Caracas | Sunday
DEPOSED president Hugo Chavez returned by helicopter from detention on a Caribbean island and landed early on Sunday at the presidential palace in Caracas where he is expected to resume the presidential post he was ousted from two days ago.
Chavez administration vice president Diosdado Cabello took an oath late on Saturday to serve as acting president only until Chavez could return to Caracas.
”Countrymen in all of Venezuela, I speak to you as acting president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a post I assume in accordance with the constitution for the short, temporary absence of the constitutionally-elected president, Hugo Chavez Frias,” Cabello said after his swearing-in on Saturday.
A delegation of supporters picked up Chavez at the Caribbean island of La Orchila early on Sunday to escort him back to Caracas after his detention.
Cabello was sworn in as Venezuela’s acting president, when the interim government that deposed the administration of Hugo Chavez resigned on Saturday, after holding power for one day.
Pedro Carmona, who on Friday led the interim government that ousted Chavez, announced his resignation in a radio address to the nation just moments before announcing that the legislature had named Cabello acting president of Venezuela.
”The national legislature has decided to assign the post of president to Vice President Diosdado Cabello, after the interim president presented his resignation to the Venezuelan people,” said Carmona, speaking about himself in the third person.
The announcement restored the constitutionally-stipulated succession that had been interrupted by Carmona’s provisional government for 27 hours.
Carmona and other members of the interim government are now under military custody.
Cabello, who turns 39 on Monday, took the oath of office before National Assembly President William Lara at the Miraflores presidential palace at 0211 GMT, said newly-reinstated administration representative Rafael Vargas.
Caracas television stations immediately showed jubilant crowds, many of which had moments before threatened violence. Police sirens wailed in the streets as citizens set off fireworks.
As Chavez supporters across Venezuela voiced their outrage at his ouster, near-anarchy reigned in some sectors, eyewitnesses said. At least three people were shot dead in Caracas and at least eighteen people were wounded, doctors and humanitarian workers said. Among the wounded were Chavez supporters who said they were fired upon while demonstrating near the Miraflores presidential palace.
”At least 200 000 people have come spontaneously to demand Chavez’s liberation,” Lara said of the gathering outside the palace.
”The legitimacy of the national institutions usurped by Pedro Carmona has been re-established.” – Sapa-AFP