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Venezuela suspects exiles in prosecutors slaying

BY LETTA TAYLER | LATIN AMERICA CORRESPONDENT

November 20, 2004

CARACAS - Venezuela suggested Friday that exiles living in Florida may have masterminded the assassination of a prosecutor investigating a short-lived coup against leftist President Hugo Chávez and demanded that Washington explain why the United States harbors the alleged extremists.

The comments by ranking government officials threatened to disrupt a recent, uneasy peace between Chávez and Washington, which had initially hailed Chávez's brief overthrow. Venezuela, which sits on the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East, supplies one-sixth of the oil imported by the United States.

In an attack that has shaken this volatile nation, prosecutor Danilo Anderson, 38, was killed Thursday night by a powerful bomb detonated by remote control as he drove home from a meeting in a middle-class neighborhood of Caracas. Government officials said they have no suspects in the slaying, which they called a terrorist act aimed at derailing both the coup investigations and government stability. But several officials pointed to Venezuelan exiles in the Miami area who have publicly urged Chávez's violent overthrow or are sought in Venezuela in connection with two foreign embassy bombings here last year.

"The government of the United States must explain how these terrorist groups who operate in Florida make such statements through the mass media with demonstrated impunity," said Information Minister Andrés Izarra.

U.S. officials issued statements strongly condemning Anderson's killing, but declined to comment specifically on the Venezuelan government's demand that they investigate the exiles. "If they have any information that these individuals were involved in anything then they should share it," said a State Department official who asked not to be identified.

In an interview Monday with Newsday, Anderson said he was weeks away from completing a sweeping investigation into 400 alleged accomplices or supporters of the 2002 coup, in which 19 people were killed and almost 300 wounded. Among the accused are business and civic leaders, lawmakers and ex-military officials. Anderson did mention receiving death threats.

As thousands of seething or weeping Chávez supporters jammed Caracas streets to escort Anderson's coffin to the National Assembly Friday, Chávez -- who called the prosecutor a "martyr" -- appealed for calm, as did opposition leaders.

But political observers feared the bombing could signal a dangerous new trend in Venezuela, with has been wracked by intense polarization between an influential elite that claims the combative Chávez is imposing a Cuba-style regime and an impoverished majority that hails the president as its savior after decades of neglect by previous rulers.

Despite numerous deadly street protests in recent years, the two bombings to date -- at the Colombian Consulate and a Spanish Embassy annex -- claimed no lives and were considered less sophisticated.

Anderson's assassination "ratchets the violence to a new level," said Michael Shifter, a Venezuela specialist with the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, D.C. "The danger is that what has basically been a political conflict with sporadic violence could become an armed conflict."

Anderson was the government's lead prosecutor on an array of cases related to the 47-hour coup. He was in the process of questioning 400 Venezuelans who allegedly signed a decree during the coup that dissolved the constitution, the Supreme Court and the legislature. If found guilty, those who signed could face prison terms of 12 to 24 years for civil rebellion.

Despite Anderson's unprepossessing air and slight physique, critics frequently branded him a pit bull unleashed by the government to silence even peaceful opposition to Chávez. In his last interview, Anderson insisted to Newsday that he was not out for blood.

"The argument that these people are being unfairly prosecuted is nothing more than an effort to evade responsibility for the most serious actions one can take against one's county," he said.

Relations had appeared to calm between Washington and Caracas after voters defeated a referendum in August that sought to remove Chávez from the presidency. However, in the past few weeks, new tensions have surfaced over a Venezuelan government lawsuit against four civic leaders. The lawsuit charges them with treason for accepting U.S. taxpayers' dollars through a quasi-governmental group in Washington known as the National Endowment for Democracy.

Venezuelan officials accuse NED, which has contributed more than $2 million since 2002 to Venezuelan civic groups -- many of them Chávez foes -- over the past three years. NED vehemently denies the accusation.

Taking a tip from their Cuban counterparts, who have been known to stage attacks on Cuba, some extremists within the Venezuela exile community in Miami have made no secret of their desire to unseat Chávez. One of the two Venezuelan National Guard officers accused of the embassy bombings admitted in July that he had been in indirect contact with a fugitive Venezuelan general accused of plotting to overthrow Chávez.

That same month, former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, also in exile in the Miami area, said Chávez "must die like a dog."

Friday, Venezuelan officials repeatedly mentioned a statement on a Miami television station by exile actor Orlando Urdaneta last month in which he urged the president to "disappear physically, definitively" at the hands "of men with big guns."

"It's an order," Urdaneta said. " ... Come on, hurry up."