Venezuela’s top business chamber denies conspiracy allegations of hoarding, economic sabotage

Business leaders deny plotting against Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela — Members of Venezuela’s largest business chamber said Monday that there is no pre-election conspiracy to undermine President Hugo Chavez by hoarding goods and boosting prices.

Chavez and his backers have accused business leaders of attempting to magnify Venezuela’s economic woes and weaken support for the socialist leader before legislative elections in September.

Chavez backers marched Monday to the chamber’s headquarters to demand an end to the alleged hoarding of goods and the random raising of prices. Organizers said more than 6,000 people joined the march.

One group of the president’s backers held a banner reading: “Oligarchs, Go to Hell!” Others urged Chavez to nationalize businesses suspected of hoarding or speculating with prices.

“If they continue conspiring, the working class is going to continue taking action,” said Oswaldo Vera, a pro-Chavez lawmaker who joined the protest.

Lope Mendoza, vice president of the chamber, known as Fedecamaras, denied the accusations.

“There’s no conspiracy,” he told Union Radio. “What exists is an unfortunate confrontation between Venezuelans and hate created by the government.”

“Businessmen are not enemies of the government or the people,” Mendoza added.

Tensions between Chavez’s administration and Fedecamaras are increasing as Venezuela struggles with a deepening economic recession and the highest rate of inflation in Latin America, 30 percent.

Business owners blame Chavez’s socialist-oriented economic policy for the country’s financial woes, arguing that government-imposed price controls, expropriations and strict currency controls are strangling the economy.

“It’s finishing off a country with a working tradition,” Mendoza said of the government’s economic policy.

Venezuela’s economy shrank 5.8 percent in the first quarter from the same period a year earlier, the Central Bank revealed last week.

The economy was pulled down in the first three months by a 5 percent decline in the key oil sector, a 6 percent decrease in the private sector and a whopping 27.9 percent fall in private investment, the bank said.

Chavez’s government has failed to slow inflation despite price controls on many foods and other basics.

Venezuela has not seen such tough times since 2003, when the economy contracted 26.7 percent in the first quarter due to the effects of an opposition-led strike that drastically reduced oil production.

Mendoza accused Chavez of aggression against Venezuela’s largest food producer, Empresa Polar.

Chavez has accused Polar of hoarding, repeatedly threatened to seize control of the company’s assets, confiscated its products and expropriated some of the company’s warehouses.