Thu Feb 20, 5:44 PM ET

Thousands of angry government opponents chanting "This is a dictatorship!" rallied in the capital's streets Thursday, protesting the midnight arrest of a strike leader by secret police.   But President Hugo Chavez triumphantly proclaimed that he authorized the arrest of Carlos Fernandez even though it threatened to re-ignite massive demonstrations and again paralyze the country.

"One of the coup plotters was arrested last night. It was about time, and see how the others are running to hide," Chavez said at the foreign ministry. "I went to bed with a smile."

Chavez said judges should not "be afraid to issue arrest warrants against coup-plotters."

Carlos Fernandez, head of Venezuela's largest business federation — Fedecamaras, was seized by about eight, armed agents around midnight Wednesday as he left a restaurant in Caracas' trendy Las Mercedes district, said his bodyguard, Juan Carlos Fernandez.

The men fired into the air when patrons tried to prevent the arrest, the bodyguard said.

Carlos Fernandez faces charges of treason and instigating violence for leading the two-month strike that began Dec. 2, seeking to oust Chavez and force early elections.

The strike ended Feb. 4 in all sectors except the critical oil industry. Before the strike, Venezuela was the world's fifth-largest petroleum exporter and a major U.S. supplier.

Government allies warned that more than 100 opposition leaders, from labor bosses to news media executives, who supported the strike also could be arrested.

"More than one hundred are on the list to be captured," ruling party lawmaker Luis Velasquez said.

The existence of such a list could not be immediately confirmed.

Opposition sympathizers at Thursday's rally near an air force base in eastern Caracas lambasted Chavez, accusing the leftist leader of trying to establish a Cuban-style dictatorship in this South American nation of 24 million people.

"This is an escalation of violence by the government, which has arrived at the extreme of repression," said Carlos Feijoo, 88, a retired oil worker. "He wants to copy Fidel (Castro)."

Fedecamaras vice president Albis Munoz warned of another nationwide strike in response to the arrest.

"Definitely there will be actions, and very strong actions," Munoz said.

The Confederation of Venezuelan Workers also said a 12- or 24-hour stoppage was possible.

Fernandez's wife, Sonia, spoke briefly with her husband and said he was in good condition at secret police headquarters. Fernandez was meeting with his attorneys, she said.

Chavez supporters gathered near the headquarters and a downtown plaza to celebrate the arrest.

"It's what had to be done. These opposition leaders tried to destroy the country, now they must be punished," said Tomas Ordonez, a 49-year-old taxi driver.

Carlos Fernandez called the strike with Carlos Ortega, president of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation — the country's largest labor union.

Ortega was ordered to surrender on treason and instigating violence charges, magistrate Maikel Jose Moreno said, but the tough-talking labor boss said he would not turn himself in.

"We have nothing to fear," Ortega told Globovision TV channel via telephone. "The only one who has a date with justice is the president."

Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, has accused the two opposition leaders of plotting to overthrow his government with the strike and by orchestrating "an economic coup."

Chavez's allies justified the arrest.

"Each member of the opposition must assume ... the legal consequences of acts of oil sabotage and the attempt to topple a legitimate government," ruling party leader Nicolas Maduro said.

Opposition leaders called for more street protests and appealed to the Organization of American States, the United Nations and the Carter Center, run by former President Carter, for mediation.

OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria said in a statement that Venezuelan judges have the autonomy to make such decisions, but they must respect constitutional norms and human rights.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said officials in Washington worried that Fernandez's arrest could hinder efforts to end the stalemate between Venezuela's political rivals.

"We fear the act could undermine the dialogue process," said Boucher, adding "this increases our concerns about human rights in Venezuela."

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, February 20, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

Talks being facilitated by Organization of American States (OAS) secretary general Cesar Gaviria have been suspended for a few days and are expected to resume on February 26. 

The talks which have been continuing for over 100 days and which finally this week produced their first agreement, a rejection of violence, were reportedly suspended following a request from government negotiators. 

The reasons for the suspension are unclear, but the OAS secretary general is understood to have several other commitments early next week as he heads to Washington for OAS meetings and to Spain for a meeting of the Montevideo Group. 

