www.kansascity.com Posted on Mon, Feb. 24, 2003 By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - Every night for two months, Venezuelans knew where to find Carlos Ortega. The labor leader was sure be standing before cameras in Caracas, predicting the imminent downfall of President Hugo Chavez.

"The dictator's days are numbered," Ortega would thunder at his news conferences, flanked by business leader Carlos Fernandez.

Now Ortega, the leader of the strike that failed to oust Chavez, is in hiding, charged with treason and rebellion. Fernandez, accused of similar crimes, was seized by federal agents last week and is under house arrest.

Chavez wants both men sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for inflicting pain and suffering on Venezuelans with a strike that crushed the economy.

"See how the others are running to hide," he mocked in a speech after Fernandez's arrest.

Hiding is uncharacteristic of Ortega, the most visible and pugnacious of Chavez's opponents. He is the only government opponent to claim a measure of victory against Chavez since the leftist president was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000.

As president of Venezuela's biggest oil workers union, Fedepetrol, Ortega led a four-day strike in 2000 for back pay and a collective contract for 20,000 workers. Chavez ceded on both counts.

Ortega subsequently rose to the top of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation, or CTV, which boasts 1 million members. In a bid to grasp control of the labor movement, Chavez called a nationwide election for CTV leaders over the protests of the International Labor Organization, which argued union elections were a private matter.

Since then, though, Ortega hasn't been so successful against Chavez.

Last year, he joined his labor forces with Fedecamaras, the leading business chamber, and convoked a general strike in April 2002 to support striking oil workers. Workers were upset with Chavez's intervention in Venezuela's semiautonomous state oil monopoly.

Ortega urged thousands to march on Miraflores, the presidential palace. Nineteen people died during the march, which prompted a two-day coup.

Chavez returned to power when an interim government composed mostly of business executives abolished Venezuela's constitution. Ortega seethed on the sidelines.

Ortega was last seen in public Wednesday, a day after a warrant for his arrest was issued. Alfredo Ramos, executive secretary of the CTV, said Ortega is moving from safehouse to safehouse.

"He will stay underground because there is no guarantee for his physical safety. He's received numerous death threats," Ramos said.

Ortega's whereabouts have become a national obsession. Rumors have put him in Aruba, Colombia or in remote ranches on Venezuela's vast central plains.

"He probably left the country already, but that bandit could be anywhere," said Ramon Ramirez, a construction worker who supports Chavez.

The latest strike, which ended Feb. 4 in all but the oil industry, cost Venezuela more than $4 billion, created shortages of food and medicines, and forced the world's fifth-largest oil exporter to import gasoline.

The strike focused attention on Venezuela's simmering political crisis but failed to bring about either early elections or Chavez's ouster.

The future of talks mediated by Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, is in doubt.

Chavez responded angrily Sunday to foreign critics of the charges against the two strike leaders. He directed warnings at some members of a "Group of Friends" initiative created to bolster the negotiating process.

"Don't mess with our affairs!" Chavez said, singling out Gaviria, the United States, Spain and Colombia.

Opposition representatives on Monday sent a letter to Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, coordinator of the "Friends" group, calling for an urgent meeting to discuss "the worsening of the Venezuelan situation."

reuters.com Mon February 24, 2003 03:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his government of using inflammatory rhetoric, possibly contributing to violence between opponents and supporters of the populist leader.

"Inflammatory statements such as those attributed to President Chavez are not helpful in advancing the dialogue between the government of Venezuela and the opposition," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said.

"We are concerned that heightened political rhetoric has contributed unnecessarily to some of the recent violence in Caracas," the spokesman added.

On Sunday Chavez warned the world to stop meddling in the affairs of his troubled South American nation and Venezuelan police locked up a strike leader on "civil rebellion" charges.

He accused the United States and Spain of siding with his enemies, warned Colombia he might break off diplomatic relations, and reprimanded the chief mediator in tortuous peace talks for stepping "out of line."

Last week he said he was going on the offensive against the "terrorists" and "fascists" who have defied him.

Reeker said: "What we ... remain concerned about is the government's rhetoric and some of the actions that have been undermining the dialogue process."

He said the United States continued to favor the dialogue mediated by Cesar Gaviria, the secretary-general of the of American States, who spent weeks in Venezuela trying to arrange an end to a strike by Chavez's opponents.

Opponents of the president, who they accuse of disregarding democracy and ruining the economy, are waging a campaign to pressure him into accepting elections.

The opposition strike, which fizzled out during the first week of February, severely disrupted the nation's oil exports in the world's No. 5 exporter. Oil exports account for half of state revenues and Venezuela's economy, already deep in recession, contracted by nearly 9 percent by the end of last year.

The Venezuelan government has fired more than 12,000 oil company employees who joined the strike. It is now using replacement workers to help restart the industry, undermining the opposition's campaign which Chavez charges is trying to drive him from office.

