www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 By: David Coleman

Plaza Altamira shooting suspect Joao De Gouveia has been transferred to the La Planta prison in El Paraiso (Caracas) after an appearance before 45th Control Court judge Alejandro Rebolledo. He is being held in protective isolation in a high-security area of the prison because of the risk that he may be brutalized of killed by fellow-inmates.

De Gouveia is being held pending trial for the qualified homicide of three victims and the wounding of more than 20 others in a highly-publicized incident at the rebel HQ in Plaza Altamira on December 6 last year.

Opposition radicals have claimed that De Gouveia was acting under direct orders from President Hugo Chavez Frias, but the claims have been rejected as patently ridiculous despite an underhand propaganda effort by the opposition.

De Gouveia's incarceration has been in direct contrast with house arrest privileges accorded to rebel business leader Carlos Fernandez.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, March 17, 2003 By: David Coleman

CICPC detectives say 73 violent deaths have taken place over the weekend, up four on the preceding weekend, with 25 of them as the result of "settling of accounts" between rival crime gangs.   Caracas (Libertador) led the death toll with 17 victims, followed by western Zulia State with 9 dead.  Central Carabobo State reduced its death statistics to just three persons murdered.

Nationwide, 15 of the deaths were as the result of shoot-outs with law enforcement officers while 11 victims were killed resisting street muggings.

Josefina Guzman was fatally injured as the result of a violent argument between her husband, Larry Martinez and a neighbor in the La Lucha slum in Boleita Norte in Caracas.  "After the shooting I tried to carry her to the hospital but she died on the way there," Martinez told reporters.

24-year-old National Guard (GN) soldier Oscar Rafael Marin Morena was killed on Calle Marin de San Agustin del Sur, in southeast Caracas as the result of several bullet wounds.  Military investigators are probing the death.

Truck hijackings were also on the increase this weekend .  32-year-old Juan Jose Tivado Baez was relieved of his fully-laden Central Azucarera El Palmar truck on the El Valle-Coche highway below the Tazon tollbooths after he was intercepted by two gunmen.  Police are looking for a white-painted Mack truck, registration 91F AAH valued at 50 million bolivares with a 3-tonne load of sugar valued at 26 million bolivares.

A truck laden with 30 tonnes of spaghetti valued at 80 million bolivares was also hijacked near Carora in central Venezuela.  54-year-old Edgar Marrero had left his depot on Avenida Los Leones in Barquisimeto (Lara), when he was intercepted by several armed men.  Police are looking for a white-painted 1997 registered Iveco truck, registration O4H-IAA valued at 60 million bolivares and its 30 million bolivares load belonging to the MDS company.

John Peter Perez (22) lost his life early on Saturday morning in the El Manguito sector of Antimano in Caracas.  His mother, Nora Josefina Perez, says her son was shot in the chest in an incident involving officers from the PoliCaracas municipal police.  "He resisted arrest and the police shot him .. we had gone out of the house to help John but we weren't in time ... when we finally caught up with him, the police had taken him to the Perez Carreno hospital but he was already dead."

www.sltrib.com With a strike crippling the economy and, some say, fueling a surge of violence in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has a lot to pray about. (Victor R. Caivano/The Associated Press)

