Saturday, I watched as about 1000 Venezuelans rallied at Altimira Square in Caracas for jailed union leader Carlos Ortega who was sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison for organizing the great oil strike of 2002-2003. Ortega is a union leader whose career somewhat parallels that of Lech Walesa, but who also is a member of one of the old discredited opposition parties, known as AD, or the ‘adecos.’ He organized the strike in a bid to prevent the politicization of the Venezuelan state oil company and to keep unions strong and separate from the political cronyism of the Chavista regime. The strike was a terrible failure and Hugo Chavez in the end fired all 18,000 union people, reading off their names on the radio. After the strike, Ortega managed to flee the country and obtain political asylum in Costa Rica in 2003. But in August 2004, he could not help himself and returned to the country, attempting to live in disguise.

Any carraqueno will tell you there are no secrets in that city and it didn’t take long for Venezuelan authorities to catch up to him. Ortega was then jailed and put on trial for the strike, something that wasn’t illegal, and something that Chavez came out the winner in. That said, Chavez seeks to punish his enemies and therefore Ortega is the target. Miguel Octavio has a description of the government’s ‘logic’ here.

At Altimira Square, it looked like a pretty big rally to me, but many in the opposition sighed that this was nothing compared to the kinds of rallies that were held against Chavez in the past. I took photos and can post them in a few days.

There were daughters of jailed dissidents present, one girl wearing a tshirt saying ‘free my father,’ and people holding up signs of reporter Patricia Poleo, whose case we have followed here. There were plenty of TV cameras and babes of politics, and it seemed pretty sociable as an event. It certainly wasn’t all white people, either, as the Sandalistas like to claim – it was majority nonwhite. It was also peaceful, with cops acting as security without interference. People waved Venezuelan flags and politicians and dissidents made speeches. All told, it’s not what it used to be, but it’s also true that Venezuela’s opposition is not dead. They are remembering Ortega and fighting for the cause of free labor. It’s going to be a long one, but they are trying to rebuild.

The Agencia EFE news account, and not a very good one, but the only one I see, is here.

UPDATE: Good photos from the event are here.