The United States complained on Thursday about the arrest of business leader Carlos Fernandez, the head of the Fedecamaras business chamber and one of the strike leaders.

Reeker added: "We would note that according to Venezuela's constitution, the judiciary, not the president, decides what charges to bring in criminal cases."

www.time.com By TIM PADGETT WITH OWAIN JOHNSON | CARACAS

Carlos Fernandez and Carlos Ortega were history. For two months, Fernández, head of Venezuela's national business chamber, and Ortega, boss of the nation's largest labor union, led a loud but inept general strike meant to oust leftist President Hugo Chávez. When the strike ended earlier this month, they had succeeded only in crippling an already depressed economy, paralyzing Venezuela's all-important oil industry and exposing themselves as part of the corrupt oligarchy Chávez overthrew in the 1998 presidential election.

After outlasting and outsmarting this duo, Chávez could have focused on Venezuela's recovery. Instead, shortly after midnight on Feb. 20, Chávez's secret police arrested Fernández outside a restaurant in Caracas' posh Las Mercedes district on tenuous charges of treason and criminal conspiracy. They had the same warrant for the arrest of Ortega, who went into hiding. The two are "tumors we have to remove," Chávez declared, "coup mongers, saboteurs, fascists, assassins." But as Fernández was led away — and as diners leapt to rescue him, until the agents fired their guns in the air — Chávez had improbably turned the two into opposition heroes again.

Worse, Chávez has reinforced the fear that prompted the strike in the first place: that his erratic "revolution" is hell-bent on creating a dictatorship in the mold of his comrade, Cuba's Fidel Castro. The police action came only days after three dissident soldiers and an opposition activist were found tortured and murdered, their bodies dumped on the outskirts of Caracas. Police are still investigating those killings; but the victims' families insist that pro-Chávez thugs are responsible. In all, the events have derailed talks between Chávez and the opposition, which seemed headed toward a binding constitutional referendum on his presidency this coming August. (Chávez has rejected calls for an early election.)

And this time, diplomats involved in the process — as well as international human-rights organizations — aren't hiding their displeasure with Chávez. "His modus operandi is to always be at war with everyone and everything," says one diplomat. "We're losing a rare chance to help this country heal for a change." That's crucial not only for Venezuela. As a war in Iraq looms, global oil prices are volatile and rising, making an end to the crisis in Venezuela — which has the hemisphere's largest oil reserves but has seen the strike slash its crude output by more than half — an international imperative.

But healing is not a part of Chávez's political repertoire. His belligerent and authoritarian style has violently polarized the nation and wrecked the economy. Polls show that he would roundly lose a plebiscite — and observers worry that he may now be trying to squash the referendum. "Chávez has announced that 2003 will be the year of his total revolutionary offensive," frets independent political analyst Alberto Garrido. "Now we are seeing a much clearer Cuban model." Along with political arrests — and Chávez has hinted that many more are in the offing — analysts also point to his new, draconian currency-exchange controls, which are meant in large part to put the squeeze on his chief enemy, Venezuela's business sector. Says Chávez: "There will not be a single dollar for coup mongers."

Such displays have others worried that Chávez is not only dictatorial but delusional. Opposition legislators last year tried to evoke a constitutional article that defines "mental incapacity" as grounds for removing a President. In recent weeks, Chávez has accused his opponents of hiring warlocks to subvert his government, and charged Venezuela's commercial TV networks with planting subliminal messages of rebellion even in children's movies. A Chávez spokesman insists the opposition "simply wants to interpret his confrontational style as imbalance."

Thanks to the decades of larcenous governments that preceded him — and which are responsible for Venezuela's inexcusable 80% poverty rate — Chávez retains enough support among the nation's poor to stay afloat. But since, like Castro, Chávez seems to obsessively crave enemies to fight, it may not be long before he runs out of what few friends he has left.

news.ft.com By Andy Webb-Vidal in Caracas Published: February 24 2003 19:57 | Last Updated: February 24 2003 19:57

A pact condemning political violence, signed last week by the government of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez and opposition leaders, appeared to be breaking down on Monday as opponents threatened to withdraw from the accord.

Opponents of Mr Chávez, grouped in the "Democratic Co-ordinator", warned they could rescind their side of the agreement unless the international community pressed the government into upholding the accord.

The warning follows the house arrest of Carlos Fernández, head of the Fedecamaras business federation, who was captured by armed security police in a heavy-handed midnight raid last week.

Mr Fernández is facing charges of "criminal instigation" and "civil rebellion" for his role in co-leading a two-month strike in December and January aimed, unsuccessfully, at pressing for early elections and forcing Mr Chávez's resignation.

"If the international community does absolutely nothing and the government does not uphold its side of the agreement we will withdraw," said Timoteo Zambrano, an opposition negotiator in talks facilitated by the Organisation of American States (OAS). No outside sanctions were agreed as part of the accord, but opponents of Mr Chávez had hoped members of a six-nation "Group of Friends" would be able to lend diplomatic weight to reinforce the OAS-sponsored agreement.

