|
China
| Haiti |
Danilo Anderson:
Terror Attack in Venezuela
Kills State Prosecutor Danilo Anderson
Anti-government terrorist attacks surface once again
Indymedia UK,, Nov 19, 2004
Caracas, Nov 19, 2004 (Venezuelanalysis.com
/ Alia2).- State prosecutor Danilo Anderson was the victim of
a car-bomb assassination last night, causing consternation among
Venezuelans who enjoyed several weeks of relative calm after
President Hugo Chavez won a recall referendum.
Anderson was in charge of prosecuting
several opponents of President Hugo Chavez accused of participating
in the April 11th, 2002 coup d'etat.
Anderson's SUV was blown up
as he was on his way home after attending a univsersity graduate
course in the Caracas neighborhood of Los Chaguaramos.
According to the scientific
police (CICPC), two explosions ripped through Anderson's vehicle
approximately five minutes after starting his car. Consumed by
flames, Anderson's yellow Toyota Autana continued forward after
the explosions, eventually crashing into a store.
Caracas firefighters were the
first to the scene, responding to calls by local witnesses to
the explosion. They were joined shortly thereafter by members
of Venezuela's military intelligence police (DISIP), the scientific
police (CICPC), the National Guard, Metropolitan Police, Caracas
Police, and Military Police. By 12am this morning, high governmental
officials including Vice-President José Vicente Rangel,
Ministers of Information, Justice and the Interior, and Energy
and Mines and the Attorney General had arrived at the scene of
the explosion.
Government spokesmen refrained
from making any official declarations on the identity of the
victim until forensics experts had positively identified the
body as state prosecutor Danilo Anderson's late Friday morning.
Shortly after arriving at the scene of the crime in the early
hours of Friday morning, Minister of Justice and the Interior
Jesse Chacon stated "there is no doubt that what took place
was an assassination... Whoever did it prepared it with premeditation,
and sufficient time." "Anderson had bodyguards assigned
to him," continued Chacon, "but whenever he attended
his class he dismissed them. It was a routine he had, and we
assume that his murder was planned on this routine."
A visibly disturbed Attorney
General of the Republic Isaías Rodríguez declared
at the site that "we will find the guilty parties if we
have to dig up the Earth, look under every stone. And the guilty
parties will be found."
A state prosecutor
in the eye of the storm
The 38-year-old Danilo Anderson's
official post is as State Prosecutor with national jurisdiction.
During the April 2002 attempted coup against Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez, Anderson was instrumental in getting the state television
channel back on the air, at which point the state channel made
the first public announcement declaring that Chavez supporters
had retaken power.
As a result, Anderson was personally
designated by the Attorney General to act as state prosecutor.
Anderson had recently gotten headlines for his controversial
investigations into the violence that occurred during the April
2002 coup.
Three cases in particular had
given the State Prosecutor a high profile. He was in charge of
accusations made against members of the Metropolitan police,
accused firing against civilians on April 11th, 2002 on the Puente
Llaguno (one block from the presidential palace in Caracas).
These killings were initially pinned on Chavista supporters by
Venezuela's private mainstream media, and they were used by dissident
military officers as justification for the coup.
Anderson's office was also
pursuing the indictment of Henrique Capriles Radonsky, mayor
of the wealthy Caracas municipality of Baruta for allowing attacks
on the Cuban embassy and thus violating its sovereignty, on April
12th, 2002. Most recently, Anderson had subpoenaed approximately
400 people who had signed the dictatorial decree by which Chamber
of Commerce (FEDECAMARAS) president Pedro Carmona abolished the
Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the National Assembly, fired
the Ombudsman, the Attorney General, as self-declared interim
President during the April coup.
Anderson's dynamic image of
a capable state prosecutor whose public statements were notoriously
precise and professional, won him systematic attacks from the
opposition and the private media to the extreme of personal offense
and slander.
The return
of terror
Although car bombings are rare
in Venezuela, Anderson's murder is not the first time that explosives
have been used in Venezuela in recent years. Political violence
has lurked in the shadows in a Venezuelan context of fierce political
battles over the controversial rule of President Chavez. The
consistent failure of the opposition to force Chavez' resignation
despite an attempted coup, four failed general strikes, and 9
electoral contests have convinced some sectors of the opposition
of the need for violence.
In 2003 the Colombian and Spanish
embassies were bombed by a violent faction of the opposition
to Chavez, and later that year a telecommunications building
was also bombed. This third bombing led government investigators
to issue arrest warrants for several former Venezuelan military
officers, including Gen. Gonzalez Gonzalez, and Gen. Felipe Rodriguez.
Gen. Rodriguez gave an interview with Miami Herald correspondent
Phil Gunson earlier this year from Miami, where the General declared
he was going underground to lead a clandestine guerilla war against
President Chavez.
