Venezuela's Chavez Blames Media Laboratories and Nazis for plotting his downfall*** CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Testifying about an anti-government march that ended in bloodshed and the botched coup that followed it, a combative Hugo Chavez claimed both were part of a premeditated and violent attempt to oust him from Venezuela's presidential palace. "I ask the nation: Is it a peaceful expression of democracy to march to the palace to depose the president?" Chavez said in dramatic testimony before a congressional panel investigating the coup that unseated him for less than 48 turbulent hours in mid-April.
"There was nothing peaceful about it," he said. At times clutching a tiny copy of the constitution, at others a cross, the outspoken Chavez called his opponents "Nazis," asserted that "media laboratories" are plotting his downfall and said security forces are investigating another conspiracy to end his rule.***