cannot apprehend them,” said the jurist.

Liliana Ortega, with the local human rights group COFAVIC, maintained that ”the ambiguity of the Supreme Court ruling gives rise to possible illegal acts, but in democratic states there is a core group of rights that cannot be suspended, such as the right to life, freedom of conscience, personal integrity, and the prohibition of servitude.”

The Office of the People’s Defender said in a statement that it had made sure human rights were respected in the commandeering of oil tankers by members of the navy.

It also cited ”article 38 of the American Declaration of the Duties and Rights of Man,” which states that ”The rights of man are limited by the rights of others, by the security of all, and by the just demands of the general welfare and the advancement of democracy.”

Marino Alvarado, the legal coordinator of Venezuela’s leading human rights group, PROVEA, noted in an interview with IPS that ”the right to strike is a human right recognised by the constitution as well as international conventions. It is perfectly valid as long as it is carried out within the framework of the law.”

However, ”the strikers have the legal and moral obligation to guarantee the functioning of minimal services so as not to affect fundamental rights of the population or cause irreversible damages to the nation,” he added.

A general strike ”should not affect basic services like the distribution of food and fuel, the administration of centres of special education, power supplies, ambulance services, mass transit to remote areas, or urban cleaning and maintenance services,” said Alvarado.

In Venezuela’s main cities, the opposition is preparing new protests, while Chávez supporters plan their own counter-demonstrations.

But frustration over the polarisation and the confrontation is growing, according to radio and TV reports assessing the feeling on the streets.

The shipment of Brazilian gasoline, which will make Venezuela an importer of oil for the first time in seven decades, will reach the country this weekend, while Chávez is packing his bags for the trip to Brasilia, where he will attend Lula’s inauguration ceremony.

The intensity of the conflict in Venezuela indicates that it will continue to drag on for some time, before the negotiating table produces the longed-for ”smoke signals” announcing that an agreement has been reached.