Tension is quickly mounting in the campaign leading up to a referendum next month on President Hugo Chávez' attempt to remove a ban on successive re-election.
The opposition party Causa R claimed Tuesday that a ceremony marking its anniversary at El Ateneo in Caracas had come under attack from a group of the president's supporters, or chavistas. It said some of the attackers were carrying firearms. Spokesmen for Causa R said that tear gas canisters had been thrown at the building, and that party members and employees were trapped inside the building.
Claiming that the building was "surrounded" by hardline chavistas, Gabriel Ponte Puerta of Causa R told reporters by telephone that squads from the National Guard and the Metropolitan Police had done nothing to halt the disorder. Ponte Puerta pointed the finger at Lina Ron, a voluble superchavista who founded her own little party because she felt that the top echelon at Chávez' ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and before that, the Fifth Republic Movement )MVR), had gone soft on the revolution.
Ron, it was alleged, had been seen snatching a camera from a woman who was taking photographs. The identity of this individual and whether she was working for the press, or what happened to her afterwards, were not disclosed. For her part, Ron claimed that "ultra right groups" had taken over El Ateneo. The implication of this was that she and her sympathizers were trying to regain the building.
In the meantime, students opposed to Chávez' re-election bid gathered in the Plaza Venezuela district preparing to march to the Supreme Justice Tribunal (TSJ). Their intention was to demand that Venezuela's highest court rule that the electoral register should be kept open up to the eve of the referendum on February 15. The majority on the board at the National Electoral Council has ruled that the electoral register when it was last updated last December is to be used for the referendum. The rationale for this is that there isn't time to update the register, but critics for whom the CNE has long been an object of suspicion say that as many as 400,000 young people who recently became eligible to vote are in effect being disenfranchised in the run-up to the referendum.
Student leaders said they were awaiting word from Interior and Justice Minister Tarek El Aissami before proceeding with their plan to march to the TSJ. Signs were that El Aissami was far from sympathetic towards the students. Libertador Mayor Jorge Rodríguez of the PSUV had already refused permission for the march, saying the route had already been allotted for other purposes. Rodríguez, a former vice president, is a powerful figure in the PSUV. El Aissami said he hadn't been informed of any such student plan, but added that the march was aimed at stirring up violence anyway.
The response to this from student leaders was that they weren't armed and were not intent on causing trouble. The prospect of an impasse that could end in disorder hung in the air. The ambush at El Ateneo was the latest of a string of threatening incidents since the campaign officially got under way last Saturday. Shortly after dawn on Monday morning, five tear gas canisters were thrown at the office of the Papal Nuncio in Caracas. This attack was attributed to a shadowy group known as El Piedrita (Little Stone), which has claimed responsibility for similar attacks before.
Other targets of aggression are said to have included the residence of Marcel Granier, proprietor of private media conglomerate 1BC, and the headquarters of Globovisión, the private all-news channel that makes no secret of its opposition to Chávez. Two journalists well known for their outright opposition to the Chávez regime, Globovisión anchorman Leopoldo Castillo and Marta Colomina, are also said to have been on the end of unwanted attention from chavista groups. The Caracas headquarters of the opposition Social Christian party, Copei, also came under attack from men on motorbikes armed who similarly threw tear gas canisters.
A car belonging to Ricardo Sánchez, president of the students' Federation of University Centers at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas, was set on fire late Saturday. Men on motorbikes were said to have thrown Molotov Cocktail homemade gasoline bombs at the vehicle. Sánchez, who was not inside the car at the time, afterwards said the president would be responsible if anything happened to him or "any other student." Asked about this incident, Rodríguez said he viewed the incident with "suspicion," implying that the car-bombing was a deliberate own-goal by the opposition.
Chávez has called on the security forces to bring a heavy hand against anybody intent on "destabilizing" the referendum campaign. He and senior government officials have labeled students opposed to his bid to "indefinite" re-election as "fascicts."
Metropolitan Mayor Antonio Ledezma has been the object of several dubious incidents. He says his office in downtown Caracas was "invaded" last weekend by "paramilitary groups" he links to the president. When Ledezma first arrived at his offices after winning the November 23 election, he found his way barred by men who smashed windows and swore they weren't going to work for him. They were said to be municipal employees. Then Ledezma found himself prevented from entering the building that used to house the old Supreme Court to hold the first meeting of the new city council. The building had been used for that purpose for the previous eight years, when the capital was controlled by the PSUV and its allies.
Ledezma claims that "a plan of indefinite violence" is under way at the instigation of the government. He has raised several allegations of misconduct against his predecessor as city chief executive, Juan Barreto, and claims that last weekend's attack was aimed at removing evidence of Barreto's alleged misdoings in office.
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