Chavez opposition resumes protests to demand election

CARACAS, Venezuela -- After a brief Christmas break, thousands of people renewed protests across Venezuela Thursday, the 25th day of a strike to force Hugo Chavez to call elections.

In Caracas, workers, journalists, business leaders, artists and politicians staged rallies under a new rallying cry: "Freedom!"

Thousands of protesters demonstrated in the streets and at the headquarters of the state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela S.A, or PDVSA. Oil executives staged a rally shouting "Not one step back!" and "We are not afraid!" as speakers denounced government firings of striking oil workers and arrests of tanker crews.

The strike, which began Dec. 2, has shut most gasoline stations, factories and many stores, causing fuel and food shortages in this food-importing nation of 24 million.

Shortages take toll

In a first sign of unrest sparked by shortages, about 300 people from poor districts blocked a highway for two hours to demand propane cooking gas. "We are desperate. We've been using charcoal and kerosene to cook for two weeks now," said Faustino Gonzalez, a 59-year-old taxi driver.

The government is seeking food and fuel overseas.

Brazil's state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro shipped 520,000 barrels of gasoline to Venezuela. The tanker should arrive by the weekend, Brazilian officials said.

Members of the opposition Democratic Coordinator movement met with Brazil's ambassador Thursday to urge Brazil not to interfere in Venezuela's crisis by helping Chavez break the oil strike.

Venezuela will pay oil for food from the Dominican Republic, Agriculture Minister Efren Andrade said. The deal includes a rice shipment delivered Thursday by a Venezuelan navy vessel. Talks for milk and meat from Colombia are continuing.

One strike leader said that the opposition should consider ending the strike and focus instead on elections.

"The fundamental outcome we wanted, the president's resignation" or his agreement to a referendum hasn't occurred, said Enrique Ochoa Antich, a leader of the Democratic Coordinator.

The strike has all but stopped exports from the world's fifth-biggest oil supplier, which usually provides 14 percent of U.S. oil imports. A tanker carrying 300,000 gallons of gasoline departed for Chile, a shipping company source said Thursday. Officials couldn't immediately be reached to explain why Venezuela shipped the gas when it needs it at home.

Fears that the strike will continue well into 2003 and possible war in Iraq sent oil prices above $32 a barrel, the highest they've been in two years. Some companies have asked the Bush administration to tap into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

"This is a fight of a people who are demanding liberty!" Timoteo Zambrano, an opposition negotiator at talks sponsored by the Organization of American States, proclaimed to deafening cheers by employees of Venezuela's oil monopoly.

"The international community cannot ask for the impossible" -- call off the strike and resume oil exports, Zambrano said.

Opposition negotiator Americo Martin said government firings of oil workers would be brought up at the OAS talks, which resumed Thursday. But government negotiator Nicolas Maduro said the government wouldn't discuss the workers' status at the OAS talks.

PDVSA president Ali Rodriguez has acknowledged total exports for December were 2 million barrels -- compared to a pre-strike average of about 3 million barrels a day.

Rodriguez also said Venezuela will re-establish domestic gas supplies in January -- a goal dismissed as impossible by PDVSA executives who argue that 35,000 skilled and striking workers cannot simply be replaced or that a giant oil company can simply restart operations.

Oil workers are ignoring a Supreme Court injunction ordering them to work until the court decides if the strike is legal.

Zambrano said the opposition wants Chavez to quit or call a nonbinding referendum in early 2003 and, if he loses, call presidential elections. The opposition also wants guarantees of job security for striking oil workers.

Venezuela's opposition delivered 2 million signatures demanding the nonbinding vote. The national elections council scheduled the vote for Feb. 2 and is updating voter lists, though it's unknown if Chavez's government will abide by or pay for a vote. It has challenged the validity of council members in what critics call a tactic to delay a vote.

Chavez, whose six-year term runs to January 2007, says early elections require changing Venezuela's constitution, a process that must be done in the Chavez-dominated National Assembly. The assembly also would deal with another proposal: reducing presidential terms to four years.

The president has welcomed the possibility of a binding referendum on his presidency in August 2003, or halfway into his term, as permitted by the constitution. Opponents cite a constitutional clause allowing Venezuelans not to recognize a government they consider undemocratic.