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<font size=3><br><br>
<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3><b>The Miami Herald<br><br>
Posted on Wed, Jan. 28, 2004 <br><br>
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2 men caught between 2 nations<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3 color="#0000FF">Two Venezuelan military
officers accused by Venezuela of being involved in two bombings and being
held in a federal detention center in Miami-Dade have applied for
political asylum.<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3>BY RICHARD BRAND AND ALFONSO
CHARDY<br>
<a href="mailto:rbrand@herald.com">rbrand@herald.com</a><br><br>
The case of two Venezuelan military officers seeking political asylum in
Miami may create a diplomatic bind for Washington, embarrassed to harbor
men accused of terrorism in Caracas yet reluctant to return them to the
highly politicized courts in Venezuela, analysts say.<br><br>
National Guard Lts. Germán Varela and José Antonio Colina, outspoken
critics of President Hugo Chávez, held at the Krome detention center
since they arrived on a flight from Colombia in December, have already
added to the long-rocky U.S. relations with the leftist Chávez.<br><br>
The Bush administration regards Chávez as a democratically elected but
dangerous populist who pushed Venezuela into a 2-year-old political
crisis, forged a warm alliance with Cuba and strongly criticized the U.S.
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3 color="#0000FF">Varela and Colima are
accused of participating in bombings last February of the Colombian and
Spanish diplomatic missions in Caracas, which injured four people. They
are also accused of orchestrating a shooting spree in a Caracas plaza in
late 2002 that left three dead.<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3>''The U.S. is probably not terribly keen
to make a decision one way or another,'' on their asylum request, said
Michael Shifter, a senior analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue think
tank in Washington. ``If they send the two back to Venezuela, they'll be
subject to criticism. If they decide to release them it gives the
Venezuelan government a lot of ammunition to criticize and point out the
</font><font face="arial" size=3 color="#0000FF">hypocrisy on the U.S.
position on terrorism.''<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3>MAKING CONTACT<br><br>
President Hugo Chávez said Tuesday that Venezuelan authorities have
started contacts with the U.S. government to request the extradition of
the two asylum seekers. Prosecutors have steadfastly maintained to
journalists in Caracas that they have cellphone records, witnesses and
other evidence implicating the pair.<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3 color="#0000FF">``They're terrorists,
Venezuela's ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, told The Herald
in an interview. Venezuela and the United States have an extradition
treaty.<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3>Through their Miami lawyer and relatives
in Caracas, the two officers have claimed that they are innocent and that
they being framed by members of the Chávez-controlled DISIP political
police to make them look like ``coup plotters.''<br><br>
They claim theyre being targeted because they were among a group of about
100 dissident military officers who left their posts last year to stage
anti-Chávez protests in a Caracas plaza, and because Varela's father, a
retired general who once commanded the National Guard, is now one of the
presidents most high-profile critics.<br><br>
Their Miami lawyer, Leopoldo Ochoa, said the men, who declined requests
to be interviewed for this story, believe they will be executed if they
are returned to Venezuela.<br><br>
He said they will officially file their asylum requests on Feb.
3.<br><br>
Varela's father, Germán Rodolfo Varela, is running an aggressive public
campaign in defense of his son and Colina. In an interview with The
Herald at his Caracas home, he claimed to have proof that the evidence
against the pair was fabricated and that prosecution witnesses were
tortured into incriminating the two men.<br><br>
POLICY PROBLEMS<br><br>
The case has already caused problems for U.S. policymakers.
</font><font face="arial" size=3 color="#0000FF">When the State
Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, Cofer Black, said last
week that Caracas could be doing more to cooperate with the U.S. war on
terrorism, Venezuelan Vice President José Vicente Rangel shot back by
invoking the Colina and Varela cases.<br><br>
``Mr. Black asks for more cooperation to bring terrorists to justice. In
that same vein, we are seeking better cooperation from the United States
to bring to justice those who have committed terrorist acts in Venezuela,
Rangel said in a statement.<br><br>
``In this area, there has to be reciprocity. It turns out that those who
have set off explosives at diplomatic headquarters and have murdered
people and who are sought by the Venezuelan justice system are in The
United States seeking asylum, Rangel added.<br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3>One U.S. State Department official,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said the department was ''aware of
the case'' and ``will give appropriate consideration to all formal
requests by the government of Venezuela. U.S. immigration officials in
Miami say they don't comment on asylum or extradition requests as a
matter of policy.<br><br>
Underscoring the importance of the case, the Miami lawyer for the two men
said the two men have been extensively interviewed at Krome by agents of
the the FBI and the Department of Defense -- unusual treatment for asylum
seekers.<br><br>
''They were interviewed about everything related to what's happening in
Venezuela, national security, their careers. The interviews were
extensive, they were very lengthy interviews and they happened on more
than one date,'' said Ochoa, their lawyer.<br><br>
GROWING NUMBERS<br><br>
Varela and Colina are among
a</font><font face="arial" size=3 color="#0000FF"> growing number of
Venezuelans seeking political asylum in the United
States</font><font face="arial" size=3>. According to U.S. statistics,
the number of asylum requests from Venezuelans spiked from 18 in 1999,
the year Chávez took office, to 899 in 2003.<br><br>
The president's critics say he is trying to impose an authoritarian
Castro-like regime in Venezuela. His supporters say he is fighting
corruption and sticking up for the poor in a country where for decades
successive governments have squandered a vast oil wealth.<br><br>
<br><br>
© 2004 The Miami Herald and wire service sources. All Rights
Reserved.<br>
<a href="http://www.miami.com/" eudora="autourl">http://www.miami.com</a>
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</font><font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF"><b><i>JosePertierra@aol.com<br>
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