Continuing the Caracas Coup by Other Means Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Sabotaging National Dialogue: Continuing the Caracas Coup by Other Means Reuters via Yahoo - Wed May 15, 7:41 PM ET Post-Coup Peace Talks Crumble in Divided Venezuela By Pascal Fletcher CARACAS, May 15 (Reuters) - Hopes crumbled on Wednesday for a dialogue to defuse political tensions in Venezuela after last month's coup, as opponents of President Hugo Chavez accused him of ignoring calls to moderate his confrontational leadership style and left-wing policies. A meeting of a commission launched by Chavez to promote reconciliation in the world's No. 5 oil exporter after rebel military officers briefly deposed him ended in disarray late on Tuesday as leading media critics of the government walked out. The lack of progress in the talks raised fears of renewed political instability and confrontation following the April 11-14 coup that briefly deposed Chavez, a former paratrooper. More than 60 people died in street protests and looting that led to his April 14 reinstatement by loyal troops. "The dialogue is hanging by a thread," Janet Kelly, a professor from IESA business school in Caracas who sits on the presidential National Dialogue Commission, told Reuters. Alberto Federico Ravell, director general of Globovision television news channel, and Miguel Henrique Otero, president of the leading Caracas daily El Nacional, left the talks late Tuesday after they said Chavez insisted that Venezuela's biggest problem was the media and their hostility toward him. "This is going to turn into a monologue commission," Ravell told reporters Wednesday. "If you want a dialogue, you have to give real signs that you want to change things," Otero added. The dialogue got off to an inauspicious start when leading anti-Chavez labor and business groups declined to take part. Foes of the president, who has ruled since 1998, demand that he tone down his self-proclaimed "revolution," introduce more business-friendly economic policies and stop encouraging militant supporters to attack opponents. They also want him to cool ties with anti-U.S. nations such as Cuba, Iraq and Libya. Business group Fedecamaras and labor union CTV, which had spearheaded strikes and street protests against Chavez before the April coup, said they saw little genuine willingness on the part of the government to heed the opposition demands. TALKS TO CONTINUE Government officials played down the apparent failure of the dialogue talks, saying they would continue despite the absences. "The doors will continue to remain open to everyone," Labor Minister Maria Cristina Iglesias told reporters. Participants in Tuesday's meeting said it was dominated by hard-line supporters of Chavez -- nicknamed "Talibans" by the opposition -- who shrilly and repeatedly condemned private media groups that are among the president's fiercest critics. Globovision's Ravell and Otero of El Nacional have hotly denied accusations by government supporters that they and other private media collaborated with the military and civilian coup-plotters who briefly deposed Chavez. Kelly said opposition representatives were able Tuesday to press their demands that the government stop using state funds to organize neighborhood groups of pro-Chavez supporters called Bolivarian Circles. Opponents say some of these groups, named after Venezuela's 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, are armed and are employed by the government to attack and harass critics. Chavez and his foes already are at loggerheads over who should be blamed for the killings, mostly of unarmed civilians, that occurred during the chaotic April 11-14 coup. In testimony to parliament, military officers implicated in the April coup have accused aides of Chavez, including Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, of ordering armed members of the Bolivarian Circles to counter an anti-Chavez protest march April 11. At least 17 people were shot dead by gunmen during the march. The opposition and the government blame each other. Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, testifying before the same parliament inquiry, Wednesday discussed opposition claims that the Bolivarian Circles were armed when they confronted the April 11 march. "Yes, some people might have carried weapons. But I can't agree with the generalization that if some members were armed then all the Bolivarian Circles were armed, too," Cabello said. "No one has proved that the Bolivarian Circles were armed and waiting for the march," he added. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytsa-05.15.02-21:21:50-23393