Venezuelan protesters stop short of presidential palace

  BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

  CARACAS - Demanding that leftist President Hugo Chávez resign, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans marched on the Miraflores presidential palace
  Thursday but turned away at the last minute to avoid a confrontation and instead blocked a military base in Caracas.

  Concerned about a possible attack on the palace, 500 National Guard troops and hundreds more police cordoned off the area while paratroopers from a
  unit loyal to Chávez were summoned from a nearby city to increase security.

  The march, estimated by opposition leaders at one million people, marked three months since an April 11 shootout with pro-Chávez gunmen during a
  similar protest that left 18 dead and sparked a two-day military coup against Chávez.

  March organizers had threatened to reach Miraflores despite the security measures, with some saying they wanted to present a written demand for
  Chávez's resignation and others vowing to physically force him out of the palace.

  `CIVIL REBELLION'

  But they turned away five blocks from the palace. The majority went home, but several thousand later blocked a main capital highway and the La Carlota
  military air base in central Caracas well into Thursday night in what they called a ``civil rebellion.''

  Chávez spent the day in the city of Maracay, 50 miles to the southwest, attending a ceremony at the paratrooper unit where he once served as an army
  lieutenant colonel and that helped return him to power on April 14.

  The president called for calm on nationwide radio late Wednesday, saying that security forces would guarantee the peace and urging his backers to stay
  away from Miraflores and avert a repeat of the April 11 shootings.

  The peaceful nature of the march led some analysts to argue that the opposition had failed for now to spark the kind of confrontation that would have
  forced Chávez to resign or provoke another military coup.

  But its massive size signaled no easing of the bitter polarization between Chávez supporters and foes, all but paralyzing this nation and fueling fears of
  a new military attempt to oust Chávez or even a civil war.

  Leaders of the country's largest labor union, the CTV, and its largest private sector business group, Fedecámaras, announced late Thursday they would
  be meeting today to consider nationwide strikes to force Chávez to resign.

  Secret groups of military officers threatened a new coup in recent weeks unless Chávez and his critics found a constitutional way out of the crisis,
  sharpened by a recent increase in the rates of unemployment and inflation.

  Opposition to the president, who staged a failed coup attempt in 1992 but was elected in 1998, has sharpened in recent months as Chávez pursued his
  vision of a populist ''Bolivarian Revolution'' on behalf of Venezuela's poor.

  The private sector, labor unions, the Catholic church and the media have all lined up strongly against Chávez, charging that he has made the nation
  ungovernable and plunged it into economic recession.

  But Chávez remains popular among the lower classes in Venezuela, a country rich in oil -- it supplies 15 percent of U.S. imports -- but where 80 percent
  of its 24 million people fall below the official poverty line.

  ''The people who count, the poor people, are with Chávez,'' retired teacher Pablo Ordóñez said. ``This revolution belongs to the people, and those
  [opposition] people marching over there are just the oligarchy.''

  STEPPED UP SECURITY

  Chávez has stepped up his security since April 11, keeping his schedule of public appearances secret until the last minute, wearing a bulletproof vest
  even among crowds of supporters and deploying anti-aircraft missiles around Miraflores.

  Bowing to opposition criticism, he also overhauled his Cabinet, called on radical supporters to stop harassing the opposition and invited former President
  Jimmy Carter to mediate talks with opposition leaders.

  Chávez critics rejected the offer, however, refusing an invitation from Carter to attend a joint meeting with Chávez on Tuesday.

  Carter returned to the United States Wednesday after a four-day visit.

  Opposition leaders insist the only solution to the country's crisis is the removal of a president they regard as a dangerous populist who has mismanaged
  the economy, driven away investors and fanned the flames of class conflict.

  ''If all the constitutional means of resolving this crisis are closed, then we have to take the route of civil disobedience,'' said Andrés Delgado of the
  opposition Causa R political party.

  A dozen groups have filed lawsuits demanding Chávez be impeached for everything from the April 11 killings to mishandling government funds and
  receiving an illegal campaign contribution from a Spanish bank in 1998.