Tag Archives: Puerto Cabello

Sep
12
2012
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Rock throwing, arson as Chavez, Capriles supporters clash at campaign event in Venezuela

The Washington Post via Associated Press
September 12, 2012

Venezuela Campaign Violence.JPEG 07ba9 Rock throwing, arson as Chavez, Capriles supporters clash at campaign event in Venezuela

Courtesy of: Associated Press

PUERTO CABELLO, Venezuela — Violence erupted at an opposition campaign event Wednesday as supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blocked a road and a campaign truck was torched. Both sides hurled rocks, and police said at least 14 people were hurt.

A large crowd of Chavez supporters in red shirts blocked a main road near the airport in the coastal town of Puerto Cabello before a visit by opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. A truck used by Capriles’ campaign was set ablaze, and a motorcycle was also torched.

Capriles had been scheduled to visit an area that has traditionally leaned pro-Chavez, and opposition supporters were seen running to take cover during the violence.

At least 14 people suffered cuts and other minor injuries, police in Carabobo state said.

After the violence, Capriles spoke at an outdoor rally in the town, blaming Chavez and small “radical groups.”

“Those actions aren’t spontaneous. There’s someone responsible for those actions,” Capriles told the crowd. Addressing Chavez without mentioning the president’s name, Capriles said: “It’s you who wants that scenario. It’s you who wants to sow fear.”

“We know that he who turns to violence, it’s that he’s afraid of the other’s ideas,” Capriles added. “We’re tired of violence.”

His supporters chanted, “We aren’t afraid!” Capriles had been on his way to the event when the clashes erupted, and to bypass the blocked road he traveled by helicopter to a spot where fishermen took him by a motorboat to the area.

Chavez has recently said his rival has a hidden agenda to impose right-wing measures “that would lead Venezuela to a civil war.” But Chavez has denied intending that as a threat or trying to promote violence in any way.

During the melee, some of the red-shirted government supporters went into the airport compound and carried away speakers and a generator.

A station wagon filled with Capriles’ campaign fliers also was trashed as people broke the windows, ripped out the headlights and began to pull out parts from under the hood. The campaign fliers were scattered on the ground.

Chavez backers also walked away with car parts and audio equipment taken from other cars of the Capriles campaign.

At one point, Chavez supporters surrounded a news photographer at the airport, tore his camera from him and chased after him throwing stones. A Capriles supporter, meanwhile, threatened another photographer with a large stick as he took pictures near the runway.

Carabobo state Gov. Henrique Salas Feo, a Chavez opponent, condemned the violence on television saying, “The country needs peace.”

National Guard troops arrived at the airport afterward.

Tensions have sporadically unleashed violent clashes and scuffles between supporters of the two candidates ahead of the Oct. 7 presidential vote, in which Chavez is seeking another six-year term.

National Electoral Council president Tibisay Lucena condemned the violence, saying it appeared to have been provoked by a group of people. She didn’t lay blame on either political camp.

Jorge Rodriguez,Chavez’s campaign manager, blamed government opponents and said the Carabobo police, which are under Salas’ command,attacked Chavez’s partisans.

Rodriguez said government supporters “have a right to protest and demonstrate freely” against Capriles’ visit.

“The police arrived and savagely attacked the people,” Rodriguez said on television, adding that Chavez’s campaign has photos of Carabobo police officers in civilian clothing participating in the violence.

Kelvis Olleda, a 15-year-old Chavez supporter, blamed the opposition for provoking the incident.

“They started this. They were looking for us,” Olleda said, holding a stick as he joined the pro-Chavez crowd.

Endris Quintero, a Capriles supporter, stood watching as people threw rocks. “It isn’t fair,” he said. “It’s an act of vandalism.”

Jaime Castillo, a criminologist watching the clashes, called the violence serious. “The government has led us to this confrontation,” said Castillo. He said that local government officials had put out calls on Twitter and radio for Chavez supporters to take to the streets.

He also said National Guard troops didn’t intervene immediately, even though soldiers were stationed at a post right next to the area.

In previous incidents during the campaign, four people were injured in a shooting that erupted during a voting drill earlier this month.

In July, stone-throwing Chavez supporters clashed with opposition sympathizers who joined Capriles as he led a march in a poor Caracas neighborhood.

In another incident on March 4, gunfire rang out while Capriles was visiting a traditionally pro-Chavez neighborhood in Caracas, injuring one supporter of the opposition leader.

Wednesday’s violence occurred just as former Patrick Duddy, a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, said in a report released this week that in the coming months Venezuela “could experience significant political unrest and violence that lead to the further curtailment of democracy in the country.”

