Venezuela: New Chief of the Air Force dies in accident.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - The man named days ago to head the air force in the wake of a failed coup died in a helicopter crash along with three other generals, the military said Saturday, adding to the turmoil in Venezuela's armed forces.

Gen. Luis Alfonso Acevedo and the generals died when their helicopter crashed in forests 10 miles north of the capital, likely due to bad weather, the military said.

Also killed were a captain, three lieutenants and two sergeants, Gen. Pablo Perez Perez told Globovision television. Two other helicopters carrying the commanders in chief of the Army and the National Guard were also forced to land, but none were injured in those craft.

The officers had attended a ceremony installing a new Navy chief, Vice Admiral Fernando Camejo Arenas.

President Hugo Chavez reshuffled the high command of the military after a short-lived coup - backed by some in the military - during which he was ousted April 12 only to be reinstated a few days later

Sharp divisions within the military over the coup bode ill for Venezuela's goal of reconciliation. Five high-ranking officers brought to court Friday for their role in the coup insisted the action had humanitarian aims, to prevent the slaughter of civilians by soldiers acting on Chavez's orders.

Chavez's defenders, in response, depict the coup as a carefully planned plot backed by anti-Chavez interests abroad and headed by opposition leaders willing to kill their own followers to get rid of the president.

In the bloodshed at an April 11 anti-Chavez march hours before the coup, at least 16 people were killed. More than 100 people died during subsequent riots and looting.

A military judge on Friday ordered the five officers to indefinite house arrest pending formal charges of rebellion.

``We still consider this to be an illegitimate government,'' said Rear Admiral Carlos Molina Tamayo as he was whisked away by military police. ``The armed forces are very beaten down and divided.'' Tamayo had denounced Chavez in February.

Asked if Chavez was reorganizing the military to his liking, Molina Tamayo replied: ``Maybe. But he can't remake the country to his liking.''

Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco, the army's former second-in-command, greeted reporters with a crisp salute outside the military courtroom.

``The general acted out of respect for human rights, respect for the law,'' Vasquez's lawyer, Rene Buroz, said after a hearing on rebellion and mutiny charges that carry a 30-year maximum sentence.

Defense lawyer Hidalgo Valero said that as many as 3,000 officers supported or participated in the uprising against Chavez. Hundreds of lower-ranking officers have testified before military intelligence officers.

Army Gen. Nestor Gonzalez has defended the coup as ``a humanitarian act meant to avoid having the army attack the people and produce a massacre.'' Gonzalez said generals balked at Chavez's order to activate ``Plan Avila,'' calling out troops to defend the palace by any means necessary during the march by hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Chavez was confronted by his high command after the bloodbath. Asked why the generals didn't grant Chavez's request to flee to Cuba, Gen. Hector Gonzalez said the army was afraid of taking the blame for the dead.

``If the president had been allowed to leave, he would have left all of these deaths and this tremendous conflict for us to clear up, that was implicit,'' Gonzalez said. ``What would society have thought?''

Chavez's chief ideologue - Guillermo Garcia Ponce, whose official title is director of the Revolutionary Political Command - insists that dissident generals, local media and anti-Chavez groups in the United States plotted his overthrow. He claims they even hired sharpshooters to fire on the anti-Chavez demonstrators.

``The most reactionary sectors in the United States were also implicated in the conspiracy,'' Garcia Ponce told Globovision television on Friday. Asked to explain the April 11 shooting of opposition protesters, purportedly by Chavez's own activists, Garcia Ponce blamed provocateurs.

``The people planning it placed sharpshooters at strategic points to open fire on pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez marches,'' Garcia Ponce said. ``It was a provocation, part of the coup, to create this massacre to justify the coup.''

Garcia Ponce did admit that members of the Bolivarian Circles, pro-Chavez neighborhood committees, were sent to newspaper and television offices after the coup to pressure journalists ``to tell the truth.'' With gunfire crackling around their offices, several newspapers failed to publish editions that day.

Comar, a private survey firm, said 56 percent of Caracas residents polled said they'll never know what happened; 33 percent said they will; and 11 percent were uncertain. The poll of 500 people had a 5 percent margin of error and was published by El Universal newspaper. www.lavozdecubalibre.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here are some of the players.

Chavez recoups his base***When businessman Pedro Carmona assumed the presidency the next day, he named a navy rear admiral as his defense minister and installed other naval and national guard officers in top jobs. That upset army generals, according to Carratu, because their branch of the armed forces had traditionally held sway.

Many officers also opposed Carmona's decrees to dissolve Congress, fire most Chavez-appointed officials and rule with a coterie of conservative business associates. Rather than facilitating a popular uprising against Chavez, the military's action began to look more like an anti-democratic coup that was denounced by governments around the world. "They did not want to violate the constitution," said Rodriguez, the former war college professor. "But it's a contradiction. You can't make a coup and preserve the constitution."

Nuñez, the lawyer, was at the Miraflores presidential palace April 12 when Carmona issued his decrees. He said the army's commander, Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco, who was a key figure behind the uprising, was flabbergasted. "He was very, very against the decrees. He said that he had to consult with other commanders about whether or not to support the new government," Nuñez said.

Another problem was that Vasquez and other top officers who rebelled did not exercise direct control over troops. Instead of taking control of the Miraflores palace, arresting pro-Chavez officers and securing the countryside, they wasted time squabbling over political appointments, said Fernando Ochoa, a former defense minister. By April 13, commanders of key military installations in Caracas and Maracay had declared their opposition to Carmona. As demonstrators took to the streets of Caracas and other cities to demand the return of Chavez, loyalist soldiers took control of the presidential palace. "I have never seen so many mistakes in so little time," said Tarre, the analyst.

