Chavez Enemy on the Loose Following Prison Break

[Jag]

Monday, August 14, 2006


CARACAS, Venezuela — One of President Hugo Chavez's most threatening enemies is on the loose, and many Venezuelans wonder what new plots he has in mind.
Carlos Ortega escaped from a military prison over the weekend, and troops and police were ordered to guard ports, airports and embassies to prevent him from fleeing or seeking asylum. But those who know the 60-year-old Ortega think he might stay in hopes of reviving anti-Chavez protests before presidential elections in December.
"Carlos has always been a fighting man," Edgar Zambrano, an opposition politician who recently visited him in prison, said Monday. "I imagine if he decided to escape from prison, he's doing it to stay in the country and, while in hiding, begin a frontal fight against the regime."
CountryWatch: Venezuela
A union leader who led a crippling national strike against Chavez and later became what many consider Venezuela's most prominent political prisoner, Ortega slipped out of the Ramo Verde prison west of Caracas, where he was serving a 16-year sentence for civil rebellion. Three convicted military officers also escaped.
Prison director Gustavo Busnego said 14 guards were being interrogated, and investigators believe some may have helped the men leave the prison. He said guards reported the escape Sunday after checking one bunk and finding only pillows under the sheet, arranged to look like a dozing inmate.

Zambrano's party, Democratic Action, released a typed letter, purportedly written by Ortega from prison a week earlier. In it, he repeated a phrase he has often used: "I know that we will soon see each other again — and free."
However, he also said, "for now I am a political prisoner of a dictator who knows I am dangerous in the streets and, therefore, I prefer to stay behind bars. That is the best way of showing he fears me."


And he thinks the U.S. is the enemy!
Jag

[Brian Baldwin]

This was certainly timely. I do find the whole "election" and "Dictator" thing familiar though. Democracy can not exist with dictator. Hopefully Ortega will draw Chavez's intrests elsewhere long enough to fell him.