Despite the signing of the agreement, tensions in Venezuela remain high following the discovery of three soldiers who had apparently been bound, gagged and tortured before being shot and killed.

www.fortwayne.com Posted on Wed, Feb. 19, 2003 FABIOLA SANCHEZ Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - The bodies of three dissident Venezuelan soldiers and an opposition activist had bullet wounds and showed signs of torture, forensic police said Wednesday.

Human rights officials warned that a continued impasse between President Hugo Chaves and the opposition demanding early elections could lead to more violence.

All four bodies were found in the suburbs of Caracas with their hands tied and their faces wrapped with tape.

Darwin Arguello, Angel Salas and Felix Pinto and opposition activist Zaida Peraza, 25, had multiple bullet wounds and showed signs of torture, Raul Yepez, the deputy director of Venezuela's forensics police, said at a press conference on Wednesday.

According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, a witness to the abductions saw the victims being forced into two vehicles by men wearing ski-masks, not far from the plaza that has become the central rallying point of the opposition. Yepez said the abduction took place on Saturday night.

"I don't think anybody should expect the violence to decrease," said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank in Washington. "As long as there is an impasse on both sides, if anything, the violence will increase."

Dissident soldiers supported a nationwide strike called Dec. 2 to demand Chavez's resignation or early elections. The strike was lifted Feb. 4 in all areas except the oil industry to protect businesses from bankruptcy.

Chavez's opponents, including other dissident military officers, said government sympathizers could have been responsible for the killings. But Yepez said police had "practically ruled out" political motives.

No arrests have been made in connection with the killings.

Chavez was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000. He promised to wipe out the corruption of previous governments and redistribute the country's vast oil wealth to the poor majority.

His critics charge he has mismanaged the economy, tried to grab authoritarian powers and split the country along class lines.

Opponents of Chavez said Wednesday that more than 4.4 million Venezuelans had petitioned for a constitutional amendment to cut Chavez's term in power from six to four years.

Organizers said they had counted and verified 3.7 million signatures collected in a nationwide petition drive on Feb. 2. These were added to another 719,000 signatures supporting the initiative already gathered.

Under the constitution, organizers need signatures from 15 percent, or about 1.8 million, of the country's 12 million registered voters, to force a referendum on the amendment. This would then clear the way for general elections later this year.

www.guardian.co.uk Owain Johnson in Caracas Thursday February 20, 2003 The Guardian

Three dissident Venezuelan military officers and a young woman have been found dead after apparently being kidnapped, tortured and killed, for what some people fear may have been political motives.

A fifth victim, a 14-year-old girl, survived the attack and is in intensive care.

The three men were part of a group of rebel officers who had declared themselves opposed to the leftwing president, Hugo Chavez.

The officers had been occupying the Plaza Altamira, in the capital's wealthy eastern suburbs, since late October.

Witnesses told police that the group was kidnapped near the Plaza in the early hours of Sunday morning. Armed men reportedly forced them into two cars and drove away.

A farm worker discovered the bodies of Zaida Peroza, 28, a tourism graduate, and Felix Pinto, 25, an air force officer, and the 14-year-old Rosana Rivero on the side of a road east of Caracas on Sunday morning.

Rosana Rivero was still alive and was taken to a nearby hospital, where her condition is described as critical.

The bodies of naval officer Angel Salas and infantryman Darwin Arguello, both 21, were discovered in a park east of the city on Monday afternoon.

All the four dead were found bound and gagged.

Police gave the cause of death as multiple shotgun wounds, and added that the bodies showed additional injuries consistent with the use of torture.

The leader of the dissident military officers, General Enrique Medina Gomez, said the officers were part of a group which took turns to keep watch over the square. He described the murders as "a crime against humanity".

Salas' brother Edwin, who is also a rebel naval officer, said the dissidents' public stand against the Chavez government had made them many enemies.

He said he and his brother had been subjected to constant intimidation since deciding to join the protests.

Mr Salas accused elements within the Venezuelan police and intelligence services of "persecuting" dissident officers. He said that they had also received violent threats from the Bolivarian Circles - groups of pro-government activists - and from the far-left Tupamaro group.

"The murder of my brother and his friends was carefully planned," Mr Salas said. "Everything about the way it was carried out points to a political motive."

Many of the senior military officers involved in the protests in the Plaza Altamira were involved in the short-lived coup against President Chavez last April.

