Venezuelans savor solace in Miami - Others go home prepared

MIAMI -- It was the day after Christmas that Venezuelan businessman Luis Bethencourt finally decided it was time to get his family out of the country.

At a condominium meeting for his upscale barrio in the east of the capital, Caracas, residents were planning for war.

"No one was talking about fixing up the park," he said. "They were drawing up inventories of weapons."

More than 40 days into a general strike that has crippled the state oil industry and closed most schools, Bethencourt fears his country is headed toward violent confrontation.

He and many others who can afford to leave are packing their bags -- and most are heading to South Florida. Some own homes in the area, which has long been a favorite holiday and shopping destination for Venezuelans. Others are renting.

Desperate parents have been showing up at one elementary school in Key Biscayne, where 15 new students -- all Venezuelan -- have enrolled since classes restarted last week.

Opposition leaders called the strike to demand the resignation of leftist President Hugo Chavez. Despite mounting economic chaos, Chavez has refused to budge, accusing the opposition of trying to mount a coup.

Fearing the worst, Venezuelans in South Florida who plan to return home to join antigovernment street protests are stocking up on protective material at security stores. On the streets of Caracas, opposition demonstrators clash almost daily with riot troops equipped with tear gas. Several people have died in shootings.

"People are afraid," said Josephina Capriles, the Venezuelan-born owner of Spytrix, a North Miami security store where sales of bullet-proof jackets and gas masks are booming. "I used to sell two bulletproof jackets a month but now I sell three a day," she said, adding that the extra sales were to Venezuelans.

Capriles offers discounts to Venezuelan clients. An Italian-made jacket costs $375, reduced from $498. Gas masks go for around $140. Other popular items include Mace, stun guns and more powerful electromuscular disruption devices, which can put down a human target at 20 feet.

"We are going back, but we have to be prepared," said Leopoldo Baptista, the 60-year-old owner of a major Venezuelan construction company. Baptista spent several thousand dollars at Spytrix on protective gear for his wife and children.

Call an ambush by Venezuelan government thugs by its true name *** It is one thing to write about the authoritarian soul of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, as I have for years, and another to see its ugly face. Last Friday, while marching with my 13-year-old daughter in Caracas, through unbearable fumes of tear gases, I could clearly distinguish the face of fascism.

We were part of a peaceful demonstration of several hundred thousand Venezuelans who were marching to demand early elections as a democratic solution to the current political crisis. Near the end of the route, we were ambushed by armed civil groups who attacked us with tear gas, stones, sticks and guns. All of this took place before the indolent eyes of the military police, who at first were just strolling along as the armed gangs were shooting. But soon we saw with astonishment that the police were handing more tear-gas grenades to our attackers and coordinating their moves.

When I later saw the events reported by CNN, Reuters, the Associated Press and The New York Times as a ''confrontation'' between government supporters and the opposition, I was appalled. What confrontation? I said to myself while remembering the terror in my daughter's eyes and in the thousands of unarmed demonstrators who were forced to flee.

Armed civilian groups responding to government orders are not new. Fascist and communist regimes have used them for the same purpose as the Chávez government: to intimidate opponents and to disguise government repression under a civilian facade. The armed Bolivarian Circles have already been denounced by Organization of American States Secretary General César Gaviria, who has found deaf ears not only in Chávez and his cabinet members but in the attorney general and the ombudsman as well.

The foreign press has failed to report the truth about events in Venezuela such as the march in which I participated. On Christmas Day, Boston Globe correspondent Marion Lloyd described the Circles as ''watchdog groups to support the Chávez government.'' No mention was made of their role as an illegal armed militia. The Circles terrorize those who dare to dissent with the government.***

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