Bomb threat shuts Venezuela island airport-officials

CARACAS, Mar 7 (Reuters) Venezuelan authorities closed an airport on the Caribbean tourist island of Margarita after a bomb threat to a Martinair plane that landed there with more than 100 passengers, officials said.

They said yesterday it was the second time in two days there had been a threat involving a plane at the airport, calling it an attempt to damage the South American nation's tourism industry.

The passengers deplaned and authorities were scouring the airliner that arrived from the Netherlands in case there was a bomb on board, they said.

The airport was being cordoned off and flights had been suspended, according to Manuel Millan, director of the Santiago Marino airport, the main entry point for foreigners visiting the island.

''There is a negative campaign against the island,'' he said, adding that for him the threat itself represented an ''act of terrorism.'' Margarita is a picturesque island of white-sand beaches washed by the clear-blue Caribbean that hosts visitors from mainland Venezuela, the Caribbean and Europe year-round.

The island also hosts a population of West Asians some US officials have worried could be collecting funds for militants back home.

President Hugo Chavez, who clashes with the United States over everything from free trade to oil prices and military sales, decries such concerns as part of a smear campaign to try to associate him with terrorism and hurt his image.

Reuters SRS VP0455