Leader Moves to Dominate Civic Groups in Venezuela

        By LARRY ROHTER

            CARACAS, Venezuela, Sept. 8 — With his control
            of the Venezuelan government assured in a
        landslide election five weeks ago, President Hugo
        Chávez is now moving to replace independent civic
        and labor groups with equivalents under the control of
        the "revolutionary" movement he leads.

        Mr. Chávez's immediate target is the country's main
        labor union coalition, the Venezuelan Workers'
        Confederation, or C.T.V. Accusing the group's leaders
        of being "an elite that has betrayed the working class"
        he warned this week that "we are going to demolish the
        C.T.V.," which is sympathetic to the opposition
        Democratic Action Party and has organized numerous
        strikes and protests against Mr. Chávez.

        In place of the current labor union, Mr. Chávez, a
        former Army paratrooper who in 1992 led an
        unsuccessful coup, has proposed that a referendum be
        held along with local elections in December to
        establish a single government-dominated union. The
        country currently has more than 9,000 unions, but Mr.
        Chávez has brushed aside suggestions that he allow the
        labor movement to clean its own house.

        Federico Ramírez León, president of the Workers'
        Confederation, responded to the initiative by accusing
        Mr. Chávez of adopting "a policy of intimidation" in
        violation of international treaties. "The only war the
        president ought to win, and hasn't been able to, is the
        war against unemployment, crime, hunger and misery,"
        he added.

        At the same time, Mr. Chávez's government has sought
        to exclude civic groups not affiliated with his
        movement from involvement in "participatory
        democracy" mechanisms established by the country's
        new Constitution, which was drawn up last year by a
        special assembly in which Mr. Chávez's supporters
        held 90 percent of the seats.

        Under the charter, civic groups are supposed to have a
        voice in designating nominees for the Supreme Court,
        ombudsman and other major posts. But the Supreme
        Court recently ruled that no organization that accepts
        foreign donations can take part in the process, thereby
        disqualifying several established human rights,
        religious and civic groups.

        "This government has a tendency to try to tailor civil
        society to its own measure, financing groups it likes
        with the objective of excluding the others from the
        process," said Liliana Ortega, a leading human rights
        lawyer here and a member of Queremos Elegir —
        which translates "we want to choose" or "we want to
        vote," — a new, nonpartisan civic organization. "The
        president thinks that he alone is civil society and that
        the rest of us represent nothing, and that worries me."

        The court ruling is also important because Mr. Chávez's
        government has indicated that in order to "decentralize"
        power it intends to funnel money for community
        development and other projects directly to "popular
        organizations" instead of relying on state and municipal
        governments, some of which continue in the hands of
        opposition parties.

        Mr. Chávez is directly involved in another dispute with
        Queremos Elegir and other independent civic groups
        that he has criticized on his weekly program broadcast
        by state radio, "Hello President." Citing a provision in
        the new Constitution that requires media organizations
        to provide news in a "timely and objective" fashion,
        leaders of Queremos Elegir have demanded a right to
        reply to him on the air.

        Mr. Chávez has invoked his right to reply on several
        occasions. But in this case, he has refused to concede
        his space, with his chief adviser, Luis Miquilena,
        arguing that the provision does not apply to Mr.
        Chávez's radio program because "it is a space that
        belongs to the president, who is acting as president in
        accordance with the hierarchy granted by the majesty of
        the presidency."

        The controversy occurs at the same time as there are
        complaints the Chávez camp has clandestinely altered
        the country's new Constitution, which voters approved
        last December. Comparing that document with the
        version that was later published officially, Alan
        Brewer Carías, a constitutional lawyer who was a
        member of the assembly that drew up the charter,
        discovered 74 textual differences.

        Many of the changes are simply cosmetic. But some are
        substantive and appear either to extend or undermine
        the meaning of specific articles, including a phrase that
        deprives all Venezuelans who have double nationality
        through their parents from running for president, one of
        the Chávez team's pet causes.

        Facing opposition charges that "when things are not
        convenient, they just change them," the pro- Chávez
        National Assembly agreed this week to have the text
        reviewed by the Supreme Court. But the Chief Justice,
        Iván Rincón, also a Chávez loyalist, has already said
        that he sees "no obstacle" and considers the charter to
        be "the most democratic" that Venezuela has ever had.