4:3 Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez has died

Описание: (26 Dec 2010) SHOTLIST
April 22 1996
1. Various of then-Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez working at his desk
May 30 1996
2. Wide of courtroom in Supreme Court
3. Perez and lawyer listening to verdict
4. Medium shot Perez and lawyer
5. Perez talking to media
September 19 1996
6. Wide of Perez around table at his home surrounded by media
7. Perez talking to media
8. Various of Perez being mobbed by supporters outside his home
STORYLINE:
Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez has died in Miami, his family said on Saturday.
Perez's popularity soared with his country's oil-based economy but he later faced riots, a severe economic downturn and impeachment in his homeland.
The 88-year-old former president's daughter, Maria Francia Perez, said her father had died in a Miami area hospital.
She said her father had been "happy and well" in the morning but suddenly had difficulty breathing and was rushed to hospital by his family, where he died on Saturday afternoon.
In the final years of his life, Perez came to personify the old guard Venezuelan political establishment bitterly opposed by current President Hugo Chavez.
Perez survived two coup attempts in 1992, the first led by Chavez, who was then a young army lieutenant colonel.
In recent years, Perez lived in Miami while the Venezuelan government demanded he be turned over to stand trial for his role in quelling bloody 1989 riots.
Perez - who governed Venezuela from 1974-79 and again from 1989-93 - denied wrongdoing.
His other daughter, Cecilia Victoria Perez, told AP late on Saturday that a funeral service and burial were planned in South Florida and details would be disclosed once arrangements were complete.
She said the family would not return the remains to Venezuela at this time.
In his first term, Perez won praise by nationalising Venezuela's oil industry, paying off foreign oil companies and then capitalising on a period of prosperity that allowed his government to build subway lines, bankroll new social programmes and set up state-run companies in areas from steel to electricity.
Venezuelans elected him for a second time in 1988, hoping for a return to good times after a decade of economic decline.
But his popularity plunged when he tried to push through an economic austerity programme including increasing the subsidised prices of gasoline.
Anger among the poor boiled over in the 1989 riots and more than 300 people were killed in the unrest known as the "Caracazo."
Some activists put the death toll much higher.
In 2010, Venezuela's Supreme Court cleared the way for Chavez's government to request Perez's extradition from the United States.
Prosecutors accused Perez of ordering a harsh crackdown during the unrest, when rights activists say many were shot indiscriminately by security forces.
Perez stopped speaking in public after a 2003 stroke, but he maintained he was innocent.
Venezuela's Congress impeached Perez on corruption charges in 1993 and he was placed under house arrest.
Its Supreme Court convicted him in May 1996 of misspending 17 (m) million US dollars in public funds - a charge he always denied.
Perez spent more than two years under house arrest, then was released in September 1996.

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