January 16, 2000
                  Web posted at: 5:02 PM EST (2202 GMT)

                  CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez on Sunday denied
                  allegations that he was drunk and partying on a Caribbean island with Fidel
                  Castro the day thousands of Venezuelans died in mudslides.

                  Instead, he said he risked his life by flying into the disaster zone in near
                  zero-visibility.

                  "One meter (yard) beyond the cabin the pilot could see absolutely
                  nothing," Chavez said on his weekly radio program.

                  Torrential rains last month triggered avalanches of mud, boulders, water and
                  trees that killed between 5,000 and 30,000 people by official estimate. It
                  has been difficult to determine a more accurate casualty count because most
                  of the victims were buried beneath tons of mud or washed out to sea.

                  Chavez's detractors charge that he left the capital, Caracas, the night the
                  disaster struck on December 15 and flew to La Orchila island off
                  Venezuela's coast to celebrate the approval earlier that day of a new
                  constitution he supported.

                  Chavez said Sunday his opponents have been circulating an e-mail message
                  in which an anonymous military official says the president was too drunk to
                  return to Caracas until late the night of Dec. 16. That's when the normally
                  highly visible president appeared on television for the first time after the
                  disaster.

                  The e-mail, which was forwarded to The Associated Press, also says Fidel
                  Castro and other foreign political leaders attended the party.

                  Chavez said the allegations are an attempt to discredit him. A former coup
                  leader who was elected president in December 1998, Chavez has sharply
                  divided Venezuelans. Millions of poor people adore him, while the wealthy
                  elite fear he is taking the country toward authoritarian rule.

                  "What a capacity to lie!" he said, likening the alleged campaign to Nazi
                  propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels' technique of repeating a lie until people
                  start to think it's the truth.

                  Chavez said he was in Miraflores presidential palace the night of December
                  15 in a Cabinet meeting, and by noon the next day flew by helicopter over
                  the mountain that separates Caracas from the Caribbean Sea to reach to the
                  worst hit areas.

                  He said he overruled pilots who told him it was too dangerous to fly, and did
                  not bring any journalists because he did not want to put their lives in
                  jeopardy.

                  Chavez said he spoke with flood victims near the port city of La Guaira in
                  Vargas state, and then tried to fly to another devastated town. But near-zero
                  visibility forced them back.

                  Jorge Olavarria, a leading Chavez critic, said Sunday he remained
                  unconvinced by the president's explanation.

                  "This is a government of lies," Olavarria said.

                    Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.