BY TIM JOHNSON

 CARACAS -- If any case illustrates the fragility of press freedom in Venezuela
 these days, it may be the criminal-defamation suit against Pablo Lopez and his
 weekly newspaper of political chatter and occasional muckraking articles.

 Lopez is under legal attack for his reporting of questionable deals with the
 government by the childhood friend and chief financier of President Hugo Chavez.

 If the 44-year-old publisher loses, he might be thrown in jail and barred from
 journalism forever. He would also probably lose control of his publication.

 Such dire consequences are a sign of the high-stakes showdown between the
 Chavez government and some of the nation's media. Chavez, a former army
 paratroop commander, says that his ``peaceful revolution'' fully respects freedom
 of speech. But he has taken to browbeating reporters and editors in public who do
 not support his political crusade. And some of his aides have used the threat of
 tax audits against newspaper publishers, forcing the ouster of at least one
 high-profile editor.

 ``The president uses intimidating language against the media,'' said Juan Carlos
 Zapata, former deputy editor of the newspaper El Mundo. ``Criticism and freedom
 of speech are beginning to bother the government.''

 Watchdogs fear that the intent of defamation charges is to destroy critical media
 with huge punitive damage awards, rather than to obtain rectification.

 ``Libel cases are being used by people in positions of financial strength and close
 to those in power,'' said Andres Mata, publisher of the influential newspaper El
 Universal and head of the Venezuelan Publishers Association.

 Other journalists say they are increasingly feeling the hand of government.

 In late December, a bold and unrelenting critic of Chavez, Teodoro Petkoff, was
 forced out as editor of El Mundo when government authorities threatened to
 retaliate against the publisher's family in an inheritance tax dispute.

 In another case with political overtones, judges ordered the arrest of a magazine
 publisher and a reporter on defamation charges even though the statute of
 limitations had expired. The publisher of Exceso magazine, Ben Ami Fihman, fled
 the country, and the reporter, Faith Nahmens, has gone into hiding.

 ``The intent is to destroy the medium, not to get rectification,'' said one prominent
 journalist, who asked not to be named.

 LEGAL WEAPON

 Under Venezuelan law, a journalist who is convicted of libel can no longer practice
 the profession.

 The weekly that Pablo Lopez publishes, La Razon, is a gossipy broadsheet, filled
 with tart political tidbits, often of sketchy origin, and occasional investigative
 efforts. Its home is a rundown basement. As recently as last year, La Razon
 could barely find a spot on sidewalk kiosks, publishing only 17,000 copies a
 week.

 Ironically, La Razon was once seen as ardently pro-Chavez. Before Chavez came
 to office 13 months ago, he wrote a regular column for the weekly. But Lopez
 refused to sell the weekly to Chavez supporters or offer it as an unconditional
 outlet for the candidate's views.

 In the past year, La Razon has published numerous stories about Tobias Carrero
 Nacar, a multimillionaire insurance magnate who grew up with Chavez in the
 provincial city of Barinas and helped finance his political career. In opinion
 columns often laced with sarcasm, the weekly suggested that Carrero was
 winning favorable -- and profitable -- treatment from friends in the Chavez
 government.

 It said his firm, Multinacional de Seguros, had won numerous insurance contracts
 from government agencies, and that he had set up four front companies to capture
 a bid last September for 10 government-owned radio stations.

 LAWSUIT FILED

 In October, Carrero filed his criminal-defamation suit against La Razon columnist
 Santiago Alcala and against Lopez.

 Carrero declined requests for an interview, and a marketing executive at the
 insurance company, who declined to be named, said: ``Our position will become
 clear once the hearing begins March 17.''

 Some fellow journalists have qualms about the fairness of some of La Razon's
 reporting, but they sympathize with Lopez's charge that he won't get a fair legal
 hearing. Lopez said Carrero has too many friends in powerful places.

 While Carrero holds no government position, his close friendship with Chavez is
 widely known. Carrero's wife has reportedly used their private plane to take
 Chavez's wife, Marisabel, on shopping trips to South Florida.

 Carrero's former legal advisor, Franklin Ariechi, is now deputy chief magistrate of
 the Supreme Court, where the defamation case may eventually be heard. A
 onetime business partner, Manuel Quijada, heads a powerful committee
 reorganizing the judiciary. And Luis Miquilena, current head of the temporary
 legislature, is a close friend and onetime business partner.

 ``What judge is going to issue a verdict against this cast of characters? Against
 the chief financier of Chavez? Against the head of the National Legislative
 Commission?'' Lopez asked.

 Given his allies, Carrero is confident of success at trial.

 `A DECENT FIGHT'

 ``I will fight in the only place to have a decent fight -- the tribunals,'' he told the
 news weekly Quinto Dia, of which he is part owner.

 The defamation suit took on a larger dimension a month ago, when one of the
 prominent fellow army officers who joined Chavez in a failed coup attempt in 1992
 claimed that corruption was corroding his government. The retired officer, Jesus
 Urdaneta, who served for nearly a year as head of the secret police, filed several
 dozen criminal accusations with the attorney general's office, some of which
 appeared to substantiate the reporting in La Razon.

 ``All that we've been saying for the past year -- that all the old vices of previous
 governments continue -- is now turning out to be true,'' Lopez said.

 As if legal pressure weren't enough, Lopez also has been the subject of an
 apparent smear campaign. The newspaper El Mundo, now sympathetic to the
 government, published a front-page story Jan. 24 suggesting that Lopez had
 raped a retarded adolescent, a charge he calls preposterous.

 ``This is turning into a laboratory for dirty war,'' he said.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald