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

 http://www.zmag.org/content/LatinAmerica/wilpertcoup.cfm

Whenever all the might of State military and security forces are needed to back an unpopular, unrepresentative minortiy oust a regieme,you know its a right wing coup detante.

I really don't understand this propensity among the British left to worship populist dictators like Hugo Chávez. The fact is that he created citizens' militias to knock off his opponents, he used to oil company, PdVSA, for political patronage and chdid nothing to change the rampant poverty and corruption in Venezuela.

I dislike Acción Democrática and Copei, the representatives of the oligarchy that Chávez was meant to destroy. But Chávez was simply replacing one dictatorship with another.
Chávez never made the transition from army officer to leader of the masses. He ran the country like an army barracks and that isn't exactly socialism. In fact, his ideology was rooted in Simón Bolivar, the bourgeois revolutionary who fought Spanish imperialism for the interests of capitalism.

Chávez never moved against capitalism - his boldest step was to betray the Pentagon, which is not the same thing. In fact, his sense of ego was his undoing. He tried to dictate the leadership of the Confederatión de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV) (Venezuelan Workers Confederation), the equivalent of the TUC. When he failed to control the CTV leadership after his favoured candidate Aristóbulo Istúriz won just 12 per cent of the vote, he called them stooges of the business class and when they went on strike he got his militias to kill them. Yet, somehow he was never bold enough to destroy capitalism in Venezuela. This was not his interest - he wanted to browbeat capitalists to worship him and those that did got rewards, such as a PdVSA directorship. He even resurrected his old military junta - the Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario 200 (MBR-200) - to quash the critics within his own Movimiento V República (MVR).

This is not socialism or revolution, it is what is known in Latin America as caudillismo (strong-man rule). Chávez has taken a pick-and-mix of policies, ranging from land reform to giving himself rule by decree. Chávez has never been particularly interested in a coherent ideology or democratic control of workers over production - his main priority was always his self-aggrandisement.
He kept company with Saddam Hussein because he was just like that dictator - he thrived on being ostracised, but shat on his own people.

The CIA and the military didn't need to do anything. They just sat back and let Chávez make so many mistakes and delude so many people that he's given the Americans and their friends the chance to regain control over Venezuela.

Now I will face a barrage of criticism on IMC saying I have been brainwashed by Washington and am some fascist who hates the working-class. No, I have followed Chávez's career since his silly military coup attempt in 1992 and I think the man is a martyr of his own cause. He has betrayed the working-class because he claimed he represented their interests, when in fact he was simply advancing his own ego at their expense.

Revolution does not come from caudillos, it is not led by mini-Stalins or people who the Americans learn to hate. Chávez is no more a working-class hero than Saddam or Al-Qaddafi or any other dictator he kept company with. Revolution is a grass-roots thing that no individual should have a monopoly over. That's why I think Chávez should not be held up as a hero by Schnews or any other radical group. In fact, it depresses me that the Left worships someone so abysmal as Chávez.

Two exceptionally well-written and to-the-point postings. Leaves one wondering who is actually telling the truth. I, too have been following the career of Chavez with some interest, and like many observers have been waiting for his downfall for some time. I'm afraid to say that I have always fallen for the assinine assertions of the 'British Left' that Chavez, while autocratic, was a revolutionary in a genuine sense, and had the best interests of the poor in his country at heart. I would be interested in being disabused of this absurd notion by the previous poster, and would especially welcome any attempt by him to refute the long list of achievements set out by the first mailer from Caracas. I can't quite imagine a dualism so great that the poor ex-president presided over extrajudicial killings and the slow subsumation of genuine revolutionary power into his moribund old hands while at the same time making such gigantic social leaps as were set out in the first comment.

Surely someone must be right. I'd be glad to know who.

I don't think he was as bad as the lot he replaced - they were truly awful. And he is not the kind of stooge of the US like Pastrana in Colombia, who has led death squads against trade unionists and whose armies have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in recent years. He was a mild dictator, but a dictator nonetheless. If we are to be an objective and critical left, we have to put aside our Che Guevara portraits and look at the situation as it stands. Chávez was no revolutionary, no matter how much he made us chuckle. And, believe me, if you went to Caracas and criticised him personally you would have been either be imprisoned or deported. Even his supporters in the coalition government started to get rough treatment when they questioned him.

The fact remains, then, that the 'old lot' are back again. No surprises really that the rather sinister-looking old dude who has been chosen to lead the interim administration is the head of Venezuela's 'business community', or that he has sacked the entire supreme court and dissolved congress. Little shock either that he has rolled back a lot of the legislation made under the Chavez regime (appears that he isn't backward in going forward). I'm interested to know exactly what legislation has been rolled back: that which protects the poor and marginalised and the rule of law perchance?

I'm also interested in the coup's repercussions on FARC and Plan Colombia. I imagine that American agent orange sprayers and Chinookloads of 'advisers' are already winging their way across the Venezuelan skies.

Finally, what of Cuba? Oil prices will shoot up again for the average person in the street, and they will find themselves yet more isolated regionally. Quite a nice day's work for the boys at Langley. And why won't they let Chavez go into exile in Cuba? Surely the continued presence of a democratically elected president on Venezuelan soil must constitute something of an embarrassment. They can't be thinking of putting him on trial now can they? Or can they?

While Chávez is no hero, now he's gone I fear worse is to come. The constitution is suspended, the parliament is dissolved and we have an arch-capitalist running a military dictatorship. This is definitely worse than Chávez and I fear for Venezuela. So, what is the UK doing about it, since the situation is hardly different from that of Zimbabwe?