CARACAS, April 12: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez resigned on Friday after senior military officers insisted the flamboyant ex-paratrooper leave office, blaming him for violence against a huge anti-Chavez protest in which at least 10 people were killed.

The 47-year-old Chavez, wearing a camouflage uniform and a red paratrooper’s beret, left the Miraflores palace and was driven away in a black car to armed forces headquarters in Caracas, witnesses said. The new armed forces chief, Gen Efrain Vasquez, said Chavez was “in custody.”

A small group of aides and supporters said goodbye and applauded as Chavez left, accompanied by two ministers.

Pedro Carmona, the head of Venezuela’s leading business association, Fedecamaras, said he would head a transition government that would lead to free elections.

Senior officers from all four branches of the military — army, air force, navy and National Guard — had appeared on national television calling for the president to end his rule as leader of the world’s No. 4 oil-exporting nation.

“The president was asked to resign from his post and he accepted,” outgoing armed forces chief Gen. Lucas Rincon told a news conference broadcast live on national television.

Rincon said all of the members of the armed forces’ existing high command, himself included, were also tendering their resignations.

“Have faith in your armed forces,” Rincon said. He appealed to the Venezuelan people to stay calm and avoid violence.

“All of the country is under the control of the national armed forces,” National Guard Gen. Alberto Camacho Kairuz said. “The (Chavez) government has abandoned its functions.”

Chavez leaped to fame as a young army officer by leading an abortive coup in 1992 and won a landslide presidential election victory in 1998.

After easily winning a referendum for a new constitution, he was re-elected in a 2000 election he called to “relegitimize” his self-proclaimed “Bolivarian Revolution,” which was named after Venezuela’s 19th century independence hero and designed to help the country’s poor majority. His term had been due to expire in 2006.

In recent months, Chavez had faced mounting opposition from political foes, business and labor leaders, and even dissident military officers.

His critics accused him of trying to impose a Cuban-style left-wing regime and criticized him for failing to deliver on election promises to reduce chronic poverty, widespread unemployment and serious crime.—Reuters