Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Gen. Marcos Perez Jimenez, 87, Venezuela's last military dictator who ruled that country from 1952 to 1958, died Sept. 20 at his home
in Madrid after a heart attack.

He was ousted by a bloodless coup in 1958. The coup ushered in 43 years of democratic rule.

Gen. Perez Jimenez, who was born in the western state of Tachira, participated in a military coup that ousted the dictatorship of Gen. Isaias Medina Angarita in
1945, helping to install the democratic government of President Romulo Gallegos. But in 1948, he led a coup that ousted Gallegos.

A junta of three military officers ruled Venezuela until 1952, when Gen. Perez Jimenez declared himself president. His regime was backed by a security force that
silenced opposition leaders by jailing and torturing them.

During his term, he also created grandiose public works, including a highway that connects Caracas to the northern coast, burrowing through the mountains that
separate the city from the Caribbean.

In 1957, Gen. Perez Jimenez was elected to a five-year term in a vote widely considered fraudulent. But his regime had lost much public support, and a clandestine
movement to overthrow him, led by the Democratic Action party, was taking force.

On Jan. 23, 1958, a popular uprising backed by the military forced Gen. Perez Jimenez and his family to flee to the Dominican Republic and then to the United
States.

In 1963, the United States extradited him to Venezuela, where he was tried and sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling $250 million. After his release in
1968, Gen. Perez Jimenez moved to Madrid, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has criticized the democratic but corrupt governments that followed Gen. Perez Jimenez's regime, invited the former
dictator to attend his 1999 inauguration. The move provoked an outcry among older Venezuelans who remembered the brutal side of his dictatorship.

Gen. Perez Jimenez thanked Chavez but declined the offer, saying, "I'm too old to become the center of controversy between the old and current governments of my
beloved homeland."

But some Venezuelans still admire Gen. Perez Jimenez's regime for its efficiency.

"He has his page in Venezuelan history. What he proposed, he finished," said Gen. Raul Salazar, the country's ambassador to Spain, said in an interview with
Globovision from Madrid.

Other Venezuelans condemn the regime as a period of political repression.

"We cannot forget what the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez meant for Venezuela. The crimes he committed and the step back our country took despite some
important material projects," said former president Carlos Andrez Perez.

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