Obstacles to Venezuela Coup Probe Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Reuters via Yahoo - May 21, 2002 Venezuela Coup Inquiry Threatened, Expert Says By Pascal Fletcher CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Political enmity, public suspicion and contaminated evidence are threatening to derail Venezuela's inquiry into killings that occurred during last month's coup against President Hugo Chavez, a leading member of the inquiry said on Tuesday. Six weeks after gunmen fired on a huge anti-Chavez protest in Caracas, triggering the short-lived putsch against the left-wing president by rebel generals and admirals, only four suspects in the shootings have been detained by police so far. Separate police and parliamentary inquiries, far from clearing up the chaotic events of April 11-14, are inextricably mired in a row between Chavez and his foes over who to blame for the deaths of more than 60 people in last month's violence. "Time is conspiring against the truth," lawyer and human rights expert Juan Navarrete told Reuters in an interview. Navarrete was named by the Attorney-General to help oversee the criminal probe into the April deaths. But he announced he was leaving the inquiry to take up a new post next month with the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Human Rights Institute. "We have to insist that April 11 doesn't become just another date in the calendar of massacres and deaths that have occurred in Venezuela for many years," he said. Navarrete said the judicial investigation was vulnerable to political interference from both government and opposition, who were seeking to use their versions of the April 11-14 events to try to discredit each other in the eyes of the public. "It's a real danger. Political polarization is really affecting the inquiry," he said. Foes of Chavez, a former paratrooper who was reinstated April 14 by loyal troops, accuse him and his aides of ordering armed supporters, backed by tanks and troops, to ambush the April 11 anti-government march. Some 17 people were gunned down near the presidential palace, many shot in the head. In contrast, Chavez and his supporters say anti-government gunmen started the shooting. They allege military and civilian coup-plotters opposed to his left-wing rule provoked the deaths in a deliberate plan to topple his three-year-old government. A leading businessman and at least six senior military officers are now facing trial on rebellion charges. CONTAMINATED EVIDENCE Navarrete said that of the 130 people injured April 11, only seven had lodged formal complaints with the authorities. "People are not coming forward to the Attorney-General's office, either because they think it lacks credibility, or because they fear for their safety and don't want to be politically used," he said. Opponents of the president say Attorney-General Isaias Rodriguez is a Chavez ally and they are demanding he resign. The four men detained so far in relation with the April 11 killings are either known pro-Chavez supporters or government employees. They were seen in television footage firing from a street bridge in the direction of anti-government protesters. But one says he fired in self defense and Chavez and his aides say the dead included several pro-government militants. Navarrete said criminal investigators were also finding that vital evidence and clues had been tampered with. Police were checking reports that the bodies of some of those killed were moved from the places where they originally fell. Other bodies arrived at morgues without their clothes, robbing investigators of potential clues of how they died. Detectives also found that gun cartridges and bullet slugs had been removed from the scene in the days after April 11. MYSTERY MARKSMEN In a recent interview, Chavez said members of his personal guard captured four foreign snipers equipped with rifles fitted with telescopic sights near the palace April 11. One pro-Chavez parliament deputy told reporters that two of these unidentified marksmen were an American and a Salvadorean. According to these versions, the mysterious snipers were released and allowed to flee the country during the one-day rule of the interim government that briefly replaced Chavez. But in testimony to parliament, the former head of Chavez's presidential guard said three unarmed individuals seized by pro-government supporters as alleged "snipers" April 11 turned out to be a drunk, a hot-dog seller and a lost pedestrian. Chavez, who has ruled since 1998, has called on political foes to join him in a process of dialogue and reconciliation. "There will be no reconciliation with lies, only with the truth," Navarrete said. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytsa-05.21.02-20:30:07-32596