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Helge Hasselgreen
Coup in Venezuela: An Eyewitness Account
By Gregory Wilpert
The orchestration of the coup was impeccable and, in all likelihood,
planned a long time ago. Hugo Chavez, the fascist communist dictator of
Venezuela could not stand the truth and thus censored the media
relentlessly. For his own personal gain and that of his henchmen (and
henchwomen, since his cabinet had more women than any previous
Venezuelan government's), he drove the country to the brink of economic
ruin. In the end he proceeded to murder those who opposed him. So as to
reestablish democracy, liberty, justice, and prosperity in Venezuela and
so as to avoid more bloodshed, the chamber of commerce, the union
federation, the church, the media, and the management of Venezuela's oil
company, in short: civil society and the military decided that enough is
enough-that Chavez had his chance and that his experiment of a "peaceful
democratic Bolivarian revolution" had to come to an immediate end.
This is, of course, the version of events that the officials now in
charge and thus also of the media, would like everyone to believe. So
what really happened? Of course I don't know, but I'll try to represent
the facts as I witnessed them.
First of all, the military is saying that the main reason for the coup
is what happened today, April 11. "Civil society," as the opposition
here refers to itself, organized a massive demonstration of perhaps
100,000 to 200,000 people to march to the headquarters of Venezuela's
oil company, PDVSA, in defense of its fired management. The day leading
up to the march all private television stations broadcast advertisements
for the demonstration, approximately once every ten minutes. It was a
successful march, peaceful, and without government interference of any
kind, even though the march illegally blocked the entire freeway, which
is Caracas' main artery of transportation, for several hours.
Supposedly at the spur of the moment, the organizers decided to re-route
the march to Miraflores, the president's office building, so as to
confront the pro-government demonstration, which was called in the last
minute. About 5,000 Chavez-supporters had gathered there by the time the
anti-government demonstrators got there. In-between the two
demonstrations were the city police, under the control of the
oppositional mayor of Caracas, and the National Guard, under control of
the president. All sides claim that they were there peacefully and did
not want to provoke anyone. I got there just when the opposition
demonstration and the National Guard began fighting each other. Who
started the fight, which involved mostly stones and tear gas, is, as is
so often the case in such situations, nearly impossible to tell. A
little later, shots were fired into the crowds and I clearly saw that
there were three parties involved in the shooting, the city police,
Chavez supporters, and snipers from buildings above. Again, who shot
first has become a moot and probably impossible to resolve question. At
least ten people were killed and nearly 100 wounded in this gun
battle-almost all of them demonstrators.
One of the Television stations managed to film one of the three sides in
this battle and broadcast the footage over and over again, making it
look like the only ones shooting were Chavez supporters from within the
demonstration at people beyond the view of the camera. The media over
and over again showed the footage of the Chavez supporters and implied
that they were shooting at an unarmed crowd. As it turns out, and as
will probably never be reported by the media, most of the dead are
Chavez supporters. Also, as will probably never be told, the snipers
were members of an extreme opposition party, known as Bandera Roja.
These last two facts, crucial as they are, will not be known because
they do not fit with the new mythology, which is that Chavez armed and
then ordered his supporters to shoot at the opposition demonstration.
Perhaps my information is incorrect, but what is certain is that the
local media here will never bother to investigate this information. And
the international media will probably simply ape what the local media
reports (which they are already doing).
Chavez' biggest and perhaps only mistake of the day, which provided the
last remaining proof his opposition needed for his anti-democratic
credentials, was to order the black-out of the private television
stations. They had been broadcasting the confrontations all afternoon
and Chavez argued that these broadcasts were exacerbating the situation
and should, in the name of public safety, be temporarily shut-down.
Now, all of "civil society," the media, and the military are saying that
Chavez has to go because he turned against his own people. Aside from
the lie this is, what is conveniently forgotten are all of the
achievements of the Chavez administration: a new democratic constitution
which broke the power monopoly of the two hopelessly corrupt and
discredited main parties and put Venezuela at the forefront in terms of
progressive constitutions; introduced fundamental land reform; financed
numerous progressive ecological community development projects;
cracked-down on corruption; promoted educational reform which schooled
over 1 million children for the first time and doubled investment in
education; regulated the informal economy so as to reduce the insecurity
of the poor; achieved a fairer price for oil through OPEC and which
significantly increased government income; internationally campaigned
tirelessly against neo-liberalism; reduced official unemployment from
18% to 13%; introduced a large-scale micro-credit program for the poor
and for women; reformed the tax system which dramatically reduced tax
evasion and increased government revenue; lowered infant mortality from
21% to 17%; tripled literacy courses; modernized the legal system, etc.,
etc.
Chavez' opposition, which primarily consisted of Venezuela's old guard
in the media, the union federation, the business sector, the church, and
the traditionally conservative military, never cared about any of these
achievements. Instead, they took advantage of their media monopoly to
turn public opinion against him and managed to turn his biggest
liability, his autocratic and inflammatory style, against him.
Progressive civil society had either been silenced or demonized as
violent Chavez fanatics.
At this point, it is impossible to know what will happen to Chavez'
"Bolivarian Revolution"-whether it will be completely abandoned and
whether things will return to Venezuela's 40-year tradition of
patronage, corruption, and rentierism for the rich. What one can say
without a doubt, is that by abandoning constitutional democracy, no
matter how unpopular and supposedly inept the elected president,
Venezuela's ruling class and its military show just how politically
immature they are and deal a tremendous blow to political culture
throughout Latin America, just as the coup against Salvador Allende did
in 1973. This coup shows once again that democracy in Latin America is a
matter of ruling class preference, not a matter of law.
If the United States and the democratic international community have the
courage to practice what they preach, then they should not recognize
this new government. Democrats around the world should pressure their
governments to deny recognition to Venezuela's new military junta or any
president they happen to choose. According to the Charter of the
Organization of American States (OAS), this would mean expelling
Venezuela from the OAS, as a U.S. state department official recently
threatened to do. Please call the U.S. state department or your foreign
ministry and tell them to withdraw their ambassadors from Venezuela.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Trond Andresen" <trond.andresen@itk.ntnu.no>
To: <klassekampen-forum@aksess.no>
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 7:37 PM
Subject: Underrapportert militærkupp i Venezuela
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