Best of Coup Coverage.Qxd

Coup Against Chavez in Venezuela The Best International Reports of What Really Happened in April 2002 Edited by Gregory Wilpert Coup Against Chavez in Venezuela The Best International Reports of What Really Happened in April 2002 Fundación Venezolana para la Justicia Global Table of Contents Introduction • Gregory Wilpert. 3 Fundación por un Mundo Multipolar The Warning Signs The Scent of Another Coup • Conn Hallinan . 9 Venezuela: The Next Chile? • John Pilger . 13 An Imminent Coup in Venezuela? • Gregory Wilpert . 17 U.S. Pushing for a Coup D’État • Maximilien Arvelaiz & Temir Porras Ponceleon . 25 The Coup An Eyewitness Account • Gregory Wilpert. 37 The Coup Will be Televised • Jon Beasley-Murray . 41 Imperial Coup In Venezuela • Heinz Dietrich Steffan . 47 Hugo Chavez: A Servant Not Knowing His Place • William Blum . 51 Titulo Original: Coup Against Chavez in Venezuela: Latin Dance: A Coup by Any Other Name • Tim Weiner. 55 The Best International Reports of What Really Happened Primera edición publicada por: Fundación por un Mundo Multipolar y The Counter-Coup Fundación Venezolana para la Justicia Global, en Abril de 2003 Virtual Reality, Real Coup • Alex Main, Maximilien Arvelaiz, Edición coordinada por: Gregory Wilpert Temir Porras Ponceleon . 61 Impresión y encuadernación: Instituto Municipal de Publicaciones de la Venezuela: Not a Banana Republic After All • Gregory Wilpert . 69 Alcaldía de Caracas - Venezuela The Revolution Will Not be Televised • Jon Beasley-Murray. 77 Venezuelan Democracy Survives, In Spite of Washington • Mark Weisbrot. 87 The Unmaking of a Coup • Phil Gunson & David Adams . 91 Introduction Venezuela: A Coup Countered • Maurice Lemoine . 101 Gregory Wilpert The Conspiracy The Conspiracy Against Chavez • Ignacio Ramonet . 113 One year after the April 2002 coup against Venezuela's president Venezuela Coup Linked to Bush Team • Ed Vullaimy . 117 Hugo Chavez, there still is much disinformation and ignorance as to what really happened. This volume of essays, articles, analyses, and Venezuela: A Coup With The Smell Of Hamburger, news reports is meant to clarify and contextualize the events in Ham And Oil • Aram Aharonian. 121 Venezuela of April 2002, particularly as they were made sense of by Our Gang in Venezuela? • David Corn. 127 non-Venezuelan observers of these events. Also, since almost all of the authors are non-Venezuelan, it presents perspectives on the April coup that are perhaps a bit more detached than they might otherwise The Media be, had the articles been written by Venezuelans. This is not to say U.S. Papers Hail Venezuelan Coup as Pro-Democracy that the articles are non-involved and impartial. As a matter of fact, Move • Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) . 139 each and every one of these shows sympathies of one kind or another. It is practically impossible for a reporter or analyst not to have Venezuela and Censorship: The Response of Britain's sympathies or to leave them out in their writing. Still, given the Media to the Conspiracy in Venezuela • John Pilger . 143 depth with which most Venezuelans feel for their country and for or Coups Without Borders • Maurice Lemoine . 147 against the current government, the non-Venezuelan writers of this collection of articles are perhaps slightly more dispassionate. Venezuela's Press Power • Maurice Lemoine . 151 When the articles collected here first appeared, either in mainstream newspapers, on the Internet, or in small alternative publications, The Aftermath they were among the very few articles that presented an interpreta- Will Chavez' Project Survive? • Gregory Wilpert . 163 tion of the coup, at the time of the coup, which has withstood the test of time. The vast majority of articles that appeared in most main- Why Oppose Chavez? • Gregory Wilpert . 171 stream media during the coup, especially within Venezuela, but also Lessons of the April Coup • Marta Harnecker internationally, provided extremely misleading or outright false Interviews Chavez . 185 information as to what took place between April 11 and 13. For example, most early reports had falsely claimed that Chavez had resigned, that Chavez supporters shot at unarmed demonstrators, Appendix and that Chavez had issued orders for his supporters and the military Chronology of the April Coup . 209 to shoot. (For more on the disinformation spread by the mainstream media, see the media section in this volume.) 