Justin_stacy
11/09/07, 09:13 AM
Crackdown in Venezuela Called a Ploy
University Leaders See Move to End Campus Autonomy
Associated Press
Friday, November 9, 2007; Page A17
http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20071107/thumb.8b54c0900ba548dbb486c48b089c2 a12.aptopix_venezuela_protest_car10 7.jpg
CARACAS, Nov. 8 -- University leaders accused the Venezuelan government Thursday of provoking violence to justify military occupations of campuses where students are leading protests against President Hugo Chávez.
Gunmen opened fire on students returning from a peaceful march Wednesday in which 80,000 people denounced a constitutional referendum, planned for December, that would expand Chávez's power. At least eight people were injured in the incident in Carcas including one by gunfire, officials said.
Justice Minister Pedro Carreño blamed students, opposition leaders and the news media for the violence. "We want to urge the media to reflect, to stop broadcasting biased news through media manipulation, filling a part of the population with hate," Carreño said in an address Wednesday night.
Higher Education Minister Luis Acuña, meanwhile, offered to send in troops to quell the violence, but university authorities quickly rejected the offer as an attempted power grab.
"We won't fall into the trap," said Eleazar Narváez, rector of the Central University of Venezuela.
Chávez's opponents say the president has long wanted to end the autonomy of Venezuela’s public universities, most of which are run by rectors associated with the opposition who defeated Chávez followers in campus elections.
Street demonstrations led by university students have spread to at least six cities around Venezuela, and organizers vowed to continue protesting despite crackdowns by security forces and clashes with government supporters. The marches have been mostly peaceful, although there have been several clashes in which students threw rocks and police fired plastic bullets at demonstrators.
On Wednesday, photographers for the associated press saw at least four gunmen -- their faces covered by ski masks or T-shirts -- firing handguns at a crowd of government opponents returning to the Central University of Venezuela from the march.
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Venezuela Violence Stokes Fears Before Chavez Vote
CARACAS -- The worst political violence in months stoked fears on Thursday that clashes will dominate a referendum campaign on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's plan to scrap term limits in a raft of constitutional changes.
Angry accusations from pro- and anti-Chavez camps dominated the media's airwaves and a session in Congress, with both sides blaming each other for fighting that has marred the campaign for a December 2 vote that Chavez is likely to win.
Hooded Chavez supporters shot at least two anti-Chavez students at a university in a clash on Wednesday that erupted after thousands marched through the capital calling for the vote to be postponed, witnesses and hospital officials said.
In fighting that included gunfire, teargas and stone-throwing, some pro-Chavez men were trapped in a faculty building surrounded by opponents until others burst into the campus on motorcycles, shooting in the air to rescue them.
The images, including front-page photographs of a man apparently trying to shoot a student at close range, touched nerves in the OPEC nation still scarred by clashes that sparked a brief coup against the anti-U.S. president in 2002.
E-mails circulated calling for another march on Friday and "civil disobedience" in the polarized nation.
"If we do not take action now, we will be condemned to live without democracy under a communist dictator," read an anonymous circulated message, which have been used effectively to bring students out on the street.
But Chavez supporters were defiant too.
"If you light the fuse, be prepared to put it out, because if you don't, we will give you a beating," an unidentified Chavez backer said on state television.
In power since 1999, Chavez, who calls Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, has vowed to rule for decades.
He wants the constitutional changes to give him more time to create a socialist state and says proposed measures to funnel funds to community councils will bolster democracy.
The opposition, the Roman Catholic Church and rights groups say the reforms are authoritarian.
But sweeteners in the package such as reducing the workday and the former paratrooper's popularity among the majority poor should secure him a referendum win, pollsters say.
STUDENT STANDOFF
Wednesday's shootings came days after Chavez vowed to crack down on students who last week fought running battles with security forces across Caracas in what he said was an attempt to destabilize the country and spark another coup.
Washington said it was "another indication of the kind of atmosphere that we're -- that you're seeing in Venezuela."
Venezuelans are sensitive to the potential for bloodshed at political marches. In 2002, Chavez survived a two-day coup after about 20 people were shot dead in violence that prompted some in the military to move against the president.
Chavez, who is popular for spending an oil bonanza on clinics and schools for the poor, easily won re-election after a campaign a year ago that was generally free of violence.
But when he shut down the last nationwide opposition TV station in May, a student movement sprang up against his decision and weeks-long protests were sometimes violent.
With opposition political parties showing little sign of attracting much support among the poor, the students have mounted the most high-profile challenge to Chavez.
Off limits to security forces by law, universities are among the last institutions to have avoided Chavez's control.
The head of the university involved in Thursday's violence said he would not give Chavez grounds to send in troops.
"We will not fall into the trap," Eleazar Narvaez said. "The weapons we use are ideas, not guns."
