Straight divide between rich and poor over merits of Chavez

Letter from Caracas: The Caracas Theatre Festival opened this weekend with a stunning production of Garcia Lorca's Mariano Pineda…

Letter from Caracas: The Caracas Theatre Festival opened this weekend with a stunning production of Garcia Lorca's Mariano Pineda performed by the Spanish Ballet Flamenco.

The first night saw the city's glitterati out in force as limousines purred to a halt outside the venue, with chauffeurs leaping to attention, opening doors and escorting their charges safely up the steps to the entrance. The star guests were the foreign diplomatic corps, the city mayor and prominent media personalities, the frontline troops in the battle to wrest control of the country back from upstart president and military maverick Hugo Chavez.

The large crowd filed into the salubrious surroundings of the Teresa Carreno centre, where uniformed ushers greeted patrons in English and French, suggesting we had passed a migration post and entered another country.

The faces were white, the girths were wide and the perfume imported. The displaced ruling class chattered excitedly, enjoying a night off from the unpleasant task of street agitation which has become their lot over the past two years. At least once a week the designer clothes and cigars are swapped for T-shirts and runners, flags and banners for street rallies demanding an end to the totalitarian nightmare allegedly imposed by President Chavez.

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Festival director Carmen Ramia delivered a 20-minute speech before the curtain rose, thanking the private sector and the media for their support.

The tension was palpable as Ms Ramia explained how the festival had survived difficult times, notably the caracazo, (a popular uprising against austerity measures in 1989), military rebellion (led by Hugo Chavez in 1992) and the disastrous mudslides of December 1999.

"I have to confess" said Carmen, "that in the festival's 30 years we have never faced such adverse conditions as we do today." The inaugural speech, another broadside against Chavez, accused of dividing the country and fanning the flames of class hatred, was greeted with rapturous applause.

The play was followed by dinner and dancing, the last stragglers heading home just as an army of proletarians descended from the hillside barrios strung like glittering chandeliers above the city.

The huddled masses like to get an early start on the first Saturday of each month, making their way to Fuerte Tiuna army barracks, where a "Bolivarian mega-market" offers basic foodstuffs at rock bottom prices.

Each stall has a price list where shoppers can compare prices for the same goods elsewhere, with an average of 30 per cent in the difference. An hour later the entire esplanade has been occupied by the nation's negritos (blacks) wearing sandals and T-shirts, hardship etched on their weary faces. Venezuela's upper class use the term negrito as a disparaging term implying laziness and criminal tendencies.

On market day however Venezuela's poor celebrate the pride and dignity that comes with being able to afford chicken, fish and rice once a week. A mime artist entertained the children while a salsa band struck up a tune underneath a makeshift marquee.

I expected to see the traditional bikini-clad babe backed by velvet-toned machista crooners but on closer inspection the entire band was dressed in army fatigues, shaking hips and blowing brass like Tito Puente never died. Beyond the marquee came a queue stretching half a mile, then winding back around itself.

Army troops tried to keep order as women pressed anxiously around trucks unloading frozen chickens that sold for a dollar each.

I went to the back of the queue and opened my notebook, asking the crowd if they had any opinion on the Chavez administration;

"For the first time I have a doctor in my barrio" said one woman, "Chavez is spending the oil money on food for the people," said another.

"We have no hatred in our hearts," said one teenager, when I asked about the dangerous polarisation between rich and poor.

"The rich have all the wealth yet we don't begrudge them it, but neither are we fools," he added. It is difficult to square the commitment of these people toward the Chavez project with the permanent media campaign presenting the president as an isolated, unpopular figure on the verge of expulsion from office.

"I can't watch the news anymore," said Daisy Gonzalez, a hairdresser, "my blood pressure rises and I feel a pain inside here," she added, pointing to her heart.

I caught a bus home, breathing in the stench of uncollected rubbish that festers rapidly in this troubled city trapped under a merciless sun.

The afternoon tabloid offered the usual grisly fare: "Eyeless corpse found by small child."

I quickened my step, bolting shut the front door to the outside world with relief.