Venezuelans rally as body of ex-leader returns

Thousands of supporters of former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez rallied in the capital after the return of his body from the United States following a long legal battle. Draped in a Venezuelan flag, the coffin was carried in a hearse to Caracas after arriving late Tuesday on a plane from Florida, where it had been languishing for nine months in a Miami mortuary and in a temporary mausoleum. "Carlos Andres Perez returned to unite Venezuela," Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma said in a message clearly intended to galvanize opponents of Perez's sworn enemy, President Hugo Chavez. Thousands of supporters of the late president began paying their respects at the headquarters of his Democracy Action party, where his body will lie in state until a public funeral on Thursday. Perez died in Miami on December 25 at the age of 88, setting off a prolonged legal battle between his widow, Blanca Rodriguez, who lives in Venezuela, and his longtime companion and former secretary Cecilia Matos, who lives in Florida. Rodriguez wanted the body returned to Caracas for burial, but Matos said Perez did not want to return to Venezuela as long as Chavez remained in power. Perez had six children with his first wife -- whom he never divorced -- and two with Matos. The return of Perez's body comes at a time of political uncertainty in Venezuela as Chavez battles cancer and the opposition seeks to unite behind a single candidate to oust him in next year's elections. "I feel very emotional, because this is a very solemn ceremony for the memory of president Perez," said Henry Ramos Allup, the head of the ex-president's Democratic Action party. "After extensive negotiations, the president can finally rest in his own land." A wake will be held on Wednesday night ahead of the burial Thursday. The former president is not expected to receive state honors. Perez, who served as president in 1974-1979 and again from 1989-1993, left a mixed legacy, and in 1992 incurred the wrath of a young paratrooper named Hugo Chavez who led a failed coup against him. Venezuelans fondly remember Perez's first term, when he nationalized the oil industry and created the state-run Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which reaped huge returns from the soaring oil prices of the 1970s. But they also remember the "Caracazo," widespread protests in the capital in February 1989 against austerity measures in which 276 protesters were killed in a crackdown by security forces. The attempted coup three years later turned Chavez, Venezuela's current president, into a hero for trying to rid the country of an unpopular leader. Chavez, now 57, had a cancerous tumor removed from his pelvic area in June and has since gone through four rounds of chemotherapy. "One can only feel sorry that for someone who passed away so very, very long ago, that he only now is getting a Christian burial," Chavez said late Wednesday. "One has to respect" the homage his supporters were paying him. "He was one of their great leaders," Chavez added.