For years before rising to power here, President Hugo Ch�vez conspired alongside Ra�l Isa�as Baduel, who recently retired as army commander, in a secretive cell of leftist military officers intent on fomenting revolution. It was General Baduel who led the paratrooper raid that returned Ch�vez to office after he was briefly deposed by a coup in 2002.
But those impeccable leftist credentials have not spared the general from withering attacks since he broke with Ch�vez this month over proposed sweeping changes to the Constitution that, among other things, would abolish presidential term limits. At a recent political rally here, the president's supporters called Baduel a "traitor" and shouted for him to be taken to the "pared�n," the execution wall.
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"I believe a president's term should be defined as six years, with one period of re-election allowed," he said. He has repeatedly described the proposed revision of the Constitution as a "coup," a word sure to elicit strong reaction from a government that frequently describes its opponents as "putschists."
