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.
Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar in
Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the sociology
of development. He can be reached at: Wilpert@cantv.net