1.
GV EXT Hotel Melia, Caracas, Venezuela.
0.05

2.
SV Troops walk around perimeter.
0.14

3.
GV PAN OF Heliport.
0.21

4.
GV Armoured personnel carrier.
0.22

5.
GV Helicopter circling hotel.
0.29

6.
GV Security on ground and on roof. (4 shots)
0.38

7.
SV AND CU Guards in hotel.
0.46

8.
GV Rows of typewriters and telex machines in press room.
1.01

9.
CU AND GV Workmen complete press area.
1.15



Initials VS 18.25



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Ministers of the 13 oil-rich nations which make up the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are holding their annual meeting in Caracas, Venezuela next Tuesday (20 December). At the centre of their discussions, the decision whether or not to raise the price of their oil next year. Before the conference begins, tight security precautions have been imposed around the meeting place.

SYNOPSIS: The ministers will stay throughout the two day conference at the luxury Hotel Melia on the Caribbean coast. The security cordon which virtually seals off the hotel is seen as a direct result of the raid made by Palestinian guerrillas on the OPEC Headquarters in Vienna two years ago. For 20 hours they seized control of the building, took ten senior ministers as hostages and flew them on a desperate tour of North African capitals. Eventually some were freed in Algiers, the rest in Tripoli. At that time security was light because nobody believed that an organisation with seven Arab members would be attacked over Arab causes.

Now even the press centre for journalists covering the conference is within the security cordon. the basement of the hotel has been turned into a temporary barracks for the troops guarding the ministers.

It appears no one is taking any chances. Perhaps they recall that the leader of the raid in Vienna two years ago was Carlos Martinez, known as "The Jackal" ....and he was born in Venezuela.