Chavez ordered out tanks during protest march-tapes

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 24 (Reuters) - As unarmed civilian protesters marched against him on April 11, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered tanks and troops to protect the presidential palace, according to taped radio conversations broadcast by local television and radio stations on Wednesday.

Opponents of the left-wing former paratrooper, who survived a short-lived coup against him this month, said the tapes indicated Chavez had been prepared to use military force against unarmed civilian demonstrators.

But Chavez's armed forces chief Gen. Lucas Rincon denied this, saying the deployment was not intended to quash the protest but to prevent sabotage and guarantee public order.

In the recordings, Chavez's voice can be heard calmly and clearly using his code name, "Shark One," and giving precise military orders. The private TV and radio stations said the recordings were made by amateur radio enthusiasts living around the Miraflores Palace during the huge April 11 march.

The populist president, restored to office by loyal troops and civilian supporters early April 14, has ordered a full and impartial inquiry into the deaths of more than 40 people during street protests and violence that accompanied the coup.

The public broadcast of the tapes was likely to inflame a controversy surrounding the four days of violence that accompanied the coup and subsequent restoration of Chavez, who has ruled the world's No. 4 oil exporter since 1998.

Foes of Chavez, including military officers who staged the brief putsch, have accused him of deploying tanks and troops to repel the April 11 anti-government march by tens of thousands of civilian protesters, in which 17 people were shot dead.

But Rincon, who confirmed the military deployment, defended the move. "It wasn't to mistreat or to repress the population. No. It was to guarantee security and prevent public order disturbances," he told local Union Radio.

Senior military officers involved in the coup have said they removed the president and replaced him with an interim government because they could not accept Chavez's order to use the armed forces against an unarmed civilian demonstration. At least five of the coup plotters are facing rebellion charges

Giving a conflicting version of events, Rincon, who resigned his post as military chief during the coup but was later reinstated along with the president, said the military deployment plan was put into effect after rebel officers had already come out against the president.

"If I remember rightly ... (members of) practically all the branches (of the armed forces) had already spoken out against the president," he said.

"This means there were already strong indications that we were presumably facing a coup d'etat," Rincon added.

The army general remains a controversial figure. He announced publicly during the coup that Chavez was resigning, but the president subsequently denied he had resigned. Chavez nevertheless kept Rincon as his armed forces chief.

Supporters and foes of Chavez accuse each other of the killings in the April 11 march. Anti-Chavez protesters were fired upon by gunmen, many of them firing from rooftops.

Chavez has not specifically denied ordering out the tanks and troops but has denied any responsibility in the deaths.

In one of the tapes broadcast Wednesday, an unidentified officer refers to Chavez clearly as "Mr. President." In another, the president says: "This is Chavez speaking."

"Look, I am ordering you to apply the Avila Plan and the first movement we are going to make is for the Ayala Battalion (of light tanks) to take up positions. ... Send it here to the palace, to take up positions around it," Chavez said.

"Copy you, copy you, Shark One," acknowledges the unidentified officer from Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters.

Local military analysts said the so-called Avila Plan foresees the deployment of troops when the normal forces of law and order, such as the police and the National Guard, are unable to control a situation of emergency or civil unrest.

In another of the radio conversations, the president is advised that a dissident general, whose name is given as Lugo Pena, has spoken on local radio calling for a rebellion against him. "OK, find out where he is," Chavez says.

Chavez's popularity has fallen sharply since his landslide election as opponents from different sectors of society have questioned his self-proclaimed "revolution" and accused him of trying to install a Cuban-style, leftist regime in Venezuela.

Since his reinstatement, Chavez has extended an olive branch to opponents. But human rights groups and opponents such as business chiefs, opposition parties and dissident military officers say reconciliation will be impossible unless the April 11-14 killings, mostly of civilians, are cleared up.