Snip

Gen. Lucas Rincon, the overall commander of the armed forces who had earlier announced the president's resignation, proclaimed his loyalty to Chavez. Carmona was placed under arrest, and before dawn Sunday, Chavez was back in his old job. Nestor Gonzalez, an army general who had expressed support for the uprising, said the coup's failure will likely produce even more fractures within the armed forces. "It's hard to understand how a general can say one thing at one hour and the next hour say something else," Gonzalez told reporters. "The leadership is weak. It has no credibility." Some analysts wonder whether Chavez must now rule at the behest of the officers who brought him back to power. But Carratu, the retired rear admiral, believes Chavez is in control and points out that a purge of the military is in full swing, with about 80 officers under investigation. Chavez has replaced top commanders, including Vasquez, who actively supported the coup.***

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Helicopter Crash***CARACAS, Venezuela - The man newly named to head Venezuela's Air Force in the wake of a failed coup against President Hugo Chavez has died in a helicopter crash along with three other generals, adding to the turmoil in the nation's armed forces. The armed forces on Saturday confirmed a Globovision television report that Gen. Gen. Luis Alfonso Acevedo had died. The television report said nine other soldiers had died in the crash late Friday night in a forested area about 15 kilometers (10 miles) north of the capital. Officials said bad weather was the likely cause.

Also killed were Gens. Pedro Torres Finol, Julio Ochoa Omana and Rafael Quintana Bello, as well as a captain, three lieutenants and two sergeants. Two other helicopters carrying army Commander in Chief Lucas Rincon and National Guard commander Gen. Francisco Belisario Landis were also forced to land, but none were injured in those craft.

The officers had attended a ceremony installing a new Navy chief, Vice Admiral Fernando Camejo Arenas. Chavez reshuffled the high command after he was ousted in a coup April 12 and reinstated on Sunday.***

Protests erupt against Venezuela's new government***CARACAS, Venezuela - The businessman chosen by army commanders to lead Venezuela postponed the swearing-in of his new Cabinet on Saturday as protesters in some cities demanded the return of ousted leader Hugo Chavez and soldiers in one city rebelled against the new government.

A high-ranking official in the new government said talks to quell a rebellion in the central city of Maracay were "difficult." Venezuela's armed forces, including its air force, are concentrated in Maracay. One of the rebelling officers was identified as Air Force Gen. Raul Baduel, who commands the F-16 air base, the official said. ……….Carmona, during an interview with the CNN en Espanol, said Chavez was well and would soon leave Venezuela for an unspecified destination. He also acknowledged that air force officers were rebelling in the central city of Maracay.***

If you can stand one more LINK, I think you'll find this most interesting.

Clash of Visions Pushed Venezuela Toward Coup

*** Venezuela's military has long been one of the country's most admired institutions. The army comprises the vast majority of the military's 79,000 uniformed members, and is the most socially diverse and politically liberal of the service branches. The navy is one of its smallest forces, and considered the most exclusive. As recently as three decades ago, only the children of married parents were accepted into the naval academy that Molina attended.

When Chavez entered the army's academy in the early 1970s, a project by Venezuela's Communist Party to infiltrate the ranks with sympathizers was 10 years old. The project eventually fractured into ideological splinters, and Chavez became the head of a small group of leftist officers in the early 1980s that opposed the conservative government. In 1992, then-Lt. Col. Chavez led this group in a failed coup to topple President Carlos Andres Perez, an attempt that made him a national figure and paved the way for his election six years later.

Despite their different backgrounds,(Rear Adm. Carlos) Molina was too accomplished for Chavez to overlook: an officer with two master's degrees, fluent in four languages and an expert in signals intelligence, anti-submarine warfare and weapons systems on the frigates and destroyers that account for most of Venezuela's surface fleet. In November 2000, Chavez named Molina his national security adviser. Molina helped create an "intelligence center" at Miraflores, the presidential palace, designed, in the words of Chavez aides, to "monitor the social situation around the nation." Chavez opponents viewed the operation as another step toward a police state. Although part of Chavez's inner circle, Molina said last week, "I was a trusted man, but only relatively so."

Molina said he was alarmed by what he saw in his national security role. Without offering evidence, Molina said he discovered Chavez's "ties with and sympathies for" Colombia's Marxist guerrillas fighting a U.S.-backed government next door. He said Chavez brought in Cuban advisers to control dissent at home. Chavez has denied both charges. But Molina said that, beyond those specific security concerns, he became convinced that Chavez was carrying out a communist project that he began when he was a young army officer. "The evidence couldn't be more clear -- his attacks on civil society, the media, the church -- that he is turning this country into a large class struggle," Molina said.

After eight months, Chavez dismissed Molina. The president offered him the ambassadorship to Greece, which Molina declined. According to non-U.S. diplomats here who know him, Molina began last November to plan for Chavez's ouster with a group of dissident officers led by Air Force Col. Pedro Soto. But the sources said Molina broke with the group to join with a more powerful faction of senior navy and national guard officers who ended up in the provisional government this month. Soto is now one of three officers seeking asylum in the Bolivian embassy here. On the day of the coup, he was in Washington, attending a House committee hearing where Otto J. Reich, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, was testifying. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a staunch Castro opponent, introduced Soto as a "great patriot."*** Full article

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