Hugo! (54 page)

We have information from military attorneys who interviewed
him that the president has not resigned. In fact, the president has
not resigned and at no time has written proof of this resignation
been shown to the attorney general's office. President Chávez continues
to be president of the Republic of Venezuela.

But in the supposed case that the president has resigned, the
resignation of the president must be before the National Assembly.
Only when the National Assembly accepts this resignation can it
be considered valid. Therefore, even in the supposed case that
the president has resigned, in fact he continues to be president of
the Republic because no act has been carried out in the National
Assembly to validate the supposed resignation of the president.

A journalist tried to interrupt Rodríguez's statement with a question,
but he pushed on. He stated that Chávez was being illegally held incommunicado,
with not even the attorney general's office permitted to see
him. "If he is deprived of liberty, what crime did he commit? The crime
of resigning? Resigning is a crime? . . . The situation is truly grave from
the constitutional point of view . . . There is no constitutional state."

Most of Rodríguez's statement never got out. The Venezuelan
networks cut him off before he finished and returned to the studios.
Flustered news hosts like one at Venevisión stumbled with lines such as,
"Well friends, how are you? I wish you all a good afternoon." But combined
with María Gabriel Chávez's statements on Cuban television,
word was slowly leaking out overseas that the opposition and Venezuelan
media's version of events were at a minimum questionable.

Despite that, the coup quickly won backing from the US government.
Nearly two hours after María Gabriela Chávez spoke on Cuban
television, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer addressed reporters
during his daily briefing. He blamed Chávez for the bloodshed and all
but endorsed the putsch: "Government supporters, on orders from the
Chávez government, fired on unarmed, peaceful protestors, resulting
in ten killed and one hundred wounded." The State Department issued
a similar statement through spokesman Philip Reeker:

The Venezuelan military commendably refused to fire on peaceful
demonstrators, and the media valiantly kept the Venezuelan
public informed . . . Though details are still unclear, undemocratic
actions committed or encouraged by the Chávez administration
provoked yesterday's crisis in Venezuela . . . The Chávez
government attempted to suppress peaceful demonstrations.
Chávez supporters, on orders, fired on unarmed, peaceful protestors,
resulting in more than one hundred wounded or killed.
Venezuelan military and police refused orders to fire on peaceful
demonstrators and refused to support the government's role in
such human rights violations. The government prevented five
independent television stations from reporting on events.

The statement was remarkable on many levels, including the allegation
that Chávez "provoked" the crisis. The top-secret CIA briefs
delivered to high-level government officials clearly warned before the
revolt that a coup was brewing. The April 6 brief said opposition figures
might "provoke military action" by exploiting "unrest stemming
from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month or ongoing
strikes at the state-owned oil company PDVSA." It even mentioned plans
for arresting Chávez.

Inside the State Department building that Friday, April 12,
Otto
Reich, President George W. Bush's point man on
Latin America, was
working to convince other Latin American nations to accept the new government
in Venezuela. Reich, who had Venezuelan television networks
piped into his office and was getting updates from
Venevisión owner
Gustavo Cisneros in Caracas, summoned ambassadors from around the
region to his office. He tried to make the case that Chávez had violently
suppressed the march and voluntarily stepped down. He urged the ambassadors
to recognize the new government led by Pedro Carmona.

"The Bush administration could hardly contain its glee Friday over
the overthrow of President Hugo Chávez," one reporter wrote. Michael
Skol, the former US. ambassador to Venezuela, told National Public
Radio listeners that "the White House was delighted, I'm sure, to see
Chávez ousted, and even more delighted that the US had nothing to
do with it." Republican senator
Jesse Helms of North Carolina said,
"The tragic deaths of a number of Venezuelans notwithstanding, Hugo
Chávez's resignation as president of Venezuela early this morning can
only be seen as a blessing and as the will of the people."

