Asylum-seeker Ortega ratified as CTV president despite fugitive status

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 16, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Fugitive CTV leader Carlos Ortega has been ratified as president of the Venezuelan Confederation of Trade Unions despite his current status as an asylum-seeker at the Costa Rican embassy in Caracas.  CTV director Pablo Castro had hoped to land the plum job for himself but following a weekend meeting of the CTV's executive committee, Castro decided to put his personal ambitions on ice until at least the smoke clears on Ortega's final destination.

There appears to be some discussion as to whether Costa Rica will afford Ortega diplomatic or territorial asylum after ruling out political asylum in view of Ortega's refusal to submit to the jurisdiction of the Venezuelan courts.  He went into hiding a couple of weeks back vowing to conduct a clandestine campaign to have President Hugo Chavez Frias removed from office, telling his supporters that he would never contemplate leaving Venezuela.

Nevertheless, as VHeadline.com had earlier reported, intense negotiations have been going on with the coup-supporting Spanish government to allow political asylum in Madrid for Ortega and co-conspirator, Fedecamaras president Carlos Fernandez ... although the latter is currently under luxury house arrest at his villa in Valencia (Carabobo State).

Meanwhile, opposition TV news channel Globovision is excitedly proclaiming that during the last 12 months, nine Venezuelan opposition leaders have been able to evade justice by keeping up a curtain of subterfuge, moving hideout on a nightly basis to avoid capture by Venezuelan security agents.   Foreign Minister (MRE) Roy Chaderton Matos says it is an exclusively policing matter to capture the fugitives and to bring them to trial by relevant courts but anti-Chavez AN deputy Felipe Mujica says Ortega and other opposition fugitives have been able to "run rings around attempts to capture them because of general police incompetence."  Nevertheless, the opposition is claiming in the world's media that the Chavez Frias government is conducting a campaign of "political persecution" against them...