Chavez Supporters Seize City Hall in Caracas

Dozens of demonstrators commemorating Hugo Chavez’s 1992 failed coup attempt seized Caracas City Hall on Tuesday, firing weapons, threatening employees and injuring five before being chased out by national guard troops.

The occupation of the office of Mayor Alfredo Pena, an opponent of President Chavez, was a reminder that even as a general strike in Venezuela seems to be crumbling, national reconciliation is a long way off.

An 11th-anniversary observance in Plaza Bolivar of the coup attempt that occurred when Chavez was still a soldier began peaceably, with Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel laying a wreath before a statue of South American revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar in the capital’s historical core.

But the ceremony soon turned violent, a direction to which Venezuelans have become increasingly accustomed. About 40 followers entered City Hall, which fronts the plaza, and fired off pistols and fireworks, according to Pena’s security chief, Ramon Muchacho.

Troops of the national guard, which owes allegiance to Chavez, were called in to remove the demonstrators but took 30 minutes to arrive, according to Fire Chief Rodolfo Briseno. Among the injured were three city policemen under Pena’s command who were hurt as they tried to clear the building.

“We have reached a new level of violence and impunity when armed groups can enter City Hall, create chaos and threaten women and children, all with the national guard standing by doing nothing,” said Muchacho in an interview in a parking lot just off the plaza.

Opponents of Chavez called the general strike Dec. 2 hoping to bring the national economy to a standstill and force him to quit. But the strike has been dissolving, as many stores, banks and restaurants reopen, usually for abbreviated hours.

“If I don’t produce, who is going to bring food to my house? No one,” said Cristobal Jimenz, a waiter at Tasca Tio Pepe, a cafeteria inside the Tamanaco City Shopping Center. “I got a job during the strike at a catering company, but it didn’t work out. No one in Venezuela wants to celebrate anything.”

Meanwhile, proponents of an August referendum to shorten Chavez’s term said they had gathered millions of signatures. Chavez, energized by the failure of the strike to force him out, dismissed the effort.

“To cover up the great defeat that we gave them, they claim to have collected 4 million signatures in one day,” Chavez said at a ceremony granting urban land titles to the poor. “Let them believe their own stories and create their own lies.”

On Feb. 3-4, 1992, Chavez, then an unknown lieutenant colonel, tried with several other army officers to overthrow the government of President Carlos Andres Perez. About 80 civilians and 17 soldiers died in pitched battles. Chavez was imprisoned, then freed, and when he ran successfully for president in 1998, his stature was enhanced by his role in the attempted coup as an idealist willing to lay down his life for reform. He took office in early 1999.

Chavez supporters would like Feb. 4 to become a day of national “jubilee,” if not a formal holiday. In a speech Tuesday, Chavez said that “Feb. 4 is a day which divides history. Eleven years later, this is just the beginning of that revolutionary process. Today, the spirit of Feb. 4 is more alive than ever in the heart of the people.”

But in the Plaza Altamira, the upscale residential area of Caracas that is the nerve center of opposition to Chavez -- and where dozens of people signed petitions Tuesday for his recall -- people disagreed.

“We aren’t celebrating anything. We are mourning the people who died in the 1992 coup attempt,” said political activist Pic Ling Fung.

Since taking office, Chavez has tried to impose a “Bolivarian revolution” as a way of redistributing Venezuela’s wealth to the poor. His efforts have deeply divided the country and led to his being briefly overthrown last April.

Foreign investors have fled, and the currency, the bolivar, has lost more than half its value in the last year.

The decline of the currency has hit the economy hard because it has made imported goods, on which Venezuela depends, much more expensive, raising the cost of living.

About 40% of stores in the Tamanaco City Shopping Center, Caracas’ largest mall, reopened Tuesday but for shortened hours, according to mall manager Jose Mata.

Business owners and their employees back at work made it clear that calling off the strike was a grudging acceptance of economic necessity.

“We’re in favor of lifting the strike but not in favor of the government,” said Sara Rosas at the De Andrea Tours travel agency. “Just having to watch Chavez on television is painful. He has promoted dissension and ruined the economy.”

Lope Mendoza, president of the Industrialists’ Council, a group of manufacturers, said the strike achieved its purpose by applying pressure on Chavez, which he said has happened through the formation of a six-country mediating group, known as the Group of Friends, and a visit by former President Carter to explore solutions to the crisis.

“The strike was never an end in itself but a way to pressure the government into looking for an electoral way out of the crisis,” Mendoza said.

Though companies are back in business, Mendoza said, many are working with very limited operations because of both a lack of gasoline and a lack of security.

But Chavez partisans declared victory Tuesday.

“I see the future improving,” said unemployed laborer Douglas De Silva. “Chavez is preparing a new democracy with better participation of the people. The few in Venezuela who benefit under the old system are not happy, of course.”

Also Tuesday, Infrastructure Minister Diosdado Cabello said the government was looking at revoking the broadcast licenses of some radio stations, together with three TV channels already notified last week. Cabello said they are accused of “transmitting violent acts and propaganda during children’s [viewing] hours.”

Most private TV channels, radio stations and newspapers are fiercely anti-Chavez. He has long threatened to shut down media outlets, but last week’s announcement of the opening of legal proceedings was a first.