© 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Venezuela: Opposition to Chavez’s backed constitutional reform grows
The opposition to a constitutional reform that gives President Chavez the chance to become reelected indefinitely has grown in the last week, as Venezuelan prepare to either back or reject it in a referendum scheduled for December. Groups of students were fired on Wednesday, resulting in two gun-shot injuries, when they returned to campus after protesting the Government.
http://english.pravda.ru/img/idb/venezuela-protests.jpg
Opposition to Chavez’s backed constitutional reform grows
Seven more victims suffered other injuries, according to university official. Local television station Globovision broadcast images of protesters running for cover during the incident on the campus of the Universidad Central de Venezuela. One image showed a man in a black leather jacket firing a pistol twice. Interior Minister Pedro Carreno said at 7:10 p.m. New York time that the situation was under control.
But problems for Chavez’s reform, the second in less than ten years in presidency, are not also coming from students and opposition parties. His former Minister of Defense and leader of the military group that reinstated him in power during the 2002 coup, Gen. Raul Baduel, and his former vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, rejected the unlimited reelection of Chavez.
Gen. Baduel said that the reform meant a “coup d’etat” and his comments were silently backed by a portion of the army that is not ready to support Chavez’s attempt to keep power forever. Rangel is also now a critic of Chavez’s methods and asked the opposition to go to the polls to reject the proposal. The opposition is split in those who are ready to vote for the negative and those who stand for the abstention.
The changes would include eliminating presidential term limits, easing the seizure private property and reducing the powers of state governments. Baduel warned the reforms would "seize power away from the people," and urged citizens — and soldiers — to study them carefully.
Chavez said Baduel “betrayed” him. “He is a pawn of those who want violence in the streets of Caracas”, the President said after leading a 1.5 million people demonstration in the country’s Capital on Sunday.
All along the week, tens of thousands of students marched across downtown Caracas to the Supreme Court building to petition for a delay to a referendum Dec. 2. ``I'd like to make a call for reflection,'' Carreno said in a national address. ``We are making a call to the owners of the mass media, to the students, to the leaders of the opposition political parties -- enough already.''
Students, business groups, the Catholic Church and some of Chavez's former allies have come out against the constitutional plan during the past two weeks. Protests at the Universidad de Lara, in Lara state, on Nov. 2 turned violent, resulting in two deaths by gunshot.
Despite opposotion claims, Chavez insists the reforms would not boost his power but rather help democracy flourish by empowering neighborhood assemblies, creating new types of collective property and easing his planned transition to socialism.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/09-11-2007/100534-chavez-0
University Leaders See Move to End Campus Autonomy
Associated Press
Friday, November 9, 2007; Page A17
http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20071107/thumb.8b54c0900ba548dbb486c48b089c2 a12.aptopix_venezuela_protest_car10 7.jpg
CARACAS, Nov. 8 -- University leaders accused the Venezuelan government Thursday of provoking violence to justify military occupations of campuses where students are leading protests against President Hugo Chávez.
Gunmen opened fire on students returning from a peaceful march Wednesday in which 80,000 people denounced a constitutional referendum, planned for December, that would expand Chávez's power. At least eight people were injured in the incident in Carcas including one by gunfire, officials said.
Justice Minister Pedro Carreño blamed students, opposition leaders and the news media for the violence. "We want to urge the media to reflect, to stop broadcasting biased news through media manipulation, filling a part of the population with hate," Carreño said in an address Wednesday night.
Higher Education Minister Luis Acuña, meanwhile, offered to send in troops to quell the violence, but university authorities quickly rejected the offer as an attempted power grab.
"We won't fall into the trap," said Eleazar Narváez, rector of the Central University of Venezuela.
Chávez's opponents say the president has long wanted to end the autonomy of Venezuela’s public universities, most of which are run by rectors associated with the opposition who defeated Chávez followers in campus elections.
Street demonstrations led by university students have spread to at least six cities around Venezuela, and organizers vowed to continue protesting despite crackdowns by security forces and clashes with government supporters. The marches have been mostly peaceful, although there have been several clashes in which students threw rocks and police fired plastic bullets at demonstrators.
On Wednesday, photographers for the associated press saw at least four gunmen -- their faces covered by ski masks or T-shirts -- firing handguns at a crowd of government opponents returning to the Central University of Venezuela from the march.
-----
Venezuela Violence Stokes Fears Before Chavez Vote
CARACAS -- The worst political violence in months stoked fears on Thursday that clashes will dominate a referendum campaign on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's plan to scrap term limits in a raft of constitutional changes.
Angry accusations from pro- and anti-Chavez camps dominated the media's airwaves and a session in Congress, with both sides blaming each other for fighting that has marred the campaign for a December 2 vote that Chavez is likely to win.
Hooded Chavez supporters shot at least two anti-Chavez students at a university in a clash on Wednesday that erupted after thousands marched through the capital calling for the vote to be postponed, witnesses and hospital officials said.
