Monday, April 11, 2005

April 11th. 2002: When decency prevailed Whenever people talk about whether there was or not a coup on April 2002, they tend to simplify the events of those April days. To me, what is important is that April 11th. was a day for decency. Hugo Chavez did not leave the Presidency because this group or that one decided to stage a coup. He left, because for days he had been preparing to stop a peaceful march using violent means and there was part of the Venezuelan military that was not willing to allow this, in what was then still a civilized country. Chavez left the Presidency, out of the sense of outrage by many Generals, some of which had been with him until hours earlier, over the killing of Venezuelans who peacefully went that day to the Presidential Palace to protest. General Manuel Rosendo, up to then a symbol of loyalty to Chavez was present at a meeting a few days earlier when Chavez talked about using violence agaisnt his fellow citizens. Not only that, but on the 11th. Chavez activated the Plan Avila a military plan to repress the Venezuelan population. It was out of a sense of decency that all of these Generals decided to ask Chavez to leave. It was also out of a sense of decency that nothing happened to Chavez that day. He asked to be taken to Cuba, which some of these same Generals refused to, because they thought there should be justice for those that had died that day. Not one person threatened Chavez those days, despite the fantasies that he has now told so many times that he appears to belive them himself.. The rest, as they say, is history. After that, there may have been three or four coups and counter coups, as ambition and greed made friends of enemies and enemies of friends. The same Generals that thought that Chavez should leave, felt that the solution was worse than the problem. Mediocre Pedro Carmona somehow took over and showed that he was as much of an autocrat as Chavez is. Some important current figures of the Chavez administration, barely protested at the time. The President of the Venezuelan Supreme Court Ivan Rincon even offered his name as a possible temporary President. Jose Vicente Rangel, today the VP, went home and said that he would go back to being a newspaper reporter. Infamous "three sun" General Rincon tried to arrange for Chavez' flight to Cuba from the La Carlota airport in Caracas after which he also went home quietly. The word coup was not used for a couple of months after the fateful events of April 2002. The formation of a truth commission to investigate the events was called by all sides, but blocked by the current Government. It would have revealed the lack of scruples of Chavez and his cohorts. The same lack of scruples that they use daily to express their love for the poor while they buy weapons, get rich and throw away the country's money. But, yes, that day, April 11th. 2002 a group of Venezuelans, who were then considered to be both pro and against Chavez prevailed out of their sense of decency for their fellow countrymen and out of outrage for an immoral President. Unfortunately, since then, decency is defeated daily in Venezuela. And the President has not changed. . 8:47:30 PM    comment []

Veneconomy on the Anniversary of April 11th. 2002 Venezuela: From April 11 to today’s dictatorship by Veneconomy The third anniversary of the historical events of April 11-13, 2002, is approaching, events that can be given two different readings, depending on which side of the street you are on: the government’s or the opposition’s. Those who agree with the government’s doctrine will enjoy a week given over to a full-blown propaganda offensive. The owners of the revolutionary process will spare no efforts (or money) to continue selling their concocted version of what happened, and there will be many who, naively, will continue to buy it. After all, propaganda is something that the Bolivarians have proved to be very good at. In its determination to rewrite history –something that all victors do-, the government has tried to erase what truly happened from people’s memories and has invented a fairy tale of a coup d’état for public consumption at home and abroad. In order to successfully accomplish this mission, the Hugo Chávez administration has resorted to media and resources of all kinds, from making use of its iron control of the branches of government and the abundant petrodollars to taking advantage of a rigged system of justice. It has twisted the facts in a trumped up documentary entitled “The revolution will not be televised,” and, as though that were not enough, it has persecuted and cornered countless people who exercised their legitimate right to protest, one way or another, against a system they opposed, as well as those who, doing their job, defended them against the barbarities committed by supporters of the government. The sad fact of the matter is that three years after April 11-13 no one knows with any certainty what really happened, largely because the government itself has not allowed objective investigations to be conducted and because it has deliberately manipulated the facts. This is due, in part, to the regime’s desire to hide the fact that a multitude of 600,000 to 800,000 unarmed people who tried to reach Miraflores Palace to demonstrate their opposition to the political project that the government wanted to implement in the country was repelled by force. The truth is that, in these past three years, the historical distortion of the facts and the absolute power accumulated by means of legal stratagems have turned a democratically elected government into the strongest dictatorship that Venezuela has known since the times of Juan Vicente Gómez. 11:08:35 AM    comment []