BY TOD ROBBERSON DALLAS MORNING NEWS

    CARACAS, Venezuela -- Until recently, Jose Gabriel tended to dismiss all the talk of rising crime in Venezuela as the gossip of political alarmists and rumor mongers.     "People talked about it, but nothing ever happened to me," the 28-year-old office clerk said. But as he and his girlfriend waited in line at a gas station on Feb. 12, rumor suddenly became reality.     Three men jumped out of a car, aiming automatic weapons. One fired a shot at Gabriel's feet while the others jumped inside his car, shoving him into the back seat.     Before motorists in other cars had time to react, another of Venezuela's infamous "express kidnappings" was under way. When it was all over less than an hour later, Gabriel and his girlfriend found themselves standing dazed on a roadside with no money, no jewelry, no cellular phones and no car.     When he went to the nearest police station, he said, he had to wait behind four other victims of the same type of crime.     After two months of business and labor strikes and what many regard as a wholesale breakdown of government authority, police statistics indicate an explosion in street crime across Venezuela, with Caracas experiencing the brunt of the problem.     National income has plummeted, spurred by a petroleum workers' strike that had paralyzed exports in what was the third- or fourth-largest supplier of oil to the United States.     Car thefts at gunpoint, armed robberies, assaults and homicides have skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, making Venezuela the second-most-dangerous country in the hemisphere behind war-racked Colombia, according to the Pan-American Health Organi- zation.     The crime epidemic is so pronounced that business groups are warning U.S. executives not to travel to the capital without armed guards and at least one radio-equipped escort car to provide assistance in case gunmen seize the main car. The Caracas international airport has become a major venue for kidnappings.     "Express kidnappings, in which victims are seized in an attempt to get quick cash in exchange for their release, are increasing in Venezuela's capital," the U.S. State Department said in a travel warning updated this month. "Kidnapping of U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals, from homes, hotels, unauthorized taxis and the airport terminal is occurring on a regular basis."     Even piracy along the Venezuelan coastline has become a major problem, the State Department warned.     Gunmen kidnapped a senior American executive and his wife recently and held the two at gunpoint after they had settled into their chauffeur-driven car at the Caracas airport, according to a source close to the executive.    Crime analysts differ on whether a 2-month-old national strike by opponents of President Hugo Chavez has contributed to the rise in crime or had no effect on it.     Official statistics on crime during the strike -- which led to a nearly total shutdown of shops, businesses, restaurants and gasoline stations before it ended last month -- have been hard to come by because of a political dispute between Chavez and the Caracas metropolitan police.     Chavez has ordered the metropolitan police to disarm and has placed troops in many areas because he accuses the local police of siding with the strikers.     What is certain, however, is that the homicide rate for Venezuela is exploding. During the weekend period from 6 p.m. on Feb. 7 to 6 p.m. Feb. 9, for example, 129 people were killed -- including 61 in Caracas, according to police statistics.     In the like 48-hour period March 7 to March 9, 108 were killed, including 34 in Caracas, a city of 3 million.     According to the Pan-American Health Organization, Caracas ranks per capita as the second-deadliest city in the hemisphere, behind Cali, Colombia.     "The difference is, there are guerrillas and war in Colombia, and our people are dying only because of unchecked, violent crime," said Ivan Simonovis, a corporate security specialist and former chief of special operations for the Technical Judicial Police, Venezuela's equivalent of the FBI.

www.voanews.com VOA News 13 Mar 2003, 20:39 UTC

Venezuela's army says it plans to send more troops to the border with Colombia, where Colombian rebel groups are believed to operate.

Army General Warrikc Blanco said Thursday, the plans call for reinforcing the five-thousand soldiers already patrolling the country's northwestern border.

The statements come one day after a Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported that rebel groups have set up bases inside Venezuela. The newspaper said leftist Colombian guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries are both active in Venezuela.

Venezuela's Minister of Foreign Relations, Roy Chaderton, denied the report on Wednesday, calling it totally false. He said the government has received no information to support the claims.

Colombia has been torn apart by a 39-year civil war that pits the rebels, paramilitaries and the government against each other. Some 3,500 people, mainly civilians, are killed in the fighting each year.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, March 13, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Government negotiators have sent their opposition counterparts a document proposing that President Hugo Chavez be allowed to take part in the next presidential elections should he lose the recall referendum.

• The government side claims that there is no constitutional disposition prohibiting the proposal.

First reactions have come from opposition negotiating team legal adviser, Juan Manuel Rafalli, who says the proposal contradicts popular will and the spirit of the Constituent Assembly that discussed and voted in the Constitution.

“The Constitution talks clearly in Article 233 about a new President completing the recall period and discards the possibility of the President seeking a second term.”

Opposition constitutional lawyer, Gerard Blyde contends that if the President loses the recall referendum, the Executive Vice president will take over and a new election must be called within 30 days.

Former Supreme Court of Justice (CSE) magistrate, Hildegard Rondon de Sanso says President Chavez could run for President in the 2006-2012 period but not before.