Hugo Ch‡vez, Venezuela's president, has repeatedly claimed that, as the leader of the left-populist government with which he wants to transform his country's society, he would occupy an important place in history. It looks like he will, but not in the way he had in mind.
Even if analysts are off by half in their average estimates that this year the country's economy, which shrank by 9 percent in 2002, will contract by 30 percent (according to official figures it declined by 17 percent in the last quarter of 2002 and expectations are that it will shrink 40 percent in this year's first quarter), it will be a world record for an oil-wealthy country.
And, even if some other chief of state somewhere-could be in Africa-eventually lays claim to a bigger loss, Ch‡vez can always point out that he managed to do this in only 60 days-even though it can be argued that he worked hard over the last three years to set Venezuela up for this hit.
Two months ago, his increasingly authoritarian rule and misguided policies, which threw Venezuela into economic turmoil, prompted rising unemployment and generated widespread crime, triggered a nationwide work stoppage to press for early elections (it should be remembered that Ch‡vez did not come to power as a dictator; he was elected in 1998 and reelected in 2000 in fairly clean elections, and three years remain of his current term).
After fruitless negotiations, that began one month before the strike began, Ch‡vez has refused to bend to opposition demands. His opponents are an unlikely mix of labor unions, business interests and conservative and leftist political parties, but their major strength comes from the 40,000 workers and executives of the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), who joined the stoppage-and continue to be on strike even though the other forces called it off on Feb. 4.
PDVSA now stands virtually alone in maintaining what began two months ago as a general strike against the president. The business and labor groups that struck to protest ChavŽz's increasingly authoritarian regime and its dire consequences have ended the action in the hope of some broad political gain. But workers and management at PDVSA don't expect that any trade-off from the current regime will preserve their company.
Ch‡vez has fired about 9,000 of its 40,000 workers in the past two months, and has gone through five company presidents in four years and replaced nine of the 11 board members with his own people. Even without the strike, this has had a lethal effect on production.
Venezuela depends on PDVSA, which had revenue of $46.3 billion in 2001, for almost 30 percent of the country's gross domestic product and nearly half of is fiscal revenue. It supplies 4 percent of the world's oil and about 15 percent of U.S. imports of crude oil and other products.
PDVSA produced three million barrels a day before the walkout, which made it the world's fifth-largest oil producer and the fourth-largest exporter to the U.S. Production fell down too 200,000 barrels a day in December. The president, battling to restore oil output using troops and replacement crews, said that production is now up to about 2 million barrels per day. But rebel oil workers peg output lower at a modest 1.4 million bpd.
Efforts by the Organization of American States and some Latin American countries to mediate in the dispute have failed. Last week, Ch‡vez appeared to feel that he has weathered the worst of the political storm and began a crackdown on the opposition.
Carlos Fern‡ndez, president of the Fedecamaras, Venezuela's largest business chamber and one of the leaders of the two-month strike, was seized by secret police on charges including treason, civil rebellion and incitement to commit offenses. Just over 72 hours later, a judge struck down three of the five charges, treason among them. Rebellion and incitement charges were upheld.
The other main leader of the strike, Carlos Ortega, the head of Venezuela's biggest labor confederation, has also been charged with treason and other crimes. He went into hiding when a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Ch‡vez demanded 20-year prison terms for both Fern‡ndez and Ortega for allegedly sabotaging the oil industry, inciting civil disobedience and "trampling the human rights of the Venezuelan people."
The crackdown on the strike leaders followed the slayings and possible torture of three dissident Venezuelan soldiers and an opposition activist last week. All four bodies were found in the suburbs of Caracas with their hands tied and their faces wrapped with tape. They had multiple bullet wounds and showed signs of torture, said Raul Yepez, the deputy director of Venezuela's forensics police.
Amnesty International on Friday joined a chorus of concern in expressing worry for Venezuela's human rights situation and calling for an independent investigation into the killings. According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, a witness to the abductions saw the victims being forced into two vehicles by men wearing ski masks, not far from the plaza that has become the central rallying point of the opposition.
"I don't think anybody should expect the violence to decrease," said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "As long as there is an impasse on both sides, if anything, the violence will increase."
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com
