Anti-Chávez leader under fire - due in court Wednesday on treason charges.

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - Maria Corina Machado doesn't hesitate when asked her feelings about the possibility of going to prison for up to 28 years for "treason to the nation" and conspiracy.

"I'm scared, I'm very scared; I have three kids," the political activist says softly, sitting in her small office in the Caracas headquarters of Sumate, the organization that led last year's unsuccessful bid to recall President Hugo Chávez from office.

Mr. Chávez's landslide victory in that vote only added to the troubles of Ms. Machado, Sumate's vice president and the woman who has come to symbolize the anti-Chávez opposition. Machado is facing criminal charges for allegedly endorsing the April 2002 coup which unseated Chávez for 48 hours, and for Sumate's having accepted US government funds. She is due in court Wednesday for a hearing.

Machado has become a cause célèbre for Chávez's opponents and a demon for his supporters. So when Machado met with President Bush in the White House May 31, it raised a firestorm of government criticism back in Caracas. Venezuela's foreign minister called the meeting "a provocation," and the interior minister charged that Machado was a puppet of the CIA, continuing the heated rhetoric that has characterized the relationship between the Bush administration and Venezuela's leftist leader.

The anti-Machado sentiments have even infused rank-and-file Chávez supporters. "She's sold out her country," says Milagros Medina, who sells pro-Chávez books on a central Caracas plaza. Machado "should be in prison."

It's a lot to handle for someone who says she got into the politics by happenstance and that her goal is not to oppose Chávez but to strengthen Venezuela's democracy. The daughter of an affluent Caracas family, Machado worked after college as an industrial engineer before leaving to raise her family. She also founded an organization to help orphans. In 2002, a friend invited her to create a pro-democracy group. "I decided to drop everything else," she recalls.

Soon, Sumate had a list of 40,000 vol- unteers across the country, Machado says.

But Sumate's pro-democracy pretensions are no more than a front for its anti-Chávez goals, say observers. Sumate is "a thoroughly anti-Chávez group," says Larry Birns, director of the liberal Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. During the anti-Chávez recall effort, Sumate "did everything required of a political campaign. They played a coordinated role."

Machado does not hide her disdain for the populist president, who she says has profoundly damaged Venezuela's democratic institutions. Chávez's critics say his government has packed the Supreme Court, used government institutions to retaliate against political opponents, and passed laws restricting media freedoms and the right to protest.

On this particular day, Machado has just returned to Caracas from a trip visiting regional Sumate organizers, and struggles to stave off discouragement. Many volunteers are afraid of government retaliation, she says, and Sumate's warnings that Venezuela's electoral system is being compromised, including the addition of foreigners to voter rolls, have fallen on deaf ears.

"In many other countries where the rule of law is respected, this would have been a real big issue," notes Machado, who says her responsibilities as Sumate's second in command and as a single mother leave her time for only three hours of sleep a night. "We expected a big reaction" to the warning. "But you know what happened? Nothing!"

Her frustration reflects the mood of the opposition, which is still trying to pick itself up from Chávez's victory in last August's referendum. The charismatic and controversial president enjoys 70 percent support in polls and has a campaign chest filled by record world petroleum prices. The disparate opposition, meanwhile, lacks a single candidate or message to rally around. Some say that Machado, articulate and passionate about her ideas, could be the candidate to unite and motivate the opposition. She denies interest.

But that discussion will become moot if Machado goes to prison. She faces a charge of treason for allegedly signing the manifesto which dissolved the nation's democratic institutions during the ephemeral 2002 coup. Machado says she had simply visited the presidential palace and wrote her name on what she believed to be a sign-in sheet. The conspiracy charge against Machado and other Sumate directors stems from $53,000 the organization received from the US Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy. Machado makes no apologies.

"It is legal, it is our right," she says of the foreign funds. "We have to do it, because if we concede, then the government has achieved what it wanted; they have intimidated us." But, Machado says, 95 percent of Sumate's funding comes from Venezuelans.

Machado vows she will see the trial through. Meanwhile, she is trying to continue her work. "If you're going to fight for democracy, this is something which you have to do every day, all day long," she says.

The Facade of Latin Democracy***....The briefing I heard from this 37-year-old single mother, who for more than a year has been fighting treason charges ordered up by Chavez, was deeply sobering. Since winning a recall referendum last August, the self-styled "Bolivarian revolutionary" has systematically gutted or intimidated Venezuelan institutions, from the courts to the media to the opposition parties, while preserving just enough formal democracy to give himself cover with his forgiving neighbors. "We feel very lonely," Machado said. "People outside say to us: 'You can come in and out of the country, you have a free press, you don't have thousands of political prisoners, you have elections -- so what's the problem?'

"But Chavez doesn't need to close newspapers in order to force people to censor themselves. He doesn't need thousands of political prisoners if he can make examples of a few people in every sector of society, a labor leader here, a journalist there. And he doesn't need to cancel elections if he can use his appointees to change the rules so that the voting can be easily manipulated. It is a terrific facade, but inside is an atmosphere of total control and fear. Traveling around the country, as I do, it's shocking to see how frightened people are about what the government can do to their lives."

Machado got to make her case to Bush and to the OAS ambassadors only because her organization was invited to the nongovernmental forum by the United States. A Venezuelan attempt to overturn the invitation procedure and ban her failed. Though her criminal trial is due to resume on Friday, she came and spoke freely; though she enraged Chavez with her blunt words outside the White House, she will return to Caracas and face the court system he now controls. By so conspicuously trying to stop her, she says, "the government has given evidence that everyone in the OAS can see, of how they use intimidation to silence dissent. If in Venezuela you speak out you are punished....***

(2001) U.S., Venezuela clash as OAS meeting begins - (Condi to meet with Chevez opponent)***...."Together we must insist that leaders who are elected democratically have a responsibility to govern democratically," Rice said at the gathering's opening session.

She did not directly mention Venezuela but Washington and other critics of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez say that although twice elected, the Venezuelan president is showing authoritarian tendencies in office.

Speaking before the conference began, Chavez accused the United States of trying to impose a "global dictatorship" and said that it, not Venezuela, should face OAS scrutiny.

"So, they're going to try to monitor the Venezuelan government through the OAS, they must be joking!" Chavez said, speaking on his weekly "Hello President" TV and radio show. ……***

(2001)Fidel, Saddam and Hugo --An improbable but growing friendship of three military revolutionaries***The improbable but growing friendship of three military revolutionaries - Fidel Castro of Cuba, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela - poses a challenge to U.S. interests and to President-elect George W. Bush. It is a friendship with considerable power: Venezuela and Iraq are among the top 10 oil exporters. Cuba is a beneficiary of their largesse and, in Venezuela's case, a mentor of revolution.***

Dangerous anti-Americanism next door***The rabid anti-Americanism that drove fanatical terrorists to attack the United States can be found a lot closer to home than the Middle East. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez has made anti-Americanism a cornerstone of his foreign policy since taking office in 1999, and he has offered a ``smile and wink'' to terrorists. ………..***

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