BY CAROL ROSENBERG

  Florida International University vowed Sunday to go forward with a controversial talk by the exiled Caracas businessman who seized power from Hugo Chávez in April -- despite protests from Venezuelans.

  Pedro Carmona Estanga is scheduled to be the featured guest Wednesday at the Security Roundtable sponsored by FIU's Latin American and Caribbean Center. The roundtable is a discreet organization of about 100 academics, journalists, diplomats and business people, hosted alternatively by the center known as LACC, the
  University of Miami's North-South Center and the Pentagon's Southern Command.

  But this weekend, roundtable members thought to be on a private e-mail distribution list received two angry messages from Caracas urging the university to cancel the talk. The most provocative, signed by a Professor Reinaldo Bolívar, called Carmona ''a terrorist,'' and said the United States would protest if a Venezuelan were to host a similar event with Osama bin Laden.

  Carmona, 60, turned up in Miami last month on a short-term visa issued before his brief April 11-12 takeover of the Venezuelan presidency and the Miraflores
  presidential palace. He had fled to political asylum in Colombia after pro-Chávez forces restored to power their elected president, who had likewise previously plotted a coup.

  In defense of the Latin American and Caribbean Center, Director Eduardo A. Gamarra wrote to members that the event will be held Wednesday afternoon as scheduled because the institute known as LACC ``has always been a forum for leaders, academics, activists, and others who have openly spoken their mind about affairs in the region. To allow the presence of controversial speakers has always been the role of universities in the United States.''

  Moreover, he acknowledged that ``Mr. Carmona is certainly a controversial figure and his speech will undoubtedly generate great controversy. LACC does not endorse Mr. Carmona's views nor condone his actions during the coup against President Hugo Chávez.

  ``At the same time, LACC does not condone the actions of President Chávez before, during or after the coup. If the opportunity were to arise, we would be delighted to host speakers who represent the views of the Chávez government.''

  NOT THE FIRST TIME

  It is not the first controversy over an LACC speaker.

  Cuban exiles here have protested when FIU invited speakers from Cuba, and Argentines here became upset at a recent invitation to former President Carlos Menem. Menem did not speak in the end, because legal troubles at home at the time prevented his travel.

  Gamarra predicted that Carmona would face tough questions about whether Washington had any role in the attempt to unseat Venezuela's elected leader.

  A former Chamber of Commerce head, Carmona dissolved the National Assembly and the Supreme Court before Chávez supporters took to the streets of Caracas to bring Chávez back on April 14. The Bush administration has flatly denied any role in the events.

  Southcom and UM share the roundtable with the LACC, with each institution rotating responsibility for inviting a speaker. In this instance, Gamarra invited Carmona -- not Southcom, where U.S. military commanders claim they watched on the sidelines during the events that sent Chávez, briefly, to internal exile.

  In the first message to reach roundtable members, a writer named Ingrid Chacón de Colotti called Carmona a ''hypocrite, liar and traitor to the homeland,'' and urged cancellation of the talk. Bolívar, in his message, called the event disrespectful to Venezuela.

  IDEOLOGY ASIDE

  Gamarra identified both writers as Venezuelans who ''work for Chávez,'' and said he was at first surprised to discover that they had obtained the roundtable's e-mail
  distribution list. Then, he said, he recalled that an officer at the Venezuelan consulate here is part of the roundtable.

  ''I'm not a fan of Carmona's,'' Gamarra said Sunday. ``But I run a university center. I invite people from the left, the right and the center, and I don't give a damn what their ideology is.''

  That is a role, he said, befitting any academic center in a community that enjoys democracy and considers itself the capital of Latin America and the Caribbean.

  Gamarra said he did not expect major protests at the university or major security considerations for Carmona because among Venezuelans here, ``everybody hates
  Chávez.''

  About 100 people are routinely invited to the roundtable. Retired Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm was the last FIU speaker.