eric
--- "John K. Taber" <jktaber at tacni.net> wrote:
> Who is keeping their eye on Latin America? It looks
> like the Right
> is trying to destabalize Hugo Chavez's government.
> It reminds me
> of Chile and Allende.
>
> Here is the NY Times article on a businessman's
> strike. They're
> not going to eat at Tarzilandia. Comments anybody?
> Am I being
> ridiculous in seeing a resemblance to the overthrow
> of Allende?
>
> --
> John K. Taber
>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05VENE.html
>
>
> December 5, 2001
> Venezuela Businesses Plan a Shutdown to Protest
> Leftist Policies
> By JUAN FORERO
> ARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 4 — For half a century,
> discerning diners have
> known that the place to go for juicy steaks and
> seafood specialties is
> Tarzilandia. Tradition is everything at this Caracas
> institution, where
> customers sit among tropical plants and squawking
> macaws while choosing
> from a menu that has changed little since the
> 1950's.
>
> But they will not be dining there next Monday, as
> Tarzilandia and
> perhaps hundreds of thousands of other businesses
> across Venezuela will
> be shuttered for the day as part of an extraordinary
> protest by the
> country's businessmen.
>
> Furious with the left-leaning policies of President
> Hugo Chávez,
> particularly his approval of 49 economic laws seen
> as antibusiness,
> owners nationwide are closing stores, factories and
> offices in an action
> that is shaping up as the most significant challenge
> to the maverick
> leader.
>
> "He is introducing, through these laws, communist
> philosophies into our
> country," charged Sebastiao Araujo, one of
> Tarzilandia's owners. "So on
> Monday, we are going to close, and our clients will
> have to eat and
> drink at home."
>
> Though it is unclear how many businesses will shut
> down, the powerful
> business association Fedecámaras voted last week to
> stage the protest to
> prod the government to suspend about 10 of the laws
> it finds most
> objectionable.
>
> Today, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, the
> largest trade union
> group, with one million members, announced that it
> would join the
> 12-hour protest.
>
> Mr. Chávez has reacted angrily. A former army
> paratrooper who has taken
> control of Congress and rewritten the Constitution
> in the three years
> since his election, he has cast the protest as part
> of a conspiracy
> "aimed at toppling Chávez."
>
> For many in the middle and upper classes here, there
> is nothing they
> would like more than a debilitated presidency. There
> is little they have
> enjoyed about Mr. Chávez, or his revolution — not
> his efforts to inject
> what he calls his "Bolivarian" ideology into
> schools, his appointments
> of military officers to important posts, his
> dalliances with Cuba's
> Fidel Castro and Colombia's leftist rebels.
>
> The new laws include such changes, unpopular among
> business owners, as
> giving the government more control of the oil
> industry and allowing
> expropriation of farmland. The businessmen decided
> to protest.
>
> "It was a hard decision, yes," said Lope Mendoza,
> who owns a paint
> company with 900 employees. "But the government
> continued avoiding
> dialogue and so this grew and grew and grew until it
> was time for the
> stoppage."
>
> To government supporters, such talk is seen as
> little more than
> whimpering from an old political order that once
> shut out a majority of
> Venezuelans.
>
> Chávez loyalists like Tarek William Saab, a powerful
> member of Congress,
> said a majority of Venezuelans would not join the
> stoppage. "The
> businessmen, who know December is an extraordinary
> month for sales, are
> not going to be listening to four economic
> Talibans," he said, referring
> to organizers of the protest.
>
> Indeed, on the streets, many Venezuelans who earn
> their living selling
> from sidewalk stalls said they would be working
> Monday. Institutions
> providing essential services, like hospitals and
> pharmacies, say they
> will be open.
>
> Still, the politically charged atmosphere has
> unnerved the government.
> José Vicente Rangel, Mr. Chavez's defense minister,
> has tried to talk
> organizers out of protesting. So far, the effort has
> been futile.
>
> Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
>
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