Robert Alonso, who advocated disobedience against Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, has surfaced in Miami seeking asylum.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

A Venezuelan ranch owner and strident opponent of President Hugo Chávez says he had nothing to do with dozens of Colombians who supposedly received paramilitary training at his farm near Caracas.

Robert Alonso said the fighters likely were never on his property and that last spring's incident was a government plot to discredit him and Venezuela's opposition.

''It was payback for my tactics,'' Alonso said, referring to his systematic calls for aggressive civil disobedience against Chávez.

In his first wide-ranging interview with a U.S. newspaper since going into hiding months ago, Alonso told The Herald he plans to stay in the United States by seeking haven under the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cuban refugees who reach U.S. soil to stay.

Sitting at a Starbucks on Kendall Drive near Dadeland Mall, the 54-year-old Alonso said he believes the so-called wet-foot/dry-foot policy applies to him because he still has his Cuban birth certificate.

Alonso and his sister, María Conchita Alonso, the Hollywood actress, were born in Cuba and became Venezuelans when their parents fled to the South American country after Fidel Castro seized power.

Venezuelan authorities sought to arrest Alonso after the incident near his farm in May.

DETENTION PENDING

In Washington, Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez said that once it is confirmed Alonso is in the United States, he will ask the U.S. government to detain him for possible extradition. Alvarez said a warrant for Alonso's arrest, issued by a military prosecutor, is pending in Venezuela.

Reached at her home in California, María Conchita Alonso said she loved and admired her brother but declined to speak at length, citing concerns about the security of her family. Her parents and another brother still are in Venezuela.

''Anyone who fights for his beliefs you have to admire,'' she said. ``Especially when you are truly outspoken against the power and your life may be in danger.''

She added: ``I'm very anti-communist and I don't want another Cuba in Venezuela. I just don't believe in Chávez policies. There is more poverty, more hunger and less security for people there than before.''

The story behind the arrests of about 80 alleged Colombian mercenaries began to unfold the night of May 8 when a woman called the Caracas Metropolitan Police to report the hijacking of two buses near El Hatillo, a tourist town near Venezuela's capital.

In an interview with The Herald three days after the incident, Metropolitan Police Cmdr. Luis Hernández Valera said three police cars responded to a thickly wooded suburb where officers found the buses packed with young men in military uniforms.

A man in a flak jacket emerged from one bus, armed with a 9mm pistol and claiming to be a Venezuelan military officer. Hernández Valera said he was not convinced because the man spoke with a Colombian accent.

The police called military and national security forces, who detained the suspects.

The government claimed that the ''paramilitaries'' had been training at Alonso's farm -- Finca Daktari -- in a plot to kill Chávez.

Local police, however, did not link them to Daktari, although the incident occurred on a road leading to Alonso's farm.

A STAUNCH DENIAL

Alonso said Wednesday that he is certain the paramilitaries were not on his property -- even though he says he has not been back to the 24-acre ranch since Feb. 28, when he went underground.

''When I left Daktari, there were no paramilitaries on my property, and I doubt very seriously that any were ever there,'' Alonso said. ``Also, how is it possible for me, living clandestinely, to have put a contingent of paramilitaries on my property?''

FLEEING AUTHORITIES

In July, a former Venezuelan immigration official told the Caracas newspaper El Universal that the alleged mercenaries entered Venezuela from Colombia on April 23 with visas arranged by the Chávez government so they could attend a pro-Chávez rally in Caracas.

Alonso said the only people he left behind at Daktari were the property caretakers -- a family with children -- who never mentioned the mercenaries.

Alonso said he fled his farm because government sources told him Chávez had ordered his arrest because his opposition tactics had disrupted Caracas in late February.

Through his website, www.robertalonso.com.ve, Alonso has promoted aggressive civil disobedience which he credits for street blockades in Caracas in February.

After leaving Daktari, Alonso said, he lived in friends' homes or slept in public squares or in vehicles.

Alonso said he managed to cross into Colombia on April 27. Later he traveled to the United States.