Venezuelan leader says he will 'rectify,' soften his rhetoric

  BY JUAN TAMAYO AND FRANCES ROBLES

  CARACAS - President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, deposed for 43 hours, took back his seat at the presidential palace Sunday after a turbulent weekend
  that saw looting, three presidents, at least 40 deaths and a military coup that collapsed almost as soon as it began.

  Sobbing with emotion, Chávez promised on his return to tone down the rhetoric that has angered so many of his critics. He promised to open new lines of
  communication and make gestures of goodwill.

  ''I, too, have to reflect at this hour,'' Chávez said. ``I come ready to rectify what has to be rectified. But not me alone; we all have to.''

  Chávez also announced that he will appoint a federal government council to steer a national dialogue with key sectors of the country, apparently
  including opponents he has often dismissed as ``the squalid ones.''

  In another concession, he accepted the resignations of his hand-picked board of directors of Petróleos de Venezuela, the state-owned oil company,
  where his efforts to pack the board with his supporters provoked a strike that eventually led to the military coup attempt against him.

  ''I do not come with hate or rancor in my heart, but we must make decisions and adjust things,'' Chávez said at 3:30 a.m., when he addressed the nation
  from the Miraflores presidential palace after his astonishing comeback.

  Armed forces commanders tried to topple and detain Chávez on Friday after his supporters opened fire on 200,000 demonstrators, killing 16 and
  wounding more than 150. The military chiefs named an interim government, but Chávez was brought back Sunday morning after a counter-rebellion by
  military officers and massive marches demanding his return to power.

  The toppled president was returned to Caracas from La Orchila, a tiny Caribbean island where his military captors had taken him following violent
  protests outside the military fort in Caracas where he had been held. Four people were wounded there.

  Wearing his trademark red beret, a leftover from his days as an army paratrooper, and a safari shirt over an olive green T-shirt, Chávez seemed
  overcome by emotion as he reentered the Miraflores palace.

  A NEW THEORY

  Crestfallen foes of Chávez spread the speculation that the entire events of Thursday, Friday and Saturday were stage-managed by the wily president to
  make his opponents in the military make themselves known -- and then fire them.

  Addressing opponents who have demanded that he abandon his leftist policies and harsh rhetoric, he said: ``Let's discuss it. Those who are not in
  accord with our policies, say so, but honestly, loyally.''

  Chávez supporters promised not to hold grudges against the business, labor, military and political leaders who supported the attempted coup and joined
  Pedro Carmona's interim government.

  Carmona later resigned and the National Assembly swore in Vice President Diosdado Cabello, who served a few hours until Chávez returned. ''There will
  be no witch hunt,'' Cabello told Caracol Radio. ``We will not be hunting anyone down. There are legal procedures for those who perpetrated a military
  insurgency, people who pushed the people to an uprising. It's not to say that they will be punished, but, simply, there are these laws.''

  But opposition leaders continued to call for Chávez's resignation and that of his entire government, warning that the crisis that has roiled Venezuela, the
  United States' third-largest oil supplier, will not be so easily resolved.

  ''The crisis remains and is still worse,'' said Julio Borges, of the anti-Chávez Justice First party.

  Borges also called for an international truth commission to investigate the violent deaths that have occurred since Thursday, saying he did not trust
  government prosecutors.

  Emergency workers tallied 41 deaths and 323 injuries from the demonstrations Thursday that led to Chávez's removal until the riots that led to his return
  on Sunday.

  Sporadic looting was reported to be continuing Sunday in several middle-class Caracas neighborhoods near slums that are Chávez strongholds, after a
  night in which his supporters' joy over his return turned into widespread ransacking of stores.

  NOT NAMING NAMES

  Government ombudsman Germán Mundarain said the looting was the work of ''excited groups that have attacked merchants,'' carefully staying away from
  saying that most appeared to have been Chávez supporters.

  In the La Florida district, next to the Chapellín slum, Rafael Saavedra, 37, owner of a ransacked McDonald's, said the looters took all the freezers,
  computers, the strong box, and ruined what they could not carry out.

  ''All the people who work here live there,'' he said, pointing to the slum in the hills above, from where he said he believed the looters came.

  Next door, a supermarket had been stripped bare -- every shelf empty, all windows smashed. Mounds of food that looters apparently dropped were all
  over the sidewalk.

  Despite the emotional charge of the moment, Chávez was typically informal in his predawn address to the nation, often holding up a tiny copy of the 1999
  constitution he all but drafted. He joked about the short-lived coup attempt.

  ''I was completely sure we would be back. I began writing some poems and I didn't even have time to finish the first one,'' he said.

  He said he was treated well during his hours in military detention. He did, however, say he was tired and needed some rest, promising to address the
  nation later Sunday. 'Something inside me told me, `Be calm, Hugo, because neither the people nor soldiers will stand for this abuse,' '' he said.

  CHAVEZ NOW `WEAK'

  Analysts said that although Chávez was triumphant, his victory may not last long.

  ''Although Chávez is the big winner of the moment, he has come out of this extremely weak,'' said Eric Ekvall, a political strategy consultant. ``He was
  taken prisoner by his own military. He's an ordinary mortal. I see the situation as very rolling, unstable. It hasn't settled yet.''

  Borges, of the Justice First party, said the opposition is not just going to give up, with the president's popularity having plunged from 85 percent to 35
  percent over the past year.

  ''There's a big segment of the population that does not support the president,'' he said.

  Alfredo Peña, mayor of greater Caracas, said the failed coup in fact could worsen discontent. ''This was a confrontation between civil society and Chávez
  that was building for a long time,'' he said. ``We've had the cloudburst; it's unstopped the plug.''

  Chávez opponents meanwhile partly blamed the collapse of the coup on the draconian measures that Carmona announced soon after his appointment
  Friday, including the suspension of the constitution, National Assembly, Supreme Court and attorney general.

  ''Pedro Carmona did not consult anyone outside his own group, not labor, not the nongovernment organizations,'' one source close to Carmona said. ``It
  was a disagreeable surprise.''

  The movement was co-opted by a group of rightists inside the nation's largest business confederation, which Carmona heads, Carmona's ally said. ``This
  was a monumental error. Carmona is not an extremist, he has always been an excellent negotiator, but somehow he got carried away by this group.''

  The severe measures sparked outrage across the nation and apparently made some of the military coup plotters reconsider the president's ouster,
  starting the chain of events that eventually led to his return.

  Carmona's whereabouts were not known Sunday.

  Meanwhile, National Guard commander in chief Gen. Francisco Belisario Landis, a Chávez backer dismissed during the coup attempt, was reinstated
  Sunday.

  ''The national guard is under my absolute control,'' he said.

  Defense Minister José Vicente Rangel meanwhile accused the Venezuelan media, particularly four private television stations, of promoting the anti-Chávez
  march Thursday.

  ''I've always said there's a virtual country, created by the media, and a real country,'' he said. ``The virtual country believed that with this coup maneuver
  it would get rid of Chávez. The real country answered.''

  Herald special correspondent Christina Hoag contributed to this report.