Venezuela oil workers warned

Venezuela’s oil minister Rafael Ramirez threatened to oust oil-industry employees who refuse to support President Hugo Chavez, or who do not embrace his socialist plans.

“No single PDVSA institution can do without a socialist [workers’] committee,” Ramirez said in a televised speech during a meeting with thousands of oil workers.

The committees are expected to foster a common ideology aligned with Chavez’s socialist agenda, a Dow Jones Newswire said.

“Whoever doesn’t have a socialist committee will be considered a suspect of conspiring against the revolution,” said Ramirez.

“Not a single counter-revolutionary can remain within our company, within our industry,” he said, referring to state oil giant PDVSA.

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