A Top Chavez Foe Jailed for Role in Strike

This fragile country was bracing for more upheaval and renewed protests Thursday after one of the opposition’s most prominent figures was arrested for his role in leading a strike to help bring down President Hugo Chavez.

Armed secret police stormed into a restaurant in an upscale section of Caracas, the capital, near midnight Wednesday and seized Carlos Fernandez, the president of Fedecamaras, Venezuela’s largest business group.

As patrons tried to prevent the arrest, the police opened fire, shooting into the air as they dragged Fernandez out to the street, witnesses said. Fernandez phoned his wife from jail Thursday morning and told her that he was in good condition despite receiving blows during the incident.

“This was an abuse of authority,” said Vicente Brito, a past president of Fedecamaras who now serves as an advisor to the group. “You don’t storm into a restaurant and arrest someone who is not committing a criminal act.”

The arrest came just two days after Chavez and the opposition signed a declaration renouncing the violence and harsh rhetoric that have marked the fruitless attempts to end a conflict that pits a scattered collection of groups -- from unions to homemakers to business leaders -- against a man they decry as authoritarian.

The arrest will almost certainly reinvigorate the opposition, which had been exhausted by the costly and bruising strike. And that, in turn, could increase the risk of more violent confrontations in Venezuela.

“It seems politically inspired and filled with vengeance and completely miscalculated,” said Julia Sweig, a Latin American expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank. “It raises the potential of more violence.”

A judge also ordered the arrest of Carlos Ortega, another strike leader and head of Venezuela’s largest trade union, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers. Both men were charged with sedition, treason and economic destruction linked to incidents as far back as the coup in April that briefly unseated the controversial Chavez. Ortega told reporters that he would go into hiding.

“We have to prepare ourselves for an escalation of repression that this government is beginning,” Ortega told local television by telephone.

The incidents are the latest blows in an ongoing power struggle between Chavez and his opposition, which launched a general strike in December to force the president’s resignation. The strike, which ended Feb. 3 in all industries but oil, crippled the country’s economy, which shrank 8.9% last year.

Chavez outlasted the protest, however, emerging with his power base more secure than ever. Chavez has declared 2003 the “Year of the Offensive” for his self-proclaimed revolution, a poorly defined effort to end the poverty that afflicts 80% of the population.

He seemed pleased with Wednesday’s arrest, telling a trade delegation Thursday that measures must be taken against Fernandez and Ortega, whom he accuses of plotting another coup against him.

“I went to bed with a smile!” Chavez said. “It’s not that we hate them or anything, but there has to be justice here.”

As the strike was ending, the opposition launched a signature drive to force an amendment to the constitution allowing early elections.

Chavez has said the opposition must wait until halfway through his term, or August of this year.

Spontaneous protests began in Caracas with one crowd chanting, “This is a dictatorship!” outside the offices of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA.

Opposition leaders invited the population to take to the streets, banging pots and pans in protest.

“We will continue our protests in the street in a peaceful manner,” said Juan Fernandez, who along with Ortega and Carlos Fernandez formed the trio of strike leaders who appeared nightly on television during the protest.

Streams of cars honked their horns and flashed their lights in Caracas in a show of solidarity.

Fedecamaras and union leaders said they would meet in the next few days to determine how to protest the arrest. They did not rule out calling another general strike, which could plunge the country further into economic and political chaos.

In Washington, State Department officials expressed concern over the arrest. The Bush administration has been sharply criticized for ignoring the ongoing conflict.

“We fear the act could undermine the dialogue process” in Venezuela, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. “This increases our concerns about human rights in Venezuela.”

The arrest comes on the heels of an incident in which four opposition protesters, a woman and three soldiers, were killed over the weekend, their bodies showing marks of torture. Police have said they do not believe that the slayings have a political motive, but the investigation continues.

Together, however, the incidents will give the opposition new ammunition to portray Chavez as a megalomaniac bent on imposing a dictatorship on Venezuela, analysts said.

Larry Birns, director of the liberal think tank Council on Hemispheric Affairs, said Chavez’s actions showed “ominous imprudence.” “It was a grave political mistake for Chavez to implement a policy of revenge,” Birns said. “That’s the last thing that Venezuela needs right now.”

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Times staff writer Miller reported from Bogota, Colombia, and special correspondent Ixer from Caracas.