The dissidents accuse Mr Chavez of authoritarianism and of using the armed forces to bolster his social reform projects. They also allege that Mr Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution" in favour of the poor masks a long-term project to introduce Cuban-style socialism to the oil-rich nation.

Despite international mediation, the political divide between Chavez supporters and opponents has widened since last April's coup, and the opposition recently held a damaging two-month strike with the aim of forcing the president's resignation.

As political tension has grown, violent incidents between the two sides have become increasingly common.

Government and opposition representatives signed an agreement on Tuesday to tone down verbal attacks on one another, but it remains unclear what influence this will have on their supporters.

The head of Venezuela's human rights association, Rafael Narvaez, who is representing the families of the four latest dead, said he had little hope that those responsible would be caught or punished.

"There are no credible institutions left any more, and there is currently no rule of law or due process in Venezuela," he said. "We will push as hard as we can for the authorities to investigate the murders, but if we hit a brick wall, we will ask the international community to apply pressure," Mr Narvaez said.

reuters.com Wed February 19, 2003 04:56 PM ET By Phil Stewart

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela reeled on Wednesday from the shotgun-killings of three dissident soldiers and a protester opposed to President Hugo Chavez, as police and grieving relatives split over whether the quadruple homicide was political.

According to police investigations, about twelve unidentified armed men kidnapped the four victims on Saturday night as they were leaving a protest. They were bound, gagged, and some were tortured before the gunmen executed them.

The last two bodies, badly decomposed and showing signs of torture, were found on Tuesday on the outskirts of Caracas.

The case has fueled opposition fears that Chavez may be leading the country toward armed struggle by encouraging supporters to silence dissenting voices, more than 10 months after narrowly surviving a coup led by rebel officers.

Chavez has always called his self-styled "revolution" a peaceful one.

Police attempted to soothe frayed nerves on Wednesday, saying the motive for the killings appeared to be revenge, not politics. They cited an alleged scuffle on Saturday between the slain soldiers and a fellow protester, Edgar Leonardo Machado, who has become the lead suspect in the killings.

"We're investigating," said deputy police chief Raul Yepez. "But the clear, precise motive, the strongest ... is revenge."

Family members of the victims slammed the investigations as corrupt. They accused the police of trying to avert a scandal, and said the four dead were clearly killed for their protests against the populist president.

"They want to clear themselves politically, and they say it's about revenge. My brother had no enemies. The only enemy we have here is Hugo Chavez," said Miguel, whose 21-year-old brother, air force soldier Felix Pinto, was one of the dead.

He spoke from the Plaza Altamira in the wealthy eastern part of the capital, the center stage of Venezuela's opposition protests and the last place the four victims were seen alive.

BOLIVARIAN CIRCLES

Despite occasional violence in Venezuela's political standoff, there have been no confirmed selective killings of Chavez's allies or enemies. Still, street clashes have claimed at least seven lives and left scores injured since December.

Chavez has styled his government on Cuban socialist ideals and the nationalist fervor of Venezuela's 19th century revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar.

After gaining power in 1998, he set up community networks called "Circulos Bolivarianos," or "Bolivarian Circles," which were meant to spread the word of his revolution across the city's honeycomb of poor urban sprawls.

But the opposition says Chavez's supporters take his calls to defend the revolution literally. They brand the groups "Circles of Terror," and have started their own armed "self-defense" groups to guard against attack.

The political situation, marked by daily marches by supporters and opponents of the president, is growing more tense as Chavez refuses to bend to opposition calls to hold early elections.

His term in office ends in 2007, but Chavez jokes he will stay in power for two more decades.

Police say key to solving the mystery of the recent killings will be the testimony of a 14-year-old girl, who apparently was Pinto's underage lover and was abducted along with the four victims but survived the shooting.

The girl has been hospitalized in intensive care and was unable to give investigators a formal statement, police said.

The case is mired in controversy, especially since it appears to involve a deadly Dec. 6 shooting at the Plaza Altamira, which was witnessed by two of the victims.

Zaida Perozo, a female protester whose body was found on Monday, was wounded along with 20 others in the Plaza Altamira and had been considering testifying against an alleged gunman.

Relatives of the deceased said they feared more attacks would follow on opposition leaders.

"This is like a chess game," said Pinto's brother. "First they go after the pawns and then later for top leaders."