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11/21/2004:

"Chávez Foes Condemn Killing of Aide Investigating Them"

CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 19 - A day after a prosecutor investigating adversaries of President Hugo Chávez was killed in a car bombing, leaders of the country's opposition movement on Friday condemned the attack even as it raised the specter of violence by militant elements among the president's foes.

The prosecutor, Danilo Anderson, 38, was killed Thursday at about 11 p.m. when a remote-controlled bomb hidden in his jeep was detonated as he drove in a middle-class Caracas neighborhood, the police said.

Andrés Izarra, the government's communications and information minister, called the killing a "political assassination" and said the motive was to sideline Mr. Anderson's investigations of 400 opposition figures accused of taking part in a coup that briefly toppled Mr. Chávez in 2002.

"This attack against Danilo represents the barbarity of those who want to spread fear in Venezuela," Mr. Izarra told reporters on Friday. "We will not let them frighten us, and we will not let them overturn the climate of peace that we now have in Venezuela."

The bombing stunned the government, prompting top officials like Vice President José Vicente Rangel and Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacon to rush to the scene of the blast.

Some officials in the government and allies of the president suggested that the country's demoralized opposition had begun resorting to violence after failing to oust Mr. Chávez in a recall referendum in August.

"We cannot allow minority groups that do not accept the legitimacy of the government to impose a violent agenda on the citizens of this country," Juan Barreto, the mayor of Caracas and a close ally of the Mr. Chávez, told reporters.

Still, the streets of Caracas were calm on Friday, and the usually supercharged rhetoric of both the opposition and the government was toned down. Several officials called for composure and patience as the government began its investigation.

Leaders in the country's wide but disjointed opposition movement repudiated the attack. They also denied that anyone in their ranks could have been involved and called on the government to refrain from seeking scapegoats among its adversaries.

"This is a criminal and terrorist act with no justification at all, and the government must investigate the incident thoroughly to find the responsible parties," Andrés Velásquez, an antigovernment legislator, said Friday in an interview. "The worst thing that can happen is for the government to seek political gain."
Full Article: nytimes.com

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