The group - consisting of Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Portugal, Spain and the US - was formed in January to give fresh impetus to a four-month-old but virtually fruitless effort by the OAS to broker an electoral solution to the country's political deadlock, which has on several occasions spilled over into violence.

However, in a sign that Mr Chávez is willing to put already cool diplomatic relations on the line to deflect outside pressure, he has bluntly warned both the OAS and the "Group of Friends" not to interfere in domestic affairs.

Speaking on his weekly Alo, Presidente television show on Sunday, Mr Chávez accused both the US and Spain of taking sides with his opponents, who charge that the populist president and former paratrooper is governing like a dictator.

Government spokesmen from the US and Spain, and César Gaviria, secretary-general of the OAS, have expressed concern at the handling of Mr Fernández's case. However, the Fedecamaras chief has said he was treated with due respect by the authorities.

Mr Chávez warned Mr Gaviria, a former president of Colombia, "not to step out of line" and to "respect Venezuelan sovereignty".

The opposition warning also comes after a shoot-out in Caracas at the weekend in which one police officer was shot dead, allegedly by government supporters.

www.cnn.com Monday, February 24, 2003 Posted: 8:02 AM EST (1302 GMT)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- A leading opponent of President Hugo Chavez who helped lead a two-month national strike was put under house arrest Sunday after a judge struck down a treason charge but left standing two other serious counts.

Carlos Fernandez, president of the Fedecamaras business chamber, was seized Wednesday by federal agents. An arrest order was issued for another strike leader who remains in hiding.

A judge struck down three of the charges against Fernandez, including treason, in a 13-hour closed-door hearing that ended early Sunday. The court upheld charges of rebellion and incitement, said Pedro Berrizbeitia, one of the business leader's defense lawyers.

Separately, gunmen loyal to Chavez ambushed a group of policemen overnight, killing one officer and wounding five others, said Miguel Pinto, chief of the police motorcycle brigade.

The officers were attacked Saturday night as they returned from the funeral for a slain colleague and passed near the headquarters of the state oil monopoly, which has been staked out by Chavez supporters since December.

I declared that all the accusations against me were false.

Chavez's government has seized thousands of weapons from city police on the pretext that Police Chief Henry Vivas has lost control of the 9,000-member department. Critics allege Chavez is disarming police while secretly arming pro-government radicals.

After Fernandez's overnight court hearing, uniformed federal agents rushed the business leader to his home in Valencia, 66 miles west of Caracas.

"I declared that all the accusations against me were false," the 52-year-old Fernandez told Globovision television, adding that he was being "politically persecuted."

Fernandez said he was well-treated in police custody and "they respected all my rights," but he insisted his midnight arrest on Wednesday was irregular.

Fernandez will remain under house arrest while prosecutors formalize the accusations against him.

Co-organizer Ortega still in hiding

Strike co-leader Carlos Ortega remained in hiding after a warrant for his arrest was issued. As president of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation, he and Fernandez spearheaded the work stoppage that paralyzed the vital oil industry and devastated the national economy.

He is a terrorist and a coup-plotter.

Chavez has demanded 20-year jail sentences for Fernandez and Ortega, alleging they sabotaged oil installations, incited civil disobedience and trampled human rights.

"He is a terrorist and a coup-plotter," Chavez said of Fernandez during the president's weekly television address. "Let the decision be obeyed, it is the court's order. If it were up to me he wouldn't be at home, he would be behind bars."

The two-month strike, which ended February 4 in all sectors but the oil industry, caused food and gasoline shortages nationwide and cost Venezuela an estimated $4 billion. Before the strike, Venezuela was the world's fifth-largest petroleum exporter and a major U.S. supplier.

The arrest was ordered by a judge who previously served as a defense attorney for presidential supporters accused of shooting at opposition marchers before an April coup that briefly toppled Chavez.

Chavez to world: Stop meddling

The Organization of American States, the United Nations and the Carter Center, run by former President Jimmy Carter, have sponsored three months of talks to seek an electoral solution to Venezuela's crisis. The future of those talks was in doubt after Fernandez's arrest.

Chavez on Sunday reprimanded OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria for speaking out about the detention, saying his comments were "totally out of place."

He also had sharp words for foreign governments critical of Venezuela. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday that Washington was concerned Fernandez's arrest could hinder peace talks.

Chavez singled out the United States, Spain and Colombia and warned, "Don't mess with our affairs!

"Gentlemen of Washington ... we don't meddle in your internal affairs. Why does a spokesman have to come out and say they are worried? No, that is Venezuela's business."

Venezuela's opposition wants early elections and staged the national strike to back its demand. It collected more than 4 million signatures demanding an early vote, but the government dismisses the petition drive and accuses the opposition of "coup-plotting."

Chavez was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000 to a six-year term. He has vowed to distribute Venezuela's oil riches to the poor, but critics accuse him of imposing an authoritarian state and driving the economy into the ground.