Jimmy Carter Visits Venezuela to Help Broker Dialogue

Former US President Jimmy Carter arrived in Venezuela on Saturday at the start of a four-day visit to the Latin American country aimed at helping broker a reconciliation dialogue between President Hugo Chavez's government and opposition parties.

"It is my hope that the Venezuelan government and opposition groups will pursue constructive talks to settle immediate pressingdifferences," Carter said in a statement released by the Carter Center.

Chavez started reconciliation talks with opposition parties soon after a brief coup in April when he was ousted for 48 hours and was later restored to power by his military loyals, but many opposition parties questioned his sincerity for reform and some have walked out of the talks.

Chavez, hoping Carter will convince opposition leaders to return to the negotiating table, invited the former U.S. presidentto play a mediating role between his government and opposition parties. Carter will spend four days trying to talk Venezuela's business, labor, media and civic leaders into rejoining the government-sponsored reconciliation talks.

However, opposition leaders have expressed skepticism about Carter's mission.

"The Carter Center is not going to be able to bring about the dialogue that this country really needs," said Jose Luis Betancourt, president of Venezuela's leading ranchers association and an outspoken critic of Chavez's left-wing policies.

Lawmaker Rafael Marin of the opposition Democratic Action partyaccused Chavez of "using President Carter as a subterfuge" to reject the involvement of the Organization of American States in resolving Venezuela's lingering political upheaval.

Carter has mediated dialogues on the Korean Peninsula and in Bosnia after he left office in 1980. In May, he became the first sitting or former U.S. president to visit Cuba since its revolution in 1959.

(China Daily July 8, 2002)