Pro-Chavez Petition Tests Venezuela Poll Climate

[Socialist Christian]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=5&u=/nm/20031121/wl_nm/venezuela_referendum_dc

<snip>
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed petitions on Friday to recall 38 anti-Chavez lawmakers a week before a widely awaited opposition drive aimed at ousting the president himself.



The rival referendum drives are the latest battleground of a long-running conflict between supporters and opponents of Chavez that has kept the world's No. 5 oil exporter in political turmoil for more than a year.


The pro-government petition drive will test the president's political strength before the opposition referendum campaign.


Troops guarded the signing centers across the country where the president's followers lined up to take part in the petition drive against the opposition parliamentarians. International observers monitored the process.

[Kolesar]

1. FTAA-operatives will try to destroy presidents like Hugo Chavez

Corporations will have an easy time taking over weak governments in poor countries like Venezula and Brazil (Lula).

[Say_What]

2. While *democracy* of unspeakable horror exists in Colombia

the US rails against Chavez. F*ck'n hypocrites.

Colombia is the US' 8th largest supplier of oil. While the US pours billions into Colombia for a *war on drugs*, which is actually a front for US intervention in Colombia, 80% of the money goes to the military. The military, many trained at the US School of the Americas, then trains and advises the paramilitaries who torture, murder, and disappear those who oppose them. AI's latest report states that torture in Colombia is on the rise. The most violent city in Colombia, Barrancabermeja, is the murder capital of the world. It is also where 80% of Colombia's oil comes from.

For Plan Colombia, there was never even any discussion in the Colombian congress. Plan Colombia was a back room deal struck between Clinton, the State Department, and then President Pasterna.