Venezuela silences reporting of 2nd nationwide strike as oil dispute spreads

By Fabiola Sanchez

Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela’s government all but silenced independent broadcast news reporting of a nationwide general strike called Tuesday to support a work slowdown at the state oil monopoly that has roiled international oil markets.

President Hugo Chavez used a law to force all TV and radio stations to transmit dozens of government broadcasts insisting all was normal Tuesday, angering Venezuela’s largest labor and business confederations, which called the 24-hour strike.

In between the broadcasts, the 1 million-member Venezuelan Workers Confederation was able to declare the strike a success. Venezuela’s Industrial Council reported 80 percent of industry shut down. Government officials repeatedly took to the air to say the strike was a failure.

The strike was called to support workers at the Petroleos de Venezuela oil monopoly who are protesting Chavez’s appointment of a new company board.

Dissident oil executives and workers have cut exports to the United States and other markets – prompting the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to warn of an oil crisis after Iraq stopped exports to demand that Israeli forces abandon Palestinian territories. OPEC members Iran and Libya reportedly were considering similar measures.

“After the announcement of Iraq to suspend exports and the effect of Venezuela’s exports, we could go directly to an oil crisis,” OPEC Secretary General Ali Rodriguez warned Monday.

Iraq and Venezuela jointly export about 4.5 million barrels of oil per day. Venezuela alone exports nearly 1 million barrels of crude daily to the United States.

In Venezuela, large industry and commerce shut down nationwide, and production declined at the country’s largest oil refinery in La Paraguana. Traffic in Caracas, the capital, was light. Many schools closed. Banks, buses, and some small businesses operated.

“Throughout the day people are going to notice that the strike was a complete failure,” Vice President Diosdado Cabello claimed.

Fedepetrol, the nation’s largest blue-collar oil union, said it was joining the general strike – a move that could virtually paralyze Venezuela’s lifeblood oil industry, which provides 80 percent of export revenue and half of government income.

Venezuela is among the top four oil exporters worldwide and is the No. 3 oil supplier to the United States.

The five-week labor slowdown by Petroleos de Venezuela managers had already disrupted exports of crude and refined products to the United States and other markets, refinery and shipping officials said. Some 20 tankers sat idle outside Venezuelan ports.

PDVSA’s Paraguana complex, which produces 70 percent of Venezuela’s refined products and is an important supplier to the U.S. market, operated at less than 50 percent capacity because of the labor turmoil and for security reasons.

“We can’t keep running operations at full capacity if there’s no loading taking place. There is real a possibility of a complete shutdown later Tuesday,” a company source told Dow Jones Newswires.

El Palito refinery in central Venezuela was closed, and Puerto la Cruz in the east was running below capacity.

Public workers who participated in Tuesday’s stoppage could be fired, the government warned.

Already, Chavez’s government has sacked 11 PDVSA executives and forced another 12 into early retirement since white-collar workers began protesting Chavez’s Feb. 25 appointment of a new company board. The dismissals failed to deter angry workers, who picketed PDVSA installations across the country, chanting, “We are not afraid.”

PDVSA executives claim the new directors are unqualified and their appointments are meant to tighten Chavez’s control over the corporation, which has long cherished its autonomy.

Teachers, doctors, the Catholic Church, Venezuela’s largest press association and countless civic groups endorsed the general strike called by the 1 million-member Venezuelan Workers Confederation and Fedecamaras, whose ranks include more than 1 million businesses. Many newspapers didn’t publish Tuesday to protest alleged harassment of news media.

Caracas deployed 5,000 police officers to keep the peace in the capital, and the National Guard said it would guarantee the safety of workers reporting to their jobs at Petroleos de Venezuela installations – as well as that of protesting workers.