By JANE BUSSEY
             Herald Business Writer

             Soldier, prisoner, presidential contender and on Friday Venezuela's man of the
             moment, Hugo Chavez tried his hand at being conciliatory statesman in a satellite
             address to a Miami audience.

             ``I respect the American people,'' Chavez told the second annual Conference of
             the Americas, sponsored by The Herald. This from the front-runner in the
             Venezuelan presidential race, who once said he was ``honored'' to be denied a
             visa to the United States.

             The former lieutenant colonel's background as leader of the failed February 1992
             military coup, which led to his imprisonment and pardon, along with his criticism of
             free-market reforms and traditional party politics, have sparked concern from
             investors and sent some well-heeled Venezuelans packing to Miami.

             As Chavez sat in Venezuela, flanked by his new wife, the screen flashed the latest
             poll results in the December presidential race. The newest poll gave 46 percent to
             Chavez, 23 percent to Henrique Salas Romer of the COPEI party, and 12 percent
             to Irene Saez, a former Miss Universe and mayor of the upscale city of Chacao in
             the Caracas metropolitan area.

             Saez addressed the meeting in person. But a satellite appearance by Salas Romer
             fell through when he couldn't obtain the necessary satellite time.

             Chavez, in his half-hour speech, harshly attacked Venezuela's traditional parties for
             failing to improve the plight of the country's poor or bring about a fully functioning
             democracy. The presidential contender has proposed establishing a new
             Constituents Assembly to rewrite the constitution.

             But he had no hard words for the captains of Venezuelan business and finance and
             promised that the country would honor its foreign commitments, without
             specifically mentioning the foreign debt.

             ``We need foreign investment to come to Venezuela,'' he said.

             When asked about a past rabble-rousing speech, Chavez tried to put a more
             conciliatory tone on his pronouncement lambasting U.S.-backed free-market
             reforms, known as neoliberalism throughout Latin America, and his threats to wipe
             out the opposition.

             The speech must be taken in context, the Venezuelan politician said. He insisted
             that his reference to being honored over the visa denial was because he was
             ``honored'' to have staged the 1992 bloody coup, which led to the State
             Department's rejection.

             Threats to wipe out the opposition were ``metaphorical statements,'' Chavez said.

             And he cited Pope John Paul II on ``neo-liberalism,'' insisting, like the pope, that
             he was against ``savage neo-liberalism.''

             The Friday program of the two-day conference in Coral Gables focused on
             politics, especially in Venezuela, with elections in December, and Mexico, with
             balloting in 2000.

             Earlier in the day, Mexican Gov. Vicente Fox Quesada, one of the few opposition
             governors in the country and a hopeful in the 2000 race, insisted that he had spent
             10 years trying to change Mexican politics because ``we have had gluttonous
             governments . . . which haven't let go of power.''

             Mexican Sen. Elba Esther Gordillo, from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary
             Party, also addressed the audience with strong praise for globalization.

             Ecuador's new president, Jamil Mahuad, who has been in office a scant five
             weeks, said that his government was seeking the peace dividend from a border
             dispute with Peru that led to fighting in 1995.

             ``Peace is a moral value, an economic value,'' Mahuad said in a keynote address.
             ``The best fiscal measure that a government can take is to make peace.''

             Mahuad also set out a series of goals, including raising the country's economic
             growth rate from the current 2 percent annually to 6 percent, increasing exports
             from $4.5 billion a year to $7.5 billion and slashing inflation from an annual rate of
             40 percent to the single digits.

             Herald staff writer Andres Oppenheimer contributed to this report.
 

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