Stuart Munckton
Four people implicated in violent opposition campaigns against the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez escaped from the Ramos Verde military prison on August 13. The former head of the corrupt right-wing Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), Carlos Ortega, was among them.
Ortega was serving a 16-year jail sentence for civil rebellion. He was jailed for his role in organising a bosses' lock-out in December 2002, in an attempt to force Chavez to resign. The campaign included sabotaging the state-run oil industry and resulted in US$7.5 billion worth of damages, according to an August 14 Associated Press report. The Ortega-led CTV also helped organise a US-backed military coup in April 2002 that briefly replaced Chavez with the president of Venezuela's chamber of commerce.
Both attempts to bring down Chavez were defeated by mass mobilisations of Venezuela's poor majority. After the lock-out's failure, Ortega went into hiding but was eventually captured in an illegal gambling den.
The three others were former military officers, two of whom were jailed over a plot to assassinate Chavez and the third for the theft of a weapon.
Venezuelanalysis.com reported on August 17 that at least 14 members of the National Guard had been arrested in relation to the prison break. The minister for justice, Jesse Chacon, said that those arrested were linked to an opposition party.
The opposition claims that Ortega was a political prisoner, however Chacon said the escapees were "not in jail for their ideas but for their crimes", according to an August 15 VHeadline.com report.
Defence minster Raul Baduel said of those behind the breakout: "We know that local agents exist whose interests don't coincide with those of the country."
Chavez, who spent two years in jail after leading a failed rebellion in 1992 to topple a corrupt, repressive government, attacked "those that flee and those that don't have even the bravery to face justice. I was a prisoner for two years accepting a situation and I left with my head held high; how sad to leave in the early hours of the morning like rats."
Venezuelanalysis.com reported that the right-wing National Resistance Commando had called a demonstration in solidarity with the escaped prisoners, but had cancelled the event when "scarcely 20 people turned up".