In the report, which was published by the Council on Foreign Relations, Duddy wrote that while Chavez has said he will respect the result of the vote, “most plausible scenarios for instability and conflict in Venezuela derive from the premise that the Chavistas will not willingly surrender power and would be willing to provoke violence, orchestrate civil unrest, or engage in various forms of armed resistance to avoid doing so.”
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Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda, in Caracas, contributed to this report.
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Luis Andres Henao on Twitter: http://twitter.com/LuisAndresHenao

To read this post on The Washington Post, please click here.

 
Aug
30
2012
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Heading for the Home Stretch in Venezuela

jose r cardenas Heading for the Home Stretch in Venezuela

José R. Cárdenas

José R. Cárdenas served in several foreign policy positions during the George W. Bush administration (2004-2009), including on the National Security Council staff. He is a consultant with Vision Americas in Washington, DC.

Venezuela’s presidential election is less than six weeks away, but there has been no shortage of twists and turns in recent days that will likely impact the vote on October 7th. First, the polls, including this week’s stunner that has for the first time given challenger Henrique Capriles a couple of percentage points lead over President Hugo Chávez.

Now, polls are notoriously difficult to gauge in Venezuela, with accusations regularly traded that both sides skew their polling to favor their interests. But Consultores 21 is one of the more reliable pollsters in Venezuela; the firm accurately predicted that the opposition would win a slight majority in the popular vote in the National Assembly elections in September 2010.

Many other polls continue to show Chávez with a lead, but there is every reason to believe the gap is narrowing as Capriles’ energetic campaign blankets the country. The difference in energy level between the two candidates is palpable, as Chávez, despite all the theatrics portraying him as recovered from his cancer, is clearly nothing like his old self.

But cancer isn’t Chávez’s only problem. Other recent incidents spell trouble for his campaign.

For instance, this week’s deadly explosion at Venezuela’s largest oil refinery at Amuay was both a tragedy and a monumental case of bad-timing as it brought unwanted attention to the government’s poor track record of maintaining Venezuela’s infrastructure. The accident has also given new fuel to (well-founded) accusations that the Chávez government has placed a premium on political loyalty over technical competence in its management of state enterprises.

Also this month, the governor of Carabobo state, Henrique Salas Feo, charged that Cuba’s inefficient management of the key port of Puerto Cabello was exacerbating food shortages. Chávez gave the Cuban government a lucrative contract to manage the port but, according to Salas Feo, the result has only been more corruption and increased delays in transporting goods.

Also troubling for Chávez are indications that things may no longer be that rosy between him and his working-class base. Last week, the government was forced to hastily cut off a national television feed when workers began disrupting a Chávez campaign appearance in the northeastern state of Bolívar.

It seems that most of the workforce in the area’s state-owned factories wanted to let the President know of their displeasure that his government had repeatedly failed to renegotiate their collective contract (guaranteed in Chávez’s constitution), meaning their wages have been frozen for some two years, even as inflation has approached 30 percent.

Indeed, one suspects that spiking prices and food shortages, as well as rising street crime and deteriorating public services and infrastructure, may be taking their toll on Chávez’s base. If that is so, the home stretch of the campaign will be defined less by Capriles’s ability to present a fresh face of the opposition to Venezuelan voters — by most measures he has appeared to already have accomplished that — than by whether disillusioned Chávez supporters are fed up enough to switch their allegiances.

Of course, all things aren’t equal in Venezuela. Chávez still maintains huge advantages in money and access to the airwaves, and he still has plenty of militant supporters to intimidate voters. And a desperate Chávez is a dangerous Chávez. But it appears he is finding it increasingly difficult to prevent the election from becoming a referendum on his record in office. Whether he can survive such a referendum remains to be seen.

 
Jun
17
2010
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Venezuela’s Land Reform: The Government’s Latest Attack on Private Property and Ownership Rights

Late Tuesday night, Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a land reform law which gives the Chávez government control over the production and distribution of food and agricultural products (in Spanish). 
 
Ironically, the new law comes two weeks after roughly 2,300 container-loads of food imported by the government were discovered rotting in the port of Puerto Cabello. Some of the spoiled food – milk, meats, and sugar – are the same basic products Venezuela has seen shortages of in recent months.
 
One of the articles of the new land law establishes that “large estates and privately-owned plots are systems that contradict justice, equality and social peace in the countryside.”
 
The new law calls for the “agricultural expropriation” of land plots for the benefit of the farmers who work those plots. Critics of the law, however, point out that the law is nothing but another attack on private property and an attempt to give the State “ownership of the land.” 
 
Since President Chávez rose to power in 1999, the State has seized about 2.5 million hectares of land; only 50,000 of those are currently active. Experts estimate there are about 30 million agricultural hectares in Venezuela which can be cultivated.