Soccer fans protest Venezuela leader

Soccer fans protest Venezuela leader

	Published : Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:22 By : Agencies Print this Story

MARACAIBO, Venezuela (AP) - Thousands of Venezuelan soccer fans used an international tournament to show opposition to President Hugo Chavez, rising to their feet with chants of 'Freedom!'

The chants -- which included 'This government is going to fall!' -- began shortly into the second half of Thursday's match between the U.S. and Argentina in the western city of Maracaibo, a stronghold of opposition to Chavez.

Chavez opponents are hoping the arrival of thousands of tourists for the Copa America tournament will draw attention to their protests against the president's refusal to renew the license of a popular opposition-aligned television channel.

'We want the world to know we are not all with Chavez,' said Gabriel Gonzalez, a business student at the University of Zulia, who attended Thursday's match.

About half the crowd of 40,000 appeared to join in the chants, which filled the stadium for about three minutes.

Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin in December, has gone to great lengths to keep Venezuela's bitter political divide from spilling into the tournament, banning protests in and near stadiums and ordering state security forces to crack down on any that do arise.

Only one match in the three-week-long tournament is being held in the protest-prone capital of Caracas.

But opposition activists seem determined to voice their criticisms about Chavez to the world.

'I don't really know whether it's spontaneous, semi-spontaneous or directed from above' by the political opposition, said Steve Ellner, a political science professor at Venezuela's University of the East. 'This could be part of a strategy to erode support and create uncertainty.'

The chants on Thursday followed a heckling incident two days earlier, when a small number of fans booed Chavez as he attended a ceremony. But none of that has detracted much from the tournament.

U.S. head coach Bob Bradley has said Venezuelan organizers have welcomed his team warmly despite Chavez's hostile relationship with Washington.

But pro-government advertising seems to be everywhere at the tournament.

At each of the nine stadiums, pictures of Chavez are displayed prominently under giant banners like the one in Maracaibo reading 'We are building the motherland.'

Banners and signs from opposing political camps make the streets of Maracaibo look like a battlefield between left and right. The city's pro-Chavez mayor competes with the state's opposition governor, former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales, to take credit for spruced-up infrastructure.

Chavez has spent $1 billion to build two new stadiums, renovate seven more and add related infrastructure to project an image of efficiency and civility following weeks of protests in the capital against his decision not to renew the license of the private channel RCTV.

Many in the crowd made clear the point of their protest, chanting 'RCTV!'