Wed Apr 24,12:42 PM ET
By Pascal Fletcher
CARACAS, Venezuela (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.
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The left-wing former paratrooper, who survived a short-lived coup against him this month, has ordered an official inquiry into the deaths of more than 40 people during street protests and violence that accompanied the coup.
The broadcast of the tapes was likely to inflame a growing controversy surrounding the four days of violence that accompanied the coup and subsequent restoration of Chavez, who has ruled Venezuela since winning a landslide 1998 election.
Opponents of Chavez, including military officers who staged the brief putsch, had accused him of deploying tanks and troops against the April 11 anti-government march by tens of thousands of civilian protesters in which 17 people were shot dead.
The tapes appeared to indicate the president's willingness to use military force against the unarmed protesters.
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 military coup plotters are facing rebellion charges.
Supporters and foes of Chavez accuse each other of the killings in the march. Anti-Chavez protesters were fired on by as-yet unidentified gunmen.
Chavez, who was reinstated by loyal troops and civilian supporters early on April 14, has not specifically denied ordering out the tanks and troops. But he has denied any responsibility in the deaths of the April 11 protesters and has promised a full and impartial investigation into the violence that has shaken the world's No. 4 oil exporter.
'THIS IS CHAVEZ SPEAKING'
In one of the tapes broadcast on 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, using the code name "Shark One," said in the recordings.
"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, in a calm-sounding voice, asks for reports on the situation around Miraflores palace and military headquarters during the protest by Venezuelans clamoring for his resignation. He is heard ordering troops to protect the state-owned television station Channel 8.
At another point, he is advised that a dissident general, whose name is given as Lugo Pena, has appeared on a local radio station calling for a rebellion against him.
"OK, find out where he is," Chavez says. "OK, understood, Mr. President," the officer reporting replies.
A close Chavez ally, Freddy Bernal, the mayor of the Libertador district of Caracas, defended the president's ordering of the Avila emergency plan.
"He has the power to use military force as a deterrent," Bernal said in an interview with Globovision television.
Chavez's popularity has fallen sharply since his election as opponents from different sectors of society have questioned his self-proclaimed "revolution" and accused him of trying to install a Cuban-style, left-wing 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.