Peru Gives Asylum to Anti-Chavez Venezuela Officers

<a href=asia.reuters.com>Reuters Sun April 27, 2003 11:57 AM ET

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Peru has granted political asylum to two Venezuelan military officers who have opposed the leftist rule of President Hugo Chavez, the government said.

Peru said retired officers Wismerck Martinez Medina and Gilberto Landaeta Vielma, who requested asylum on Thursday in Peru's embassy in Caracas, would travel to Lima "as soon as the Venezuelan government authorizes the journeys," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late on Saturday.

The two officials' asylum request comes after two other officers who took part in an April 2002 short-lived coup against Chavez, army captains Ricardo and Alfredo Salazar, asked for asylum from the Dominican Republic last week.

The brothers forcibly escorted Chavez to an island off the Venezuelan coast during the coup before he returned to power 48 hours later

Chavez was elected in 1998 on a populist platform but has faced lengthy strikes and widespread protests. Political foes accuse him of dictatorial rule and of driving the world's fifth largest oil exporter into political and economic ruin.