Clashes erupt as opposition presses for early referendum

  BY PHIL GUNSON
  Special to The Herald

  CARACAS - Venezuela's opposition Monday delivered 42 boxes of signatures demanding a referendum on President Hugo Chávez despite facing obstacles by a
  stone-throwing mob of Chávez supporters and clouds of tear gas fired by police.

  The clash near the National Electoral Council left up to 60 people injured, most of them treated for contusions or the effects of tear gas. A dozen suffered gunshot
  wounds, two of them serious, one Caracas health department official said.

  The delivery of what the opposition said were two million signatures marked an important symbolic victory for Chávez critics -- the first time in Venezuelan history that a referendum has been requested by the electorate.

  If the electoral council approves the referendum question as phrased, voters will be asked whether they think Chávez should resign, voluntarily, with immediate effect. Despite the use of the word ''voluntary,'' previous government-sponsored ''consultative'' referendums have been ruled binding by the Supreme Court.

  The president's hard-core supporters gathered outside the council's headquarters in downtown Caracas from early Monday morning. Chanting slogans like ''they shall not pass'' and ''this is a class struggle -- poor against rich,'' they vowed to repel the opposition marchers, who started in the wealthier, eastern half of the city.

  ''This is a provocation, they shouldn't be in this area,'' said Chávez supporter Inés Moncada, 53.

  The only previous occasion during Chávez's 44-month-old presidency in which an opposition march got this close to the center of town -- on April 11 this year -- 19 were killed and more than 100 injured in a battle involving pro-Chávez gunmen, police and unidentified others.

  In vain, government party workers tried to move the pro-Chávez crowd away. ''The president has called for calm and peace,'' urged a voice from a loudspeaker van. ''Those who support the president should come to [the presidential palace of] Miraflores,'' Freddy Bernal, the pro-Chávez mayor of the Libertador district of Caracas, proclaimed. The crowd barely moved.

  PITCHED BATTLES

  As the marchers came within a few blocks of the electoral council, pitched battles broke out between the pro-Chávez demonstrators, who threw rocks and bottles and built burning barricades, and the metropolitan police, who used tear gas.

  The wind blew most of the gas back toward the head of the opposition march, bottled up in a narrow side-street.

  For almost an hour, National Guardsmen who were protecting the council offices did nothing to disperse the rock throwers. Once they moved in, however, the street was rapidly cleared, and the yellow T-shirts of Justice First, an opposition party that took the lead in gathering the signatures, replaced the Chavistas' red berets.

  The first opposition marchers to arrive looked wary, and a little dazed, as if they could not really believe they had reached their objective. Less than 100 yards away, the National Guard continued to lay down a thick cloud of tear gas, much of which drifted over to the site where the opposition was unloading the 42 boxes containing the signatures.

  The opposition governor of Miranda state, which surrounds Caracas, Enrique Mendoza, who was at the head of the march, called it ``a historic moment.''

  He was echoed by Justice First congressman Julio Borges, who said the country was, ``at a crossroads -- either [we have] more democracy or more violence.''

  The Chávez government was clearly concerned that its supporters were presenting a violent image just as César Gaviria, secretary-general of the Organization of
  American States, was returning to Caracas in his latest bid to spark negotiations between the two sides.

  Gaviria has repeatedly declared that the only solution to Venezuela's political crisis is an electoral one, and the opposition says the only important point on the agenda is the date of the referendum.

  The president, however, says the referendum is unconstitutional. There are only two ways, he says, to remove him from power before his current term ends in 2007. Either await a binding recall referendum, which can be held no sooner than next Aug. 19, or amend the Constitution to bring forward the date of elections.

  The consultative referendum, he said Sunday on his radio and television program Aló Presidente, would be ``a constitutional fraud.''

  A MONTH TO DECIDE

  The electoral council has a month to decide whether to go ahead with the referendum. If it does not, the opposition has threatened an indefinite general strike to force Chávez out, a strategy favored by military dissidents who for nearly two weeks have been occupying Plaza Francia, the square in eastern Caracas from which Monday's march set out.

  At a press conference called after the signatures were delivered, Gen. Enrique Medina, the dissidents' leader and a former military attaché in Washington, reiterated the hard line.

  ''This government will manipulate any attempt by the people to proceed with a referendum,'' Medina said. ``Freedom is not to be negotiated around a table.''