IPS-English VENEZUELA: Students March Against Constitutional Reforms
 
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:27:39 -0700

 
Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Oct 23   (IPS)  - Thousands of students opposed to President
Hugo Chávez marched Tuesday in the Venezuelan capital to protest a
proposed constitutional reform that has drawn criticism from many
sides.

”I don't want Chávez to govern for the rest of our lives,” Mariana
García, a student at the Simón Bolívar University, a technological
institute, told IPS. She was standing next to a well-worn placard
reading ”For Freedom of Expression” and in the midst of a group of
youngsters shouting ”Students!” while holding up their hands painted
white ”as a sign of peace”.

”Rights cannot be subject to reforms, so we are here to defend them,”
Stalin González, president of the Venezuelan Central University student
federation, told IPS. With González at the head of the march, the
protesters started out from the university campus, defying the rain,
and headed to parliament in the centre of Caracas.

The proposed constitutional reform would remove presidential term
limits, lengthen the presidential term of office from six to seven
years, limit the Central Bank's autonomy and mandate closer coordination
between the Bank and the executive branch (through the finance and
planning ministries) of policies to promote economic growth and development,
and allow the president to define and redefine the administrative
organisation of the country.

In addition, some duties and resources of city and state governments
would be put in the hands of recently created community councils.

The reforms would also reduce the workday from eight to six hours,
create a social security system for self-employed or informal sector
workers like street vendors or taxi drivers, reduce the voting age
from 18 to 16 and increase from 20 to 30 percent the number of voters'
signatures required to trigger a presidential recall vote.

The amended constitution would still recognise private property while
expanding and creating other kinds of property regimes, such as state,
mixed, and ”socialised” property, which would include cooperatives.

On Aug. 15, Chávez proposed modifying 33 of the 350 articles of the
constitution that was rewritten by a constituent assembly at his initiative
in 1999, and approved by voters. The reforms are to be put to a referendum
in December. 

Tuesday's protest marked the return of the opposition student movement
to the streets, after a period of inactivity that followed their May
and June demonstrations against the government's refusal to renew
the broadcasting licence of the popular Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV)
private station, which openly supported a short-lived April 2002 coup
that ousted Chávez for two days.

The police and military set up barriers to keep the students from
advancing beyond a certain point, and while police officers argued
with protesters, scuffles broke out, including clashes with pro-government
demonstrators standing on the other side of the barriers.

A few bottles and stones began to fly through the air, but the police
managed to separate the two groups, using tear gas. 

In the end, the students reached the corner that they had previously
agreed on with the city government, and a group of protesters, riding
in a National Guard truck -- a security condition that was set --
entered parliament to deliver a document criticising the proposed
reforms.

Congress, whose 167 members are all pro-government because the badly
weakened and splintered opposition boycotted the 2005 legislative
elections, began to debate the reforms article by article last week.

Under an agreement with the president, the lawmakers have added around
30 additional articles, prompting alarmed political leaders and legal
experts to argue that the constitution is not being reformed but rewritten.

Human rights groups, Catholic Church leaders and the right maintain
that the amendments will limit rights enshrined in the 1999 constitution.

”That is why we are opposed,” said González, ”because the contents
of the reform restrict rights that cannot be reformed, and because
the National Assembly (legislature) has jumped over the rules quickly,
adding articles to the president's proposal without approving them
previously in the initial debates.”

Those who defend the reforms point out that many European countries
have no limits on the number of consecutive terms a president can
serve, and say that the purpose of the reforms is to speed up the
redistribution of Venezuela's resources to benefit the poor and de-centralise
political power to give citizens more direct participation in their
affairs.

They say another aim is to keep the Central Bank from accumulating
huge international reserves while the basic needs of the population
have not been resolved. Under the new system, they argue, the government
would be able to channel more funds into social programmes, infrastructure
and development efforts

The government and lawmakers say the modifications are the product
of meetings held around the country in which the public has taken
part.

Only half a dozen legislators, from the small Party for Social Democracy
(PODEMOS), which supported Chávez but has more recently distanced
itself from the president, have expressed differences over the proposed
reforms.

”Some 200 people are ramming changes through quickly, without consulting
the public, and then they want to give voters only a month to become
familiar with and debate the reforms before voting for or against
the final product in a referendum. But the people will not bow their
heads,” Yon Goicoechea, leader of the students at the Andrés Bello
Catholic University, told IPS.

Chávez and his lawmakers want the reforms to be voted on as a whole,
arguing that they form an integral, coherent document that cannot
be separated into parts, even though the 1999 constitution allows
up to one-third of the proposed amendments to be voted on separately.

Opinion polls show that the population is divided in almost equal
parts, with a significant proportion of respondents who have no opinion.
But among those opposed to the reforms, many say they do not plan
to vote.

That would pave the way for a comfortable victory for Chávez, who
wants the referendum to take place as early as possible, and has suggested
holding it on Dec. 2.

But González said ”we want it to be postponed so that people can
really debate the reforms and the changes that they want for the country.
If they are democrats, let's debate, and have the referendum in February.”

González and Goicoechea announced that new student protests would
be held a week from now.

 (END/IPS/LA IP HD CS/TRASP-SW/HM/07)


 
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