Most recently, 130 Colombian
paramilitaries were discovered and arrested on the Caracas property
of Cuban exile and Venezuelan citizen Robert Alonso. While political
violence has had a sporadic presence in Venezuela over the past
two years this is the first time that one individual has been
the specific target of this type of action.
Despite the official refusal
to speculate as to the identities and possible motivations of
the perpetrators responsible for Anderson's death, government
spokespeople have not hesitated in clearly identifying it as
a reprehensible terrorist act.
Amid a situation in which the
country had seemed to recover tranquility after the referendum
and the regional elections, this act of extreme violence once
again raises the specter of a possible dirty war in Venezuela.
Danilo Anderson was above
all a professional ... last interview
Patrick J. O'Donoghue VHeadline,
November 29, 2004
Quinto Dia columnist Sebastiana
Barraez recalls that slain state prosecutor, Danilo Anderson
phoned her after an interview to say she was the first interview
in which a reporter put down exactly what he said. "I called
him by phone around midday on they day they killed him ... it
was brief and to the point."
Anderson told us that he would
charge all those that signed the Carmona Act on April 12, 2002
... "there are several wanted for embezzlement."
Anderson never liked politics,
Barraez comments, and to call him the "state prosecutor
of the Revolution" is incorrect because it gives the impression
that he was partialized against the opposition.
During the interview, Danilo
insisted that he was above all a professional ... "it's
true that I have key cases against the opposition but I succeeded
in sentencing the ultra-Chavist Manuel Arias ... I used a legal
recourse because I believed that the Llaguno Bridge Shooters
must respond for use of firearms and public intimidation ...
I denied Freddy Bernal's complaint against the garbage company."
Danilo wasn't liked by fellow
state prosecutors ... only 6 attended his funeral.
For Danilo, justice was for
everyone and he never understood why the security forces
had not arrested military officers, such as General Gonzalez
Gonzalez and Felipe Rodriguez.
Bloomberg's Peter Wilson
distorts reporting of Guevara brothers' remand hearing (report
in red below)
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=23768
VHeadline.com editor &
publisher Roy S. Carson writes:
In a thoroughly unprofessional report from Bloomberg's Peter
Wilson in Caracas, the financial news service's subscribers around
the world have been misinformed in a story claiming that Venezuela
has jailed two brothers suspected of being involved in
the November 18 assassination of prosecutor Danilo Anderson.
Wilson twists a prosecutor's
office press statement to claim that the government of President
Hugo Chavez Frias had "requested" that the 34th Control
Court should jail Roland and Otoniel Guevara, currently being
investigated for premeditated murder in Anderson's death.
A clue to Wilson's journalistic
failures probably comes in the fact that he cites (translated!)
an El Nacional report, continuing that "the brothers are
being held at the political police's headquarters in Caracas
and may also face terrorism charges."
The truth of the matter
is that the Guevara
brothers were arrested in a wholly legitimate police operation
last Friday and appeared in court Monday to answer charges
lodged by properly authorized prosecutors.
Quite naturally, the Guevaras'
lawyer, Pedro Miguel Castillo, has said that both his clients
are innocent but added that they had been tortured and the accusations
against them "are the work of a monstrous mind (left
unsaid who!)"
· Castillo told Globovision (of course!) that he was "indignant
with how justice works here'' in Venezuela, yet proper procedures
have been observed 24/7 with his clients facing charges properly
filed to a responsible court which must decide guilt or innocence.
Bloomberg's Peter Wilson displays
his bias and sidesteps the niceties of contemporary justice by
claiming that the Guevara brother have been jailed at the request
of the government when, in reality, they have been remanded
in custody on an application by the prosecuting attorney
and at the legitimate decision of the presiding court judge,
pending further investigations and an eventual court trial --
wholly normal procedure in criminal cases even north of the Rio
Grande.
Venezuela Arrests Three
in Prosecutor's Death, Nacional Reports
Nov. 27 (Bloomberg)
-- Venezuelan police arrested three men in connection with the
Nov. 18 assassination of the public prosecutor who was investigating
a 2002 coup attempt against President Hugo Chavez, El Nacional
reported, citing security officials.
One suspect
was arrested late yesterday on the tourist island of Margarita,
the newspaper said, citing Carlos Quilelli Nunez, who heads the
island's intelligence police. The suspect's name wasn't released.
Brothers Roland and Otoniel Guevara were also arrested yesterday
in the central industrial state of Carabobo, the newspaper said,
citing Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacon. The article
contained no comment from the brothers or anyone representing
them.
Chacon also
said that police are investigating a separate yet related incident
in which lawyer Antonio Lopez, killed in a shootout with police
on Nov. 23, and whether he had ties to the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency, the newspaper said.
Venezuelan
Information Minister Andres Izarra last week accused the U.S.
of harboring Cuban and Venezuelan exile groups with links with
the killing to public prosecutor Danilo Anderson, 38. U.S. State
Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez in Washington called the allegation
``false and baseless.''
(EL Nacional
11-27 A1)
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
