AFP (with additional material by Reuters and AP). 22 January 2003. Hundreds of thousands demonstrate support for Chavez in Caracas.
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CARACAS -- Chanting "Chavez won't go," hundreds of thousands of people marched through Caracas Thursday to denounce a 53-day-old strike aimed at forcing Venezuela's embattled president from office.
The massive demonstration was a response to almost daily marches by foes of President Hugo Chavez.
The demonstrators marched within a few hundred meters of Plaza Altamira, the eastern Caracas square that has become symbolic of the anti-Chavez movement since insurgent officers set up camp there late last year.
Despite initial tension, there were no immediate reports of incidents, as the Chavez supporters, known as "chavistas," marched along a four-lane highway near the square.
"Once again, the lies have been uncovered -- they were saying this march would end up in a huge attack on eastern Caracas," said Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, one of the demonstrators.
"This protest shows what the majority wants," he said, as the crowd chanted, "Chavez won't go."
At the march, pro-Chavez lawmaker Nicolas Maduro denied violence was planned.
"With their Nazi-fascist ideology, they have a racist view of the people, a delinquent people," he said. "This is a dignified and decent people."
The demonstrators who set off from eastern Caracas were to meet up with another march in downtown Caracas, a chavista stronghold.
"We are marching for peace and social justice," said retired rear-admiral Hernan Gruber Odreman, who helped keep the demonstration orderly.
Many of the demonstrators waved palm-sized copies of the constitution and wore red berets emblematic of Chavez, a former paratrooper.
Numerous marchers carried carried pictures of the 48-year-old president, while one man dressed as legendary revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara took out his cigar to join the crowd in chanting pro-Chavez slogans.
One group held aloft a sign saying "don't drink Coca-Cola" and a giant cardboard replica of a bottle of the soft drink that has been unavailable as a result of the strike launched on December 2.
"Chavez! Chavez!" chanted demonstrators at a bus terminal in southwestern Caracas, one of two gathering points for marches that were to converge in a central avenue. They also gathered at a park in the east side, setting off earthshaking fireworks.
"The people are in the streets defending their democracy, defending the revolution," Infrastructure Minister Diosdado Cabello told reporters as he took part in the demonstration.
"We have to support our president ... he's the man the country needs," Chavez supporter Atilio Mata, a 50-year-old grocer, told Reuters. He wore a red beret, the symbol of former paratrooper Chavez's left-leaning movement.
The pro-Chavez demonstration came a day after the Supreme Court issued a preliminary decision to call off the referendum the opposition planned to hold on February 2 in a bid to force Chavez from office.
Chavez called the ruling "fair," adding that "it eliminates the terrible uncertainty that was affecting the country."
The marches also marked the downfall of Gen. Marcos Perez Jimenez, who was deposed on Jan. 23, 1958, after a decade of iron-fisted rule. Four decades of democratic governments followed -- but "chavistas" believe Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, is the first president to stand up for the interests of Venezuela's poor majority.
"We have to defend our democracy, our constitution," said Jose Garcia, 65, a retired customs agent.
"Chavez is the only president that has really, really stood up for the poor."
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