From: "Walter Lippmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 19:12:38 -0700 To: "CubaNews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [CubaNews] Chavez Warns of Armed Revolution Wednesday May 9 7:30 PM ET Chavez Warns of Armed Revolution if Policies Fail CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday that if his peaceful crusade to bring revolutionary change to the oil-rich South American nation failed, then ``armed revolution'' might be the only solution. ``We are making a superhuman effort to create a revolution without arms, but it's pretty difficult, pretty difficult, although not impossible,'' the 46-year-old paratrooper-turned-president said at Maracay, west of Caracas. In a warning clearly aimed at his critics and political opponents, he added: ``I am convinced that if for some reason this attempt to forge a revolution without arms fails, what would come next would be a revolution with arms because that is the only way out that we Venezuelans have.'' Chavez, a former paratroop officer who staged a failed 1992 coup bid before winning a landslide election six years later, was speaking at a ceremony in the capital marking the handover of 500 Chinese-made tractors financed by Beijing. His comments, broadcast on Venezuelan radio, came amid intense speculation by local media that he might be considering assuming emergency powers under the 1999 constitution to speed legislation to solve pressing national problems. Government ministers sought to calm the speculation. They said there was no national security threat and that the president had merely consulted constitutional advisers about the possibility of such a move, which would help to accelerate measures to combat problems like poverty, crime or unemployment. In earlier comments Wednesday, Chavez also countered the speculation, insisting the government had not formally discussed seeking the so-called ``state of exception,'' which would have to be ratified by the National Assembly and Supreme Court. ``I have never, never said that I am going to decree a state of exception, but it's being taken as fact,'' he grumbled. But the outspoken populist leader, who is known for his frequent warnings of impending social violence and denunciations of ``conspiracies'' against him, has expressed public frustration in recent weeks about the slow progress of his ``revolution.'' When he took office in 1999, Chavez vowed to dislodge wealthy minority elites, root out entrenched corruption and distribute the income from Venezuela's oil riches more fairly among the country's 24 million inhabitants, 80 percent of whom are poor. ``A revolution means completely transforming social reality, which means ending the odious differences between a small group of rich who have everything and a noble people stricken with poverty and hunger, we have to put and end to this,'' he said in the speech at Wednesday's tractor handover ceremony. Chavez's opponents have accused him of dictatorial tendencies and fomenting class war in Venezuela, which has one of the longer-standing democracies in Latin America. They point to his public friendship with communist-ruled Cuba and his political moves in the past two years which toppled an opposition-controlled Congress, rewrote the constitution, purged the judiciary and gained powers to legislate by decree. Chavez denies he is authoritarian and says he is a firm believer in what he calls ``participative'' democracy. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
