Venezuela: US officials get access to American

Published May 09, 2013

Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela –  Venezuela's government has granted U.S. diplomats access to a California man who is being held while he awaits trial on charges of espionage and fomenting unrest.

An Embassy spokesperson said Thursday that officials have been permitted to meet with Timothy Tracy, who was arrested by intelligence agents following Venezuela's April 14 presidential election.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because Embassy personnel are not authorized to discuss Tracy's case.

Tracy's relatives say the filmmaker had been making a documentary about Venezuelan politics for six months before his was arrested.

The Embassy spokesperson said no additional details of Tracy's arrest or status could be discussed due to privacy considerations.

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US filmmaker arrested in Venezuela, charged with conspiracy

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  This undated family photo released Thursday, April 25, 2013, shows Timothy Tracy inside of a vehicle in Venezuela. The 35-year-old filmmaker from California was arrested Wednesday, by Venezuelan authorities who are accusing him of fomenting post election violence on behalf of the U.S. government. Friends and family told The Associated Press said that he had been in Venezuela since last year making a documentary about the confrontation between the opposition and a socialist government that is struggling to maintain its once-high popularity after the death of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez. (AP Photo/Family courtesy photo)AP2013

CARACAS, Venezuela –  An American filmmaker was formally charged late Saturday by Venezuelan officials who accuse him of paying right-wing groups to foment postelection unrest on behalf of U.S. intelligence.

The federal prosecutor's office said Timothy Tracy, 35, of West Hollywood, California, was charged with crimes including conspiracy, association for criminal purposes and use of a false document.

On Thursday, President Nicolas Maduro said he had personally ordered Tracy's arrest on suspicion of "creating violence in the cities of this country" in the wake of an April 14 presidential election narrowly won by the hand-picked successor to Hugo Chavez.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles contends the election was stolen from him by fraud, setting up postelection tensions and bitter accusations between Venezuela's government and opposition.

Friends say Tracy is an innocent, self-funded documentary filmmaker with no political aims or government ties.

The U.S. government has also said Tracy is innocent but declined comment on the specifics of his case.

Venezuela's national prosecutor's office said a judge had ordered Tracy held until further notice in a jail run by the national intelligence service in the capital, Caracas, because he presented a risk of flight.

Tracy had a translator and private lawyers hired by him, or on his behalf, during the hearing, prosecutors said.

The Georgetown University English graduate was a story consultant on the 2009 documentary "American Harmony," about competitive barbershop quartet singing, and produced the recent Discovery Channel program "Under Siege," about terrorism and smuggling across the U.S.-Canada border as well the History Channel series "Madhouse," on modified race-car drivers in North Carolina.

Separately, Venezuelan officials said Saturday that they have arrested a retired general who had become a fierce critic of the government, a detention the opposition called part of a hardening crackdown in the wake of the disputed election.

Retired Brig. Gen. Antonio Rivero gained fame for denouncing Cuban involvement in the Venezuelan military in 2010 and became a prominent member of the opposition, participating in post-vote protests this month.

Rivero appeared in a brief video of a postelection protest that prosecutors played for the press Thursday after announcing Tracy's arrest. They said the video was taken from Tracy's belongings, along with another short video that shows a group of young people talking, in what appears to be a joking, sarcastic manner, about being paid many millions of dollars to participate in anti-government demonstrations.

In a snippet that is clearly heavily edited, Rivero discusses demonstrators' use of clubs and rocks in a clash with National Guard members. It is unclear, because of the editing and brevity of the clip, whether he is encouraging them to use weapons or discouraging them.

The footage appeared to be taken at a protest in Caracas soon after the vote results were announced, in which university students and National Guard members traded rocks and tear gas.

Leopoldo Lopez, national coordinator of the opposition Voluntad Popular party, called Rivero's detention  illegal and part of a campaign to arrest and "morally assassinate" Venezuela's opposition leadership.

"The government errs if it thinks we are going to falter in our just solicitude that the truth be known about the April 14" election, Lopez said. Rivero is a member of Lopez's party.

Venezuela's Public Ministry released a statement saying that Rivero would be presented before a tribunal "for his presumed connection to violent acts that have occurred recently in this country."

The statement said the retired general was arrested by Venezuela's intelligence service on Saturday.

The government says postelection attacks by Capriles supporters killed nine members of the ruling Chavista movement left dozens injured and damaged government offices and medical clinics.

The opposition vehemently denies the accusations.

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Government rejects full Venezuela vote audit

Published April 26, 2013

Associated Press

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  Plastic wrapped busts of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez sit for sale at a market in Moron, Venezuela, Thursday, April 25, 2013. Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said Thursday the opposition would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the April 14 presidential vote, which was narrowly won by Chavez's political heir, Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)The Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela –  A member of Venezuela's top electoral authority says it has formally decided not to meet opposition demands for a top-to-bottom audit of the April 14 presidential election, heightening tensions over the almost evenly split and contested vote.

The government is threatening to jail opposition head Henrique Capriles on charges of masterminding postelection violence. Capriles says he will boycott the audit and challenge what he calls a stolen election in court.

Both sides are stopping short of moves that would escalate the conflict into direct hostility. For the government, jailing Capriles could bring international condemnation and drive more people into the opposition camp. For Capriles, open confrontation could bolster accusations that he only wants violence.

