Fugitive Rosales “Regrets” Having Signed Coup Decree in 2002
Fugitive from the Venezuelan justice system, Manuel Rosales expressed regret for having signed the coup decree which dissolved all public powers in the country on April 2002, during the brief dictatorship of businessman Pedro Carmona.
“My utmost regret is having signed the Carmona decree,” Rosales said nine years after the media, political and economic far right sector overthrew the democratically elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.
According to Rosales, he wasn’t “familiar with” the decree read publicly in a meeting he attended at the Miraflores Presidential Palace, in Caracas, when dictator Carmona proclaimed himself president of the Republic.
However, secretary general of the opposition party Democratic Action, Henry Ramos Allup, confessed, in an interview with the newspaper “Ciudad CCS”, that all political and economic sectors who planned the coup d”état in 2002 were acquainted with the content of the decree a week earlier.
“I was invited to that meeting and I surprisingly appeared there (in the decree), I was mentioned and my name written down but I did not know it,” said Rosales, according to the website “noticias 24”.
Yet, Rosales did not explain why was he at the presidential palace that day, though he should had been governing in a city about 438 miles away from the Capital District. Nor did he explain who invited him to that meeting.
Rosales, former governor of western state Zulia, said he plans to come back to Venezuela as a “strategy” to take part of primary elections organized by the right-wing to choose their presidential candidate for the 2012 elections.
“We are planning to return to Venezuela through various ways and it is a strategy we are developing. My name appears in polls which show numbers that talk of millions of people with aspriations that deserve respect [sic],” he said.
However, Rosales, who is also founder of the party A New Time never said he would assume the responsibility of going to a court to face the charges of corruption and illicit enrichment once he got here.
Article edited by Venezuelanalysis.com.
Note: Rosales made these comments during an interview with Noticias 24. He is currently living in Peru to avoid facing the charges here.