With Chavez in Madrid, Fresh Coup Rumors Swirl Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Reuters via Yahoo - May 17 2002 With Chavez Away, Venezuela VP Rejects Coup Talk By Pascal Fletcher CARACAS, May 17 (Reuters) - Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel on Friday dismissed coup plot rumors that have emerged while President Hugo Chavez is away on his first foreign trip since a failed ouster attempt. nHe said the armed forces were "absolutely calm" but, in a sharply conflicting view, an armyngeneral facing rebellion charges for his part in the April 11-14 coup told parliament thenmilitary was still dangerously divided. nSince Chavez traveled on Wednesday to a summit of European and Latin American leadersnin Madrid, the world's fifth largest oil exporting nation has been shaken by rumors reportingnmilitary plots and movements. One even alleged rebel officers had seized Rangel himself. nInternational energy and financial markets remain jittery about Venezuela. Just hours beforenChavez boarded his plane for Madrid, they were jolted by one unexplained rumor -- quicklynproved false -- that he had been assassinated. "It's all absolutely false. I say to Venezuelans: Don't believe in rumors, don't get carried away by them," the 72-year-old Rangel told a news conference in Caracas Friday. But he added, without giving details, that some opponents were still considering some kind of anti-democratic "adventure" against the populist president and his government, including the possibility of an assassination attempt. Still, the vice president, who was mobbed and insulted by anti-government protesters on Thursday, tried to play down fears that Venezuela risked a repeat of the coup that deposed Chavez for 48 hours. The president was due to fly home late on Saturday, he said. The former paratrooper-turned-president was restored to power April 14 by loyal troops and supporters who overturned a rebellion of generals, admirals and other officers opposed to his confrontational leadership style and left-wing policies. Analysts say the country, and especially the armed forces, remain deeply divided over Chavez's three-year-old rule, but Rangel said a "climate of tranquillity and confidence" had returned following the president's reinstatement. Serving as defense minister before the coup, in which more than 60 people were killed in street protests and looting, Rangel had frequently denied or played down then persistent reports of widespread discontent in the military. "I said then that everything was normal within the branches of the armed forces, and, with the same authority, I say there is absolute calm today," he told the news conference. COUNTRY 'HURT' BY COUP But one of the senior officers accused of leading the rebellion, Gen. Efrain Vasquez, who has since lost his post as army commander but remains in the military, presented a radically different picture. "What we have today are an armed forces that are fractured and fragmented and that's both dangerous and sad. Our armed forces have been hurt, just as the country was after April 11," Vasquez told a parliament inquiry probing the coup. In an unrelenting political confrontation that has raised fears of a possible repeat of last month's violence, foes and supporters of Chavez are locked in a bitter and unforgiving dispute over who should be blamed for the April killings. Opponents of the president, including dissident senior military officers, accuse him of deploying tanks, troops and armed supporters to counter a huge anti-government march that converged on the presidential palace April 11. At least 17 people were killed by gunmen who opened fire near the palace. The military rebels, who deny they staged a coup, said they acted against the president to stop further bloodshed. In their version of events, Chavez, his ministers and supporters say a group of right-wing military and civilian coup plotters used the march as a pretext to put into action a carefully planned conspiracy to topple the government. They say it was anti-government gunmen who opened fire April 11. Rangel, who has denied accusations by some dissident officers that he called out armed Chavez supporters to confront the April 11 demonstrators, appealed to Venezuelans to shun violence and debate their political differences in peace. "As I've said before, either we get on with each other, or we'll end up killing each other," he 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-05.17.02-19:42:35-6916