Chavez in Hiding: Will Not Explain His $1M Al Qaeda Financing

By Johan Freitas, in Caracas

In a pattern that closely follows his reaction to 9/11, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez has gone into hiding rather than face public questioning over his Al Qaeda connections.

His usual Sunday morning TV-show, Alo Presidente ("Hello President"), did not air this week. Viewers who expected an explanation of his $1M Al Qaeda support waited impatiently all morning and most of the afternoon, until finally, at 5 PM local time, it was clear that the president was nowhere to be found. The regularly scheduled program, normally a stable feature of Venezuelan state-owned TV's Sunday line-up, had to be unexpectedly cancelled. It normally features live callers asking questions on the air.

" - The Al Qaeda scandal is today's top news in the nations' newspapers. Voters would have demanded answers. Chavez acts like a dictator, but he is also a coward. And he is afraid of being held democratically accountable for his acts," said opposition leader Enrique Medina Gomez, a general who was part of the Chavez high command but joined the country's resistance movement in protest over Chavez's totalitarian rule and close ties to terrorism.

Chavez, who privately expressed satisfaction over the attacks at the time, had government-employees burn the American flag in a 9/11-celebration in the main square of Caracas, Plaza Bolivar.

Today, with his "Bolivarian Revolution" ending in Venezuela's largest-ever bout of public corruption, his support from both the Venezuelan people and it's armed forces has dwindled and the country is gripped in the fifth week of a general strike. Desperately clinging on to power by whatever means necessary, Chavez is refusing to call free and democratic elections in Venezuela.