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American Morning

Venezuelan President Resigns

Aired April 12, 2002 - 08:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, though, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez today resigned from office after the country's military demanded he step down in the wake of violent demonstrations. Twelve demonstrators were shot to death by police yesterday and dozens more were wounded as they marched on the presidential palace.

Joining us now with the latest developments there is CNN's Harris Whitbeck in Caracas -- good morning, Harris.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

The streets of Caracas are much calmer than they were at this hour yesterday. People are trying to go about their business. The streets are not as crowded as they are usually, people trying to digest the news that just eight hours ago they had a different president. As you said, Hugo Chavez is no longer in power here. The military high command forced him to resign late last night. They also forced him to fire his vice president and all the members of his cabinet.

Chavez was taken into custody. He's currently being detained at the army headquarters, the headquarters for the armed forces high command. There are some reports that Chavez and some members of his government will be, might be investigated, perhaps even tried, for their involvement in the deaths of those 12 protesters which occurred yesterday.

Meanwhile, the army has named a new leader of an interim government. That is Pedro Carmona Estanga. He is the leader of Venezuela's largest business federation and was the most visible leader of this opposition movement that for the past two months or so had virtually taken the streets of Caracas demanding Chavez's ouster -- Paula.

ZAHN: And I know you have the inspector general of the armed forces telling the Venezuelan public to remain calm. Are they heeding that warning?

WHITBECK: They are so far, but there are some concerns that the Bolivarian circles, which are these civic organizations that had been founded by Chavez and his government, might take to the streets. These are mostly groups from the more marginalized sectors of Venezuelan society, the poor, who had really felt that with Chavez their needs and their concerns had been heard and they had felt that they had a voice.

Some of these, the members of these groups have also been blamed for instigating some of the violence yesterday and everybody's kind of holding their breath to see if there might be more violent reaction to the changes today.

ZAHN: And I know you said the former president might ultimately be tried for the deaths of 12 of these demonstrators, but what is the official reason why he is being detained right now?

WHITBECK: Well, he's being detained precisely for that reason. There was some talk yesterday that he might be allowed to leave the country. In fact, some of his opponents had gathered at the military base here in Caracas that serves as a presidential air hangar hoping to see a plane take off with Hugo Chavez headed for Cuba. That did not happen. The military high command said he was to stay in the country and he would be detained indefinitely.

ZAHN: Harris Whitbeck, thank you very much for that live update. We appreciate it.

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