Masks of Chavez with donkey ears, during an anti-Chavez rally

CARACAS, December 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The Venezuelan crisis deepened Tuesday, December 17, with positions hardening on both sides, as the army chief threatened his troops could counter a crippling 15-day-old strike, while police fired teargas and rubber bullets at opponents of President Hugo Chavez who blocked Caracas streets.

“The army is willing to use its full capability to prevent the success of this gamble for an economic and social collapse of the nation,” said army chief General Julio Garcia Montoya, adding that the strike’s impact on the oil industry amounted to sabotage, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Pledging to paralyze Venezuela, the opposition Democratic Coordination, headed by business and labor leaders, said in a statement the strike was heading toward “a higher level of confrontation” and “a Christmas of struggle.”

The oil sector is the worst hit by the strike, with several tankers, refineries and other plants of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) immobilized.

“The PDVSA case amounts to sabotage against the state’s main source of wealth,” Garcia Montoya said in a message to the nation broadcast on radio and television.

“It is an aggression against the survival of the state ... an attack on the vital interests of the nation,” the general said.

The right-wing opposition insisted there would be no let-up in the protests aimed at forcing the resignation of President Hugo Chavez a leftist-populist, accused by foes of allegedly ruining oil-rich but poverty-marked Venezuela.

Protesters caused massive chaos in east Caracas, blocking major highways and numerous streets.

On several occasions, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters and reopen streets, but the demonstrators moved to set up roadblocks elsewhere.

Later, several hundred people rallied outside the headquarters of the city’s Metropolitan Police force in a tense face-off with a similar number of Chavez supporters.

Meanwhile, International oil analysts cast doubt on government claims that two million barrels of oil were exported last week from Venezuela, which usually ships out a 2.5 million barrels a day.

“Crude oil production is reported to be running at less than one third of the 3.1 million barrels per day achieved in November, and refinery output has been cut to a bare minimum,” said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish.

Norrish said Venezuela supplies 10-15 percent of U.S. monthly oil imports and the market was now pricing in a very sharp drop in U.S. stock levels of crude oil, gasoline and fuel from what he described as “already critically low levels.”

Chavez, whose term ends in 2006, insisted he would remain in office, and dismissed a U.S. call for snap elections.

Determined to break the strike, he has deployed troops to take over the installations and vessels.

On Monday, soldiers took over the Paraguana refinery complex, the world’s largest, according to the manager of the installations.

The complex, located 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of Caracas, normally processes more than a million barrels a day.

On Sunday, soldiers seized the Pilin Leon oil tanker immobilized in Lake Maracaibo, 500 kilometers (300 miles) west of Caracas.

Troops had boarded the Pilin Leon earlier this month, but a judge ordered them to leave, infuriating Chavez.

The President told military commanders to ignore such orders by local judges he said were exceeding their functions.

In response, the prosecutor general’s office said Monday that “all the country’s authorities” must “respect and obey judicial decisions and orders from the prosecutor's office.”

The opposition umbrella group known as the Democratic Co-ordinator (CD) delivered a letter to the Organization of American States secretary-general, Cesar Gaviria, accusing the President of violating both the Venezuelan constitution and the organization’s own Democratic Charter, reported British daily The Independent.

Gaviria has been chairing negotiations between government and opposition, centered on the need for an “electoral solution”. So far the talks have made no progress.