3 reported in the days immediately following the coup. Most other It is because there was so much disinformation surrounding the coup articles presented in this collection, however, state that most of the attempt that this coup has been dubbed, in Venezuela, as the world's victims were pro-government demonstrators. While in the first few first “mediatic coup.” It makes perfect sense that in a time when the weeks following the coup there still was some confusion as to the international community frowns upon coups, that if one were to victims' identity, the location of their being shot, and their political organize a coup, the first order of business would be to make the affiliation, now, all of this information is, for the most part, fairly coup look like it was something else. Also, given that today we live clear. in an information (and dis-information) age, the imperative to dis- guise a coup and to do so successfully go hand in hand. Since most The human rights organization COFAVIC, which has been associat- of the mainstream media have a stake in ousting a president like ed with the opposition, has adopted nine cases of individuals who Hugo Chavez, the coup plotters have a powerful ally in creating the were killed during the events of April 11. Of these nine, seven were conditions for a coup that is not supposed to look like a coup. Hard killed in the area of the opposition demonstration and two in the area as it might be to believe, to this day, there are many within of the pro-government demonstration. Now, it is well known that Venezuela's opposition who claim that what happened on April 11 many more than nine were killed on April 11th. At first, reports were and 12 was not a coup, but a “vacuum of power” that resulted from that eighteen people were shot that day. So, this would imply that, at Chavez' voluntary resignation and which “civil society” (a code the very least, seven were with the opposition protest and the word for the opposition) gracefully helped fill until a new election remaining eleven were with the pro-government protest. However, could be held. according to some accounts, many more died later, as a result of their fatal wounds. The pro-government association, Mujeres por la Verdad y la Justicia (MUVERJUST) lists a total of 34 dead on April The articles in this collection have been reprinted as they originally 11. It claims that of these, 23 were located in the pro-government appeared, along with some factual errors or inconsistencies between demonstration, six in the opposition demonstration, and five who the articles. I would like to highlight just two of the more glaring were in neither demonstration. This number of dead in the opposi- inconsistencies. First, there is the question of how many demonstration demonstration corresponds more or less with the number that tors participated in the different demonstrations between April 11 COFAVIC and the Ombudsman's (Defensor del Pueblo) office state. and 14. These figures tend to vary quite wildly, for example, The main uncertainty that remains is the number of dead within the between 1.5 million and 200,000 for the opposition demonstration pro-government demonstration, which could be anywhere between that headed for the presidential palace on April 11. Rather than 10 and 23. This uncertainty about the number is primarily the result debate the exact number, which would be extremely difficult to of contradictory witness testimony. determine reliably, one should simply take all these figures with a grain of salt and use the numbers as rough guidelines, with incon- I go into more depth on this issue because the number of dead on sistencies representing a possible maximum and a possible mini- each side was one of the main controversies surrounding the events mum. of April 11th and was used by the opposition to justify the coup. If, as it appears to be the case, a majority or half of the dead were Second, and much more important, is the question of who were the Chavistas, this explodes one of the opposition's most cherished casualties from the shooting on April 11. In this collection Phil myths, that practically all of the April 11 dead are “martyrs” or Gunson and David Adams, for example, report that most of the “heroes” of the opposition. However, even more important than the casualties were opposition demonstrators, just as most of the media number of dead on each side is the question of who killed them. 4 5 This, unfortunately, is still largely unresolved. That is, the Chavistas who are currently under arrest for firing shots from the Puente Llaguno might very well be freed soon because so far there has been no proof that their shots killed or injured anyone. On the other hand, several metropolitan police officers now stand accused for having fired their weapons at the pro-government demonstration. According to many eyewitness reports, however, it was the shooters from the buildings who started the killing and many of these are still unidentified. Those seven who were arrested in the Hotel Ausonia, who presumably fired shots from the Hotel (all tested positive for gunpowder) were released during the brief THE WARNING SIGNS Carmona regime and have disappeared ever since. The individuals who fired shots from two other buildings, closer to the opposition demonstration, are still unknown.

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