Generals Assert Control After Deadly Protests

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
 

BOGOTA, Colombia, April 11 -- The head of Venezuela's National Guard said tonight the military had taken control of the
country from President Hugo Chavez after a day of protests against the government that left at least 12 people dead.

In a televised address, Gen. Alberto Camacho Kairuz said the Chavez administration had "abandoned its functions" and the
armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Bernabe Carrero Cubero, acknowledged a few hours later that military leaders had asked the
president to resign and call for new elections. About 50 senior officers from all branches of the armed forces supported a
statement condemning the violence against protesters as "undemocratic," and opposition leaders said 90 percent of the troops
had declared themselves against the president.

There was a flurry of rumors regarding the president's fate, and opposition sources said Chavez remained in the presidential
palace tonight, holding conversations with the Cuban ambassador to Venezuela. The sources said the president was being
protected by members of Bolivarian Circles, pro-government civic groups that have attacked protesters in recent days, as well
as Cuban security agents, and a small contingent of troops loyal to him. His defense minister, Jose Vicente Rangel, resigned and
opposition sources said he had sought asylum in the Chilean Embassy.

Chavez allies, including the leader of the National Assembly, insisted tonight that the president remained in charge of the
country, and that a "conspiracy" to topple his government had failed. But the reports of the meeting with the Cuban ambassador
fueled speculation that Chavez was arranging to leave the country for Cuba, whose leader Fidel Castro has benefited from
cut-rate Venezuelan oil under Chavez's government.

"All of the country is under the control of the national armed forces," Camacho said. "The government has abandoned its
functions."

A transitional military government would conclude a turbulent three years in Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves
outside the Persian Gulf region. Chavez, who led a failed coup against the government a decade ago, won a landslide election in
1998 that left the two-party that had dominated national politics in ruins. He engineered a new constitution that concentrated
more power in his hands, purged corrupt judges and packed ostensibly independent branches of government with political
allies. But his fervid class rhetoric and heavy-handed style first repelled Venezuela's most powerful business and political class,
then eroded his base of support among the poor majority.

The mounting domestic strife threatens the flow of 2 million barrels of oil that Venezuela exports to the United States each day.
A disruption of Venezuelan oil exports could heighten anxiety over world oil supplies caused by Middle East violence and a
threat by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to suspend oil deliveries.

Chavez, elected on a broad populist mandate by Venezuela's disaffected poor, has been a constant foreign policy challenge to
the United States throughout his tenure. He was the first elected leader to visit Hussein since the Persian Gulf War, and his
ideological embrace of, and economic support for, Castro angered the State Department and powerful business interests at
home.

Last October, Chavez said the United States was "fighting terror with terror" in Afghanistan and displayed photos of dead
Afghan children to make his point. In recent months, a diverse opposition has raised new allegations that Chavez provides aid
to the Colombian Marxist guerrillas known as the FARC, considered a terrorist organization by the State Department.
Although no definitive proof has been presented, Chavez was recently warned by the new U.S. ambassador to Venezuela,
Charles Shapiro, that such ties if discovered would destroy an already tenuous relationship.

The military's apparent assumption of power tonight culminated a confusing day that started with a protest march on Miraflores,
the presidential palace, by several hundred thousand protesters demanding Chavez's resignation. The march was part of a
national strike led by country's largest business and labor groups, ostensibly in support of a managerial protest at the state-run
oil company that evolved into a movement to end Chavez's administration.

At least 12 people died in the streets of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, in a surge of violence that followed Chavez's decision
to remove from the air local television channels covering the protests. The decision prompted an immediate reaction from
Venezuela's armed forces, an institution that Chavez, a former colonel, was once a part of, but which has shown increasing
resistance to his leftist rule in recent weeks.

Once Chavez cut private television signals, only the government channel stayed on the air and an assortment of radio stations
continued to broadcast. Chavez said his decision to block television broadcasts was a response to false television reports that
he had been arrested.

"They want to create panic, to create hate throughout the country," Chavez said in a televised address.

The strike closed many private businesses throughout the country over the past three days, and slowed down Venezuela's
lifeblood petroleum industry that provides the government with more than half its revenue. The strike started in support of a
white-collar protest at the oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, over Chavez's appointment of five allies to the board of
directors.

But strike leaders acknowledged today that their goal had moved beyond demanding the removal of the new directors, setting
the stage for the clash between a coalescing opposition movement and an increasingly unpopular president who had pledged to
continue with his self-declared revolution.

In Washington, the White House would not comment tonight on the reports that the military had taken over the government.

"There is no accommodation possible," said Gregorio Rojas, an official with Fedecamaras, the nation's largest business group.
"What we're seeking if Chavez's resignation."

Rolling clashes between police in riot gear and protesters flared up on downtown streets throughout the late afternoon, leaving
the air filled with smoke. Witnesses described seeing a number of bodies on the Plaza Bolivar, the main square in the
government district, but it was unclear who fired on the protesters.

Government supporters said troops aligned with the opposition had fired on the crowd from within the ranks of security forces,
but witnesses said shots seem to come from rooftops. Protesters cast the blame on government soldiers loyal to the president
and the government-sponsored Bolivarian Circles.

"We ask the Venezuelan people's forgiveness for today's events," said Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco, head of the army. "I was
loyal to the end, but today's deaths cannot be tolerated."

                                 © 2002