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Henrique Capriles to repeat run as opposition candidate in Venezuela election

CARACAS, Venezuela –  Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles announced Sunday night that he will run in elections to replace Hugo Chavez, setting up a make-or-break encounter against the late president's hand-picked successor.

Capriles slammed the government in his announcement for using Chavez's death to push the candidacy of Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in as acting leader Friday. He also called top military brass an "embarrassment" for publicly supporting Maduro, although the constitution forbids the military from taking political sides.

"Don't fool yourselves that you're the good and we're the bad," the 40-year-old candidate said to the government. "No, you're no better than us. I don't play with death. I don't play with pain."

Capriles, who is governor of Venezuela's biggest state, also acknowledged that he faces tough odds against an official candidate in control of vast public resources who he said has the backing of the country's electoral commission.

"As one person said today, `Capriles, they are taking you to a slaughterhouse. Are you going to be lowered into its meat grinder?"' Capriles said.

He said, however, that he had to fight for the whole country.

"How am I not going to fight?" he said. "How are we not going to fight? This is not Capriles' fight. This is everybody's fight."

In some districts of the capital, people launched fireworks, shouted and honked horns as Capriles announced he would run.

Capriles also laid out what could be main themes of his campaign, bemoaning high crime and poverty as well as the government's decision to devalue the currency by more than 30 percent.

National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello sent a response on his Twitter account: "Capriles, you messed with Chavez and with the profound love that the people feel for the Commander of the Fatherland, you made a declaration of war."

Venezuela's election commission has set the vote for April 14, with formal campaigning to start just 12 days earlier.

Maduro has already announced his intention to run as the candidate of Chavez's socialist party. On Sunday he also picked up the support of Venezuela's small communist party. He's expected to file election papers on Monday.

In a speech accepting the communist party's nomination, Maduro insisted he was running for president out of loyalty to Chavez, not vanity or personal ambition, and called on the people to support him. Chavez chose him as vice president after winning re-election October.

"I am not Chavez," Maduro said, wearing a simple red shirt. "In terms of intelligence, charisma, historical force, or capacity to lead. ... But I am a Chavista and I live and die for him."

Opposition critics have called Maduro's ascension unconstitutional, noting the charter designates the National Assembly president as acting leader if a president-elect cannot be sworn in.

Capriles faced a stark choice in deciding whether to compete in the vote, which most analysts say he is sure to lose amid a frenzy of sympathy and mourning for the dead president.

Some say a second defeat for Capriles just six months after he lost last year's presidential vote to Chavez could derail his political career. But staying on the sidelines would have put in jeopardy his leadership of the opposition.

Analysts predict the next five weeks will see a spike in the nasty, heated rhetoric that began even before Chavez's death Tuesday after a nearly two-year fight with cancer.

Political consultant Oswaldo Ramirez, who is advising the Capriles campaign, said the candidate must strike a balance between criticizing the failures of Chavez's government and Maduro's role in it, without being seen as attacking the late president.

"He can't speak badly of Chavez, because this feeling on the street is still in full bloom," Ramirez said.

Public opinion was as divided as always Sunday in a country that became dramatically more polarized during Chavez's 14-year rule.

"It's not fair," said Jose Mendez, a 54-year-old businessman of the choice the opposition leader faces. "(Maduro) has an advantage, because of everything they have done since Chavez's death, all the sentiment they've created ... But the guy has nothing. He can't hold a candle to Chavez."

But Ramon Romero said the opposition was just making excuses, and had no chance of victory in any case.

"Now their odds are even worse," said the 64-year-old waiter and staunch Chavez supporter. "They don't care about anyone, and we (the voters) have been lifted out of darkness."

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Venezuela diplomat reads letter from ailing Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela –  Venezuela's foreign minister read a lengthy letter from ailing President Hugo Chavez on Friday to a gathering of African and South American leaders in Equatorial Guinea.

In the letter, read on television by Foreign Minister Elias Jaua, Chavez said he was sorry not to be able to attend the meeting.

Chavez hasn't spoken publicly since before he underwent his latest cancer surgery on Dec. 11, and even written statements have been rare. Government officials have said Chavez is breathing through a tracheal tube, but they have also shown a few letters and other documents with his signature.

In the letter, which ran for about 1,500 words, Chavez denounced Western intervention in Africa and reiterated his criticisms of NATO's military involvement in Libya in 2011, when his ally Moammar Gadhafi was ousted and killed.

Chavez also called for more "South-South cooperation" and said of Africa and South America, "We are the same people."

The letter ended with the words: "We will live and be triumphant!"

Last month, Vice President Nicolas Maduro read a similarly lengthy letter from Chavez to leaders at a summit in Chile.

The Venezuelan government provided an update on Chavez's condition Thursday night, saying that he remained at a military hospital in Caracas and that "the medical treatment for the fundamental illness continues without presenting significant adverse effects."

The government has not given details about the treatment Chavez is undergoing, and hasn't identified the type or exact location of the tumors that have been removed from his pelvic region.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas read the statement on television, saying that a "respiratory insufficiency" that arose in the weeks after the surgery "persists and its tendency has not been favorable, thus it continues to be treated."

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