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08/10/2004:

"Chavez Supporters Gather in Capital for Largest Pro-Chavez Rally"

Credits: Venpres & venezuelanalysis.com

Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez filled Caracas' largest public venue yesterday, packing the Avenida Bolívar for well over a mile and overflowing onto side streets all over the downtown. Clad in red—the colour that has come to represent chavismo in Venezuela—supporters bore t-shirts, hats, berets, placards, puppets, and inventive home-made signs all uniformly declaring "No!" to the recall on Chávez' mandate scheduled for next Sunday, August 15th.

Since his election in 1998 Venezuela's opposition has tried ousting Chavez with a failed coup, a series of economically devastating general strikes and lockouts, and violent street protests and paramilitary activity. It is only since those efforts proved unsuccessful in defeating Chávez that the opposition has put its weight behind a constitutional effort in the form of the recall referendum. Opposition rhetoric rarely points out that it was Chávez' new constitution, drafted and ratified by the National Assembly in 1999 that allows for a Presidential recall—an option not open to the citizens of most other countries.

"If Chávez goes or if he stays, the people will stay because now we have power," declared a jubilant Dimas Salazar who had traveled to Caracas from the state of Monagas on Venezuela's Atlantic coast to attend the march. "Chávez is using the history of this country to change it, and a country's history is its primary strength," continued Salazar.

Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com