Some Chavez's quotes and actions of his armed thugs, called Chavistas:

November 2001 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday dismissed rumors of a possible military coup in his South American nation, but warned that if there were any such insurrection he would meet it with ``my rifle in hand.'' Asked if he had considered resigning in the face of bitter media criticism of his government and protests from many sectors of society, Chavez said: ``No way. There is no reason for that.'' ``If one day, I realize that I am doing harm to the country, then I would be the first to go far away,'' he said.

November 2001 - ``I dare them to have that strike. We will see who has more strength, [business] or the sovereign people,'' Chávez said while inaugurating a transportation law. ``I'm the head of state. You're not going to put me against the wall; you're not going to blackmail me.''

January 2002 - Opposition lawmakers attacked by supporters of Venezuela's President Chavez : Chavez called the violence a "warning" to the opposition "and its absurd and evil intention" of trying to destabilize his government. He threatened to deploy supporters on "every street corner" to "defend the revolution," as the leftist leader refers to his policies.

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April 2002 ***- "Comandante" Lina Ron, who considers herself a modern version of "Tania," a woman who fought alongside Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, says she is a willing martyr for Chavez's cause. She was arrested after leading a violent pro-Chavez counter-protest against demonstrating university students. Ron suggested that violence is needed to quash mounting opposition to Chavez - whose combative rhetoric has contributed to a precipitous decline in popularity polls. It's needed, she said, to allow Venezuela's majority poor a stake in the country's governance for the first time in history. Ron attributes her growing flock of supporters to a "gift that God gave me" so that "the people follow me and believe in me. ... We're ready for the Fatherland to call us."

Now Ron has become a focal point for debate about Chavez's "Bolivarian Circles," which the government calls self-help neighborhood groups. Chavez opponents call them a violent threat to democracy styled after Cuba's Revolutionary Block Committees. Created after Castro urged Venezuelans to "organize" to defend Chavez's revolution, the committees are forming street tribunals to demand Ron's release - and to symbolically prosecute government opponents as "traitors." In recent months, the 42-year-old Ron has organized and led street marches - called "countermarches" here - to stop or intimidate demonstrations by civilians and a disorganized opposition to Chavez. Two December marches to Miraflores, the presidential palace, were stopped by Ron's "countermarches." A February march to the National Assembly to commemorate Venezuelan democracy was similarly met - and diverted - by a countermarch.

Ron and her followers burned a U.S. flag in Caracas' central Plaza Bolivar just after the September terrorist attacks in the United States. The anti-Washington demonstration appalled many Venezuelans. More recently, Ron's followers threatened journalists at El Nacional newspaper in Caracas. Chavez has called Ron a political prisoner. "We salute Lina Ron, a female soldier who deserves the respect of all Venezuelans," he said recently.

Chavistas Attack Venezuela's Congress - Bolivarian neighborhood groups inciting wholesale violence*** "We've been forced to suspend the sessions because nobody can work like this, trying to vote while knowing that armed thugs are waiting outside," Cesar Perez, a member of the Social Christian Party, said Friday. More than 200 riot police and National Guardsmen were sent to the assembly on Thursday night to protect lawmakers from rowdy "Chavistas" who threw rocks and bottles when opposition legislator Pastor Heyra tried to enter the elegant assembly building.***

Venezuelan journalists under siege by Chavez: Incendiary attacks stir Chavistas*** But Chavez still refuses to let up on his harangues against the press -- in his radio show last Sunday, for instance, the targets were the Spanish and Colombian media -- and he lauds his most radical supporters as true "revolutionaries."

The overheated atmosphere has alarmed international organizations. The Organization of American States in January ordered the government to take precautionary measures to protect journalists after Chavez's followers gathered outside the offices of El Nacional, banging pots and pans and shouting slogans for three hours. Employees were afraid to leave the premises. Officials responded by stationing police at newspaper office entrances. After receiving numerous complaints, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission last month sent representative Santiago Canton to Venezuela for a report. Canton witnessed the tension firsthand -- raucous Chavistas disrupted his concluding press conference and refused to let him speak, forcing him to abruptly cancel the event.***

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