President Hugo Chavez

President Hugo Chavez ordered troops and tanks into Caracas' streets April 11 to confront a massive opposition demonstration that ended in bloodshed, according to an audiotape released Wednesday. The violence in the Venezuelan capital led disgusted generals to oust Chavez on April 12. Loyalist troops and thousands of Chavez militants rebelled April 13, and Chavez was restored to power on April 14.

Reporting from Bogota, Colombia, and Caracas, Venezuela -- Stepping up what opponents call a smack-down of opposition voices, the Venezuelan attorney general said Thursday that authorities had arrested the owner of the Globovision TV channel, one of the few remaining broadcasters critical of President Hugo Chavez. Guillermo Zuloaga was arrested at an airport in western Venezuela as he was preparing to fly his private airplane to Bonaire, a Caribbean vacation destination, for Easter week.

As Eugenio Suarez took some practice swings in the batting cage at the Detroit Tigers' baseball academy, the anti-U.S. bluster of President Hugo Chavez couldn't have been further from his mind. He was too intent on his coach's instructions to keep his hands tight, take a short stride and turn his hips quickly through his swing. "I'm just trying to make my dream come true, to make it to the big leagues," said Suarez, a 19-year-old shortstop, who hit one solid line drive after another, the balls crashing against the home run fence 350 feet from the plate.

The results of Venezuela's National Assembly elections this week demonstrate once again that it is wise for opposition groups to participate in political competitions, even when the odds are heavily stacked against them. In 2005, opponents of President Hugo Chavez tried to discredit the Assembly election by boycotting it, leaving the arena to the populist leader's loyalists. This time, they ran candidates under the banner of the Table for Democratic Unity and won 61 of the 165 Assembly seats, denying Chavez the two-thirds majority he had used to rewrite fundamental laws, appoint Supreme Court justices and consolidate power.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Subway commuters cried on their trains. Drivers blasted their horns in grief. The government called for seven days of national mourning. Meanwhile, other residents of the Venezuelan capital jammed into Plaza Bolivar and asked that President Hugo Chavez's body be brought to them there, in the colonial heart of the country he had transformed - for better or worse - with his outsized personality and unique brand of pan-Latin petro-socialism. " Chavez vive !"

Venezuela just took a democratic step closer to dictatorship. On Sunday, President Hugo Chavez won the right to seek reelection ad infinitum, prevailing in a referendum that eliminated term limits for the presidency and other elected offices.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- In a move that heightened tensions surrounding the health of cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez, his vice president on Tuesday expelled the U.S. Embassy's military attache, accusing him of "proposing destabilizing plans" to members of Venezuelan armed forces. Speaking at the Miraflores presidential palace after conferring with Cabinet ministers, 20 state governors and the military chiefs of staff, Vice President Nicolas Maduro accused attache David del Monaco of "illegal activity that mocks international conventions.

As the streets of Caracas filled Thursday with demonstrators frustrated by barriers to recalling a president they detest, Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations resigned to protest human rights violations and threats to democracy in his country.

Former President Carter renewed efforts to mediate Venezuela's political crisis Monday even as violence surged again between supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chavez. Gunfire at a protest march left one dead and 15 wounded, officials said. Miranda state Gov. Enrique Mendoza, a Chavez opponent, said Chavez supporters attacked an opposition march in Charallave, about 20 miles south of Caracas, the capital, on the 50th day of a general strike against the president.

I was pleased to read Andrew Reding's article on Venezuela ("U.S. Should Form a Marshall Plan for Latin America," Commentary, Aug. 19), which gives a fairer treatment of Venezuela's political situation. Much of the U.S. media ignore the reality and history of Venezuela while painting President Hugo Chavez as a power-hungry leftist nut intent on waging class warfare, destroying the Venezuelan oil economy and cozying up to Fidel Castro. Just take a look at Michael Ramirez's cartoon next to Reding's article, which shows Chavez standing next to Castro.