Madam, - Michael McCaughan's Letter from Caracas entitled "Straight divide between rich and poor over merits of Chavez" (April 7th) is disingenuous from beginning to end, and presents an obviously biased picture to your readers.
I have been researching the crisis in Venezuela for well over a year now, and spent a total of more than one month in that country in 2003. If such a "straight divide" truly exists, how does Mr McCaughan explain the young union worker I met in Catia (one of Caracas's worst slums), who lives in a two-room apartment with his wife and five children and spends most of his spare time working to organise a referendum to remove Chavez from office?
And has Mr McCaughan not heard of "Clase Media en Positiva", a very well-known middle and upper-middle class group of Chavez supporters?
His overly simplistic portrayal of a very complex situation, and your publishing of it, is a violation of the trust that your readers place in you. - Yours, etc.,
LYNNE MCINTYRE, Washington, DC.