Posted on 14-4-2002

I Am A Prisoner
In a message dated 4/13/02 9:05:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
DavidMcR@aol.com writes:

Relayed from Brazil and hastily translated, here is Maria Elena Chavez'
message to Cuban Television on her telephione call from her father,
Venezuela's kidnapped constitutional president.

My father did not resign, he is a prisoner, said Chavez' daughter, Maria
Elena Chavez, daughter of the constitutional president of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, she affirmed this Friday that her father had not
resigned nor signed and decree, but that he was being held by the military.
In telephone conversation with the Cuban journalist Randy Alonso, regular
moderator of the Cuban space television Mesa Redondo (Roundtable), the
daughter of President Hugo Cchavez stated that at 9 a.m., Venezxuelan time,
she sspoke with her father and that he told her, texttually, "I am a
prisoner. I am an imprisoned president." In fact, the call to his family
haas been the only communication Chavez has been permitted to make, held
togtally incommunicado in Fort Tiuna, the General Commandancia of the Army,
where he was taken Friday morning, after various of the military arrived at
Miraflores Palace to seize him.

Maria Gabriela informed the Cuban reporter that President Chavez asks that
we inform the whole world that at no moment has he resigned nor signed any
presidential decree removing himself, and also to seek attorneys and to
speak with friends and associates to demand respect for his rights. She
also asked us to state to the OEA, to the Group of 77 and to the whole
world that it is a dictatorship of the extreme Right which is installing
itself in Venezuela and that they want to seal it with his supposed
resignation.