In fighting that included gunfire, teargas and stone-throwing, some pro-Chavez men were trapped in a faculty building surrounded by opponents until others burst into the campus on motorcycles, shooting in the air to rescue them.
The images, including front-page photographs of a man apparently trying to shoot a student at close range, touched nerves in the OPEC nation still scarred by clashes that sparked a brief coup against the anti-U.S. president in 2002.
E-mails circulated calling for another march on Friday and "civil disobedience" in the polarized nation.
"If we do not take action now, we will be condemned to live without democracy under a communist dictator," read an anonymous circulated message, which have been used effectively to bring students out on the street.
But Chavez supporters were defiant too.
"If you light the fuse, be prepared to put it out, because if you don't, we will give you a beating," an unidentified Chavez backer said on state television.
In power since 1999, Chavez, who calls Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, has vowed to rule for decades.
He wants the constitutional changes to give him more time to create a socialist state and says proposed measures to funnel funds to community councils will bolster democracy.
The opposition, the Roman Catholic Church and rights groups say the reforms are authoritarian.
But sweeteners in the package such as reducing the workday and the former paratrooper's popularity among the majority poor should secure him a referendum win, pollsters say.
STUDENT STANDOFF
Wednesday's shootings came days after Chavez vowed to crack down on students who last week fought running battles with security forces across Caracas in what he said was an attempt to destabilize the country and spark another coup.
Washington said it was "another indication of the kind of atmosphere that we're -- that you're seeing in Venezuela."
Venezuelans are sensitive to the potential for bloodshed at political marches. In 2002, Chavez survived a two-day coup after about 20 people were shot dead in violence that prompted some in the military to move against the president.
Chavez, who is popular for spending an oil bonanza on clinics and schools for the poor, easily won re-election after a campaign a year ago that was generally free of violence.
But when he shut down the last nationwide opposition TV station in May, a student movement sprang up against his decision and weeks-long protests were sometimes violent.
With opposition political parties showing little sign of attracting much support among the poor, the students have mounted the most high-profile challenge to Chavez.
Off limits to security forces by law, universities are among the last institutions to have avoided Chavez's control.
The head of the university involved in Thursday's violence said he would not give Chavez grounds to send in troops.
"We will not fall into the trap," Eleazar Narvaez said. "The weapons we use are ideas, not guns."
© 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Venezuela: Opposition to Chavez’s backed constitutional reform grows
The opposition to a constitutional reform that gives President Chavez the chance to become reelected indefinitely has grown in the last week, as Venezuelan prepare to either back or reject it in a referendum scheduled for December. Groups of students were fired on Wednesday, resulting in two gun-shot injuries, when they returned to campus after protesting the Government.
http://english.pravda.ru/img/idb/venezuela-protests.jpg
Opposition to Chavez’s backed constitutional reform grows
Seven more victims suffered other injuries, according to university official. Local television station Globovision broadcast images of protesters running for cover during the incident on the campus of the Universidad Central de Venezuela. One image showed a man in a black leather jacket firing a pistol twice. Interior Minister Pedro Carreno said at 7:10 p.m. New York time that the situation was under control.
But problems for Chavez’s reform, the second in less than ten years in presidency, are not also coming from students and opposition parties. His former Minister of Defense and leader of the military group that reinstated him in power during the 2002 coup, Gen. Raul Baduel, and his former vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, rejected the unlimited reelection of Chavez.
Gen. Baduel said that the reform meant a “coup d’etat” and his comments were silently backed by a portion of the army that is not ready to support Chavez’s attempt to keep power forever. Rangel is also now a critic of Chavez’s methods and asked the opposition to go to the polls to reject the proposal. The opposition is split in those who are ready to vote for the negative and those who stand for the abstention.
The changes would include eliminating presidential term limits, easing the seizure private property and reducing the powers of state governments. Baduel warned the reforms would "seize power away from the people," and urged citizens — and soldiers — to study them carefully.
Chavez said Baduel “betrayed” him. “He is a pawn of those who want violence in the streets of Caracas”, the President said after leading a 1.5 million people demonstration in the country’s Capital on Sunday.
All along the week, tens of thousands of students marched across downtown Caracas to the Supreme Court building to petition for a delay to a referendum Dec. 2. ``I'd like to make a call for reflection,'' Carreno said in a national address. ``We are making a call to the owners of the mass media, to the students, to the leaders of the opposition political parties -- enough already.''
Students, business groups, the Catholic Church and some of Chavez's former allies have come out against the constitutional plan during the past two weeks. Protests at the Universidad de Lara, in Lara state, on Nov. 2 turned violent, resulting in two deaths by gunshot.
Despite opposotion claims, Chavez insists the reforms would not boost his power but rather help democracy flourish by empowering neighborhood assemblies, creating new types of collective property and easing his planned transition to socialism.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/09-11-2007/100534-chavez-0