Maximilien Averlaiz: "The plot appears to have been well prepared. It all started with a call for a general strike for Wednesday, April 10, launched by an alliance between the organisation of the bosses FEDECAMARAS and the corrupt union the Venezuelan Workers Central (CTV). The big privately owned media helped create a climate of tension. They agitated the population against the government. The strike, however, for the most part failed. It occurred only in a few places. In the other places, the bosses purely and simply closed their factories in such a way
that the workers were unable to work.


After the first day of the strike, FEDECAMARAS and the CTV prolonged their action for an indeterminate time period, while calling for a demonstration April 11. During this reactionary demonstration, large groups of partisans of President Chavez gathered at Miraflores to defend his "Bolivarian Revolution." The poor people came down from the neighbourhood on the edge of the city toward the government building to support their president.

Chavez has always guaranteed the right to demonstrate to the opposition, all the while appealing to his partisans to refuse to respond to provocation's and denouncing the crass media manipulation.

While Chavez was making a radio talk Thursday evening, the second phase of the destabilisation plan was unleashed. The leaders of the right-wing opposition directed their demonstration toward Miraflores, where the progressives had assembled. Their aim was clear: blood must flow.

The government gave an order to the National Guard to place itself between the two groups to avoid battles. At this moment, some elite sharpshooters began to fire on the pro-Chavez demonstrators. They had been posted on the tops of high buildings, at 200 meters (650 feet) from the crowd. The first two deaths fell from among the defenders of the populist president.

It is then that the right-wing demonstrators attacked the National Guard, while the auxiliary police of the extreme right-wing mayor of Caracas, Alfrede Pena, fired on the pro-Chavez demonstrators. They unleashed violence to make a counter-revolution possible. The majority of deaths were from defenders of Chavez.

In the night from Thursday to Friday the following took place. A group from the National Guard and a large part of the Command of the Army turned openly against President Chavez and seized the state television station. The national and international media have been the most important instruments of this coup d'etat, orchestrated by the wealthy elite classes with the direct support of the United States.