BY FRANCES ROBLES

CARACAS - Myrna Serpa, a newly homeless mother of four, joined about 100 fellow squatters on a recent afternoon to rally outside Miraflores, Venezuela's presidential palace.

Furious about a sweep of evictions that booted thousands of squatters such as her out of dozens of Caracas buildings, they hoped President Hugo Chávez would halt the expulsions.

''Here's what I want to know: Why didn't they throw us out before?'' Serpa said, holding a protest banner in front of the offices of the president she said she reveres.

It's a good question.

As Chávez faces a recall vote Sunday, armed gangs of pro-Chávez squatters who say they had a government wink and nod to take over abandoned buildings are now fighting the police, City Hall, each other and key Chávez loyalists.

Chávez has distanced himself from a key ally, Freddy Bernal, mayor of the predominantly poor Libertador sector of Caracas where many of the building seizures have taken place. Experts say the move by Chávez is an attempt to keep the dispute from undermining his overwhelming support among the country's poor.

Other analysts think Chávez orchestrated the dispute to offer his middle-class enemies election-time proof that that he does not advocate illegal property seizures.

The result: One Chávez activist dead, another in jail, and some Chávez backers accusing Bernal of conspiring to thwart the president's chances at the polls.

''What you have here is urban anarchy,'' said Carmen Beatríz Fernández, an expert in land issues. ``I don't know if Bernal created these gangs, but he used them, and now it got out of his hands.''

MOBILIZING THE POOR

Squatting has long been practiced in Venezuela, where desperately poor people have created entire neighborhoods by putting up shacks on vacant land. But Chávez's leftist rhetoric has energized many of the country's poor, and organized occupations of abandoned buildings soared after 1998, when he took office.

''You think if I had money, I'd be living here?'' said Marianela Contreras, who shares a dilapidated one-room apartment in Libertador with her husband and teenage daughter.

Contreras took the apartment, just a few blocks from the presidential palace, after the car dealership where her husband worked as a security guard closed last year, shut down after after a two-month strike to topple the president.

She told The Herald that the takeover was organized by Yasmín Rondón, a pro-Chávez activist better known as ``Commander Manuitt.''

Contreras said Rondón weeded out people with criminal histories or drug problems, and selected only abandoned buildings in the hands of the state. Her building was filled with criminals when she and three other families stormed it in the middle of the night, chaining the doors so the previous squatters could not reenter.

Dozens of buildings have been occupied by squatters for as long as four years, some used as offices for organizations that support Chávez. But this year other groups of squatters have been battling Rondón for turf, leading to daylight shootings and nighttime assassinations.

Bernal has now ordered 53 buildings cleared, and Rondón has been arrested.

POLITICAL PAWNS?

''We cleared them because there were flagrant gunfights in there,'' Bernal told reporters. ``In the searches, we've found firearms, Molotov cocktails and other explosive devices.''

But activists say Bernal initially supported the squatters, and changed when it was no longer politically convenient. Some of the squatters think he deliberately created the disputes to undermine Chávez's chances in the recall vote.

''This is political sabotage,'' said Yunny Larea, a Rondón supporter. ``The one who will be affected is the president.''

Some squatters say the disputed buildings are being cleared out only to be occupied by tenants organized by Lina Ron, another pro-Chávez activist. ''We have nothing to do with that,'' said Ron's husband, Humberto Derroteran.

A spokesman for Bernal said the evictions were decided by the courts, not politics.

''There was an armed mafia in some of those buildings, and there were several murders,'' said Eduardo Rothe. ``That, without a doubt, accelerated the decision to evacuate them.''

Chávez has long been accused of creating and arming bands of followers who sometimes create chaos at antigovernment protests.

Rondón has been in jail for weeks now, charged with possession of weapons of war, public intimidation and resisting arrest -- but not the illegal seizure of buildings.

She is being held in a police jail, where witnesses said she was visited by nearly two dozen friends last week, while other inmates were limited to four guests.

''Yasmín helped 3,500 families, including children and grandparents,'' said Yunny Larea. ``This is nothing but dirty politics.''