(Dirty Tricks?) Venezuela Judge Orders Anti-Chavez Officers' Arrest

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - A Venezuelan judge on Tuesday ordered the arrests of three dissident National Guard officers in connection with bomb attacks on Spanish and Colombian diplomatic offices in Caracas in February.

State prosecutor Danilo Anderson said the judge gave the order after authorities produced evidence implicating Gen. Felipe Rodriguez and Lts. German Varela and Jose Colina in the Feb. 25 blasts that badly damaged a technical office of the Spanish mission and Colombia's consulate. Five people, including a 4-year-old girl, were injured in the blasts.

"We are trying to locate these individuals," Anderson told reporters. The three were believed to be in hiding.

Opponents of leftist President Hugo Chavez say the accusations against the three officers are part of a government campaign to discredit the opposition before a Nov. 28-Dec. 1 drive to collect signatures for a referendum to try to vote Chavez out of office.

The three were part of a group of more than 100 military officers who declared a "peaceful revolt" against Chavez in October last year, six months after he was toppled briefly in a bungled coup.

Chavez's foes say his self-styled revolution is dragging the world's fifth-largest oil exporter into Cuban-style communism.

The president purged the armed forces of opponents after the April 2002 coup. Most of the military dissidents, who made their headquarters in Caracas' Altamira Square, were forcibly retired or fired from command posts.

Anderson said a former bodyguard of the Altamira officers, Silvio Merida, told police after he was detained this month that Rodriguez, Varela and Colina were involved in the Feb. 25 bomb attacks.

The blasts occurred less than 48 hours after Chavez accused Spain and Colombia of meddling in Venezuela's affairs.

Before the opposition referendum signature drive, Chavez supporters plan to collect signatures from Friday to Monday seeking a separate vote to remove 38 opposition parliamentarians.

Defense Minister Jose Luis Prieto said on Tuesday that Venezuela's armed forces would protect both campaigns.

After the first recall petition: ………Vanessa Roca, a 31-year-old secretary from the eastern state of Monagas, says she lost her job at a state-owned transport company after signing a petition calling for a recall referendum to remove Chavez from office. She traveled seven hours by bus to ask officials at the National Electoral Commission (CNE) to remove her name from the petition.

"A friend who had the same thing happen to him told me this might help me get my job back," she said. "I understand it happened to a lot of us."

As the Chavez government tries to remain in office, state employees and students who signed the petition, or who are suspected of sympathizing with the political opposition, are being purged from jobs, internships and grants, according to dozens of interviews with trade unionists, students, state workers, lawyers and human rights activists.

And in an effort to discredit the recall movement, state workers whose names appear on the petition are being encouraged by the government to sign legal complaints alleging that their signatures were forged.

Former President Carlos Andres Perez predicts Chavez "will not have a peaceful exit" and will be forced out of office if he refuses to accept the recall vote. "Violence is bad, and we don't promote it," he recently told Colombia's daily newspaper, El Tiempo, "but no other option is possible." *** Source

Venezuela's Chavez warns supporters of referendum their names will be remembered***President Hugo Chavez issued a warning Saturday to anyone planning to sign a referendum on his presidency, saying their names would be registered and remembered "forever."

Venezuela's elections authority this week said the opposition could gather signatures supporting a recall referendum from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1. The constitution says a referendum request must be backed by signatures from at least 20 percent of the electorate.

But Chavez warned: "Their names will be recorded forever." "They should know that although they are not going to get (a referendum), their names will be recorded. Unlike in a vote, which is secret, they will sign. They will put their names and surnames, their national ID number and their fingerprint," he said.***

Anderson said a former bodyguard of the Altamira officers, Silvio Merida, told police after he was detained this month that Rodriguez, Varela and Colina were involved in the Feb. 25 bomb attacks.

[Altamira Activist] tortured for a week [Venezuela] - POLITICAL VIOLENCE Silvio Merida tortured for a week, according to family members Altamira Activist rescued and jailed

MARIA ISOLIETT IGLESIAS EL UNIVERSAL - [full text] The Altamira Plaza activist who was illegally arrested on Friday October 31 octubre, was found as if by magic by CICPC agents, Thursday 11:00 pm in Valencia.

According to the police report by Silvio Daniel Mérida Ortiz, he was taken by his captors to a hut near Valencia, where he was forced to sit at gunpoint until the arrival of the CICPC Immediate Rescue Unit who rescued him but did not make any arrests.

Between torture and hoods

Silvio Daniel Mérida Ortiz was captured, illegally, on Friday October 31 by civilians who arrived at Block 7 in the El Silencio [district] executing a police raid. Since that day, until Thursday November 6, he was held somewhere [outside Caracas].

During this week he was victim of constant torture. He was hung for 12 continuous hours by his wrists, they put a cigarette out on his skin, they whipped his back, applied electric shock to his feet, and shoved his head into a toilet, in order to make him reveal, according to his attorneys Guillermo Heredia and Rigoberto Quintero, if he had any knowledge of ties between the Altamira military dissidents and bombs detonated at diplomatic facilities, and possible insurrection by the opposition.

Place and date

The reason for the liberation of Mérida Ortiz is questionable and still has no coherent answer.

The actions by police following the rescue have arroused questions. They interrogated him two hours after finding him, without his lawyers present, he slept cuffed to the legs of his cell bunk, and the forensic report made [in Valencia] made no mention of physical damage, but according to his mother... where, at the hearing to present charges, they could not even put the handcuffs on him "because his wrists were lacerated". [end]

A Venezuelan woman hits pot as she shouts anti-President Hugo Chavez slogans in front of a line of National Guard members while security police raid a photocopying center searching for 'subversive printed matter' in Caracas, November 19, 2003. The officers were trying to establish the origin of pamphlets found at the scene of the February 25, 2003 bomb attacks against Spanish and Colombian diplomatic offices in Caracas. The pamphlets bore the name of the 'Bolivian Liberation Force,' an alleged pro-Chavez group, but the government has blamed hard-line opponents and ordered the arrest of three anti-Chavez military officers who are in hiding. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

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