Venezuela Economy

The suspension and impending corruption trial of President Carlos Andres Perez threatens to stall the economic modernization program that has made Venezuela one of the Western Hemisphere's most attractive investment targets and fastest growing economies, according to diplomats and business sources. At less risk, at least in the short run, these experts say, is a policy that has permitted gradual but increasingly important foreign investment in Venezuela's once-isolated oil industry.

Hours after scores of Venezuelan security police stormed the office of the major opposition newspaper, President Carlos Andres Perez on Monday finally gave into national and international demands that he call off a campaign against the nation's press. Perez had come under severe criticism at home and abroad for trying to prevent the publication of advertisements and commentary linking the Feb.

The young man's head nearly touched the scorching tin roof of the cramped shack, one of thousands dotting this capital's hillsides, as he tried to vent his frustration over a failed coup by the Venezuelan military. He was angry, not because a small group of army officers made an assault Tuesday on the government of one of South America's most stable democracies, but because they failed to achieve their initial goal, that of assassinating President Carlos Andres Perez.

There is no freeway exit to central Caracas, only a twisted series of alleys and ominous side streets that take a driver from the illusion of modern life into the reality of a country fast tumbling backward. The 1970s-vintage freeway appears modern--six, sometimes eight, lanes wide, well-paved and designed.

The Ordaz family once lived the middle-class dream, Venezuela style. There was a condo in Miami, beach weekends in Barbados, private schools, four-wheel-drive vehicles. But the sweet taste has turned sour. "It does seem like a dream now," said Nestor Ordaz, a 45-year-old electronics store owner. "But it's all over. I'm not sure what happened, but it's all over."

Shaken by four days of bloody price riots that left more than 200 dead and thousands injured, Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez vowed Thursday to stick to the tough austerity measures that triggered the violence and called on the industrial nations to work out "decent and rational" debt arrangements with Latin America before more such social explosions occur.

To grasp the magnitude of Venezuela's growing power in the world oil market, this scenic Caribbean beach town is a good place to start. A $14-billion "oil city" is rising in the sand and desert scrub country at a town called Jose just west of here, a refining complex and depot that will rival the largest energy installations on earth. It will handle crude oil piped from the Orinoco Belt oil fields 125 miles to the south. From there, tankers will haul it to the United States and elsewhere.

President Bush and Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez agreed Saturday to begin intensive work on a plan to reduce Venezuela's $33-billion foreign debt, making the country one of the first "test cases" of America's new Third World debt strategy. U.S.