Venezuelan military leaders call for president's ouster

CARACAS, Venezuela -- The number of military officers calling for President Hugo Chavez's ouster rose to 26 at a rally on Wednesday -- a mini-revolt blurring the lines between protest and insurrection.

The Venezuelan leader was silent but his government insisted there was no unrest within military ranks. Soldiers stayed in their barracks, apparently ignoring the call to rebellion.

State television aired footage showing citizens calmly going about their business in most areas of Caracas.

The rally, which began Tuesday, swelled to several thousand Wednesday afternoon as people got off work. But it paled in comparison to the one million people who participated in an opposition march two weeks ago -- and to Chavez's own rally of hundreds of thousands two weeks ago.

Still, the officers drew endorsements Wednesday from the Venezuelan Workers Confederation and the Fedecamaras business chamber, the two groups that organized a nationwide general strike earlier in the week and have about 2 million members between them.

Venezuela's three main opposition parties Democratic Action, Primera Justicia and Copei, also endorsed the military dissidents.

Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, was scheduled to visit Monday, hoping to broker peace talks, Rangel said. Gaviria has condemned the call to rebellion.

The military high command accused the dissidents of having been involved in an April coup.

Fourteen officers went on national television Tuesday to call for a rebellion. They insisted they weren't trying to provoke a coup, but cited a constitutional clause allowing citizens to rebel against a government they consider undemocratic. They were later joined by 12 other officers.

It's a clause Chavez himself sanctioned in 1999 when he ushered in a new constitution as the cornerstone of his leftist revolution against corruption and poverty in this South American oil exporter.

Analysts say Chavez created the clause to justify his actions in 1992 when, as an army paratrooper, he led a failed military coup against an unpopular but democratically elected government.

Chavez was jailed after the coup, released two years later and was elected president in 1998.

The constitution's Article 350 is now a rallying point for Venezuela's burgeoning opposition, which is looking for ways to oust Chavez before his term ends in 2007.

Rebel military officers used it to justify an April 12-14 coup that followed the slayings of 19 people in an opposition protest. Governments worldwide condemned the coup, but the rebels have evaded prosecution by citing Article 350.

"I've been here since 7 o'clock last night. I don't want to miss a thing, and I'll stay here until the end -- until Chavez quits," Rosa Alfonso, 33, said at the rally at the eastern Caracas plaza, which rebel officers declared "liberated territory."

"We're using Article 350. That is our right. We're not provoking a coup."

The secretary general of the workers confederation, Manuel Cova, called on citizens to join the protest to pressure the president to call early elections or at least a nonbinding referendum on his rule in December.

The opposition insists Chavez no longer controls a country mired in economic recession. The country is fiercely divided between Venezuelans who consider Chavez an autocrat and those who believe him a champion of the poor.