But the Latin American ambassadors Reich summoned did not all
see Chávez's removal as a "blessing" or "the will of the people." The
presidents of many Latin American countries, gathered in
Costa Rica
for the summit meeting Chávez never made it to, issued a declaration
condemning the break in constitutional order.

Despite that rebuff, the new junta in Venezuela received support
from another sector in the United States — the International Republican
Institute, one of the four core groups of the National Endowment for
Democracy. IRI president
George A. Folsom issued a press statement
praising the uprising against Chávez and boasting that his organization
served as a "bridge" to many groups that opposed him:

Last night, led by every sector of civil society, the Venezuelan
people rose up to defend democracy in their country . . . Several
hundred thousand people filled the streets of Caracas to demand
the resignation of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez. Chávez
responded with sharpshooters and his paramilitary Bolivarian
Circles killing more than twelve civilians and wounding more
than one hundred others. In contrast, IRI commends the patriotism
of the Venezuelan military for their refusal to fire on their
countrymen.

IRI also applauds the bravery of civil society leaders . . . who
have put their very lives on the line in their struggle to restore genuine
democracy to their country.

As the United States worked to legitimize the new regime in Venezuela,
Carmona's interim government launched a
witch hunt for Chávez supporters.
They started rounding up leading Chávez allies, who were
allegedly complicit in the massacre in downtown Caracas. Television
stations joined in the search. They flashed the manipulated video
footage of the
Llaguno Bridge shooters on the screen and said authorities
were looking for them. "If you recognize any of these criminals and
assassins, they are wanted because they are accused of mass murder,"
Napoleón Bravo stated on
24 Hours
. The stations also said
arrest warrants
were out for Chávez allies including Caracas mayor Freddy Bernal
and Education Minister Aristóbulo Istúriz. Radio Caracas Television
said Istúriz was wanted dead or alive.

A mob outraged by the "massacre of El Silencio" surrounded the
apartment building of Interior Minister
Ramón Rodríguez Chacin in
Caracas. Opposition-controlled police hauled him out in handcuffs.
The horde tried to grab, punch, and yank him by the hair as police
wrestled him into a patrol car to take him away. The minister "was
nearly lynched," one news report stated.

Another Chávez ally, Congressman
Tarek William Saab, a longtime
human rights activist known as "the poet of the revolution," had
spent the night hiding with other congressmen and fleeing opposition-controlled
police. The next day he went home at about 9 A.M. He was
worried about his wife and children. When he arrived, a note was taped
to the door: "The government junta is looking for you, assassin."

Heavily armed police soon arrived and blocked off both ends of the
street. Before long a hundred neighbors had surrounded the house waving
sticks, throwing rocks, pounding on the door, and yelling insults. Saab's
three-year-old daughter Sofia was confused. She thought the people had
come with sticks to strike a piñata, since her birthday was soon. Saab had
a different thought; he believed they might all be killed.

He surrendered to police, who hauled him away in a police van.
Television stations captured the scene live, with Saab denouncing his
illegal detention and pleading for help. The incident alarmed even
some of Chávez's critics. The "interim government" was starting to look
like a fascist dictatorship. Saab disappeared from public view.

Meanwhile, another mob was surrounding the
Cuban embassy.
The crowd of about one thousand people believed that Chávez government
officials including Vice President Diosdado Cabello were
hiding inside. They demanded they be turned over. Even if they were
inside, embassies enjoyed diplomatic immunity. They were sacred safe
havens were people could seek refuge from political attacks. That didn't
matter to the mob. They smashed the windows of three cars with diplomatic
license plates, punctured the tires, and jumped up and down on
the vehicles. They pelted a wall outside the embassy with eggs, cut off
the electricity and water, and threatened to storm the building. They
smashed the surveillance cameras outside.

It was an outrageous attack, but opposition-controlled police at the
scene did almost nothing to stop it.
Mayor Henrique Capriles Radonski
of the opposition party
Primero Justicia showed up and spoke to the
Cuban ambassador inside the embassy. