Chavez Backers Speculate Why He Stayed Home
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The tickets were sold out, the posters painted, and both sides had well-practiced slogans ready. But President Chavez stayed home.
Today, the Venezuelan president was expected to attend the U.N. General Assembly meeting, participate in an anti-poverty forum with President de Silva of Brazil, and meet with Wall Street investors.
His first trip abroad since surviving an August 15 recall referendum, it was to be a victory lap for the populist leader, who has also weathered a coup attempt and four opposition strikes. Then, yesterday morning, he announced a plane failure would prevent his trip.
“A technical failure in the starter engine of the left turbine of the presidential airplane, that could not be repaired in time, was the cause of the absence of the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias from the General Assembly meeting of the United Nations,” said Venezuela’s Minister of Communication and Information, Andres Izarra, in a statement.
Neither Mr. Chavez’s supporters – 3,000 of whom were expected to fill Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Harlem last night to capacity – or members of New York’s growing Venezuelan anti-Chavez community, believed technical problems were what actually kept the president from flying.
“Caracas is five hours away from here. It’s not that it’s on the other side of the world and there are enough airplanes that can make the trip,” said a leader of the Chavez opposition party in New York, Jorge Combellas, who expected several hundred Venezuelan New Yorkers to attend the two protests he was organizing for tomorrow. “He is not interested in everyone knowing the real reason.”
Rumors swirled about the actual reason for the cancellation. One that the government denied was that Mr. Chavez was afraid to travel due to recent violence along the Colombian border, where five Venezuelan soldiers and one civilian were killed last week.
Another circulated among the opposition was that Mr. Chavez would be barred from certain key meetings and rather than suffer that insult, decided not to attend. His supporters took this as another attempt by the Bush administration, which supported a recent coup attempt, to show its dislike for Mr. Chavez.
“He is not coming because of security matters,” said a member of the group Solidarity with Venezuela, the Reverend Luis Barrios.
“Last time he canceled a meeting to New York and the United Nations there was a plan to do something to his plane and then the U.S. security was not giving any guarantee…They need to do the best they can trying to stop Chavez and this is how they’re doing it. So I’m not really surprised. I’d be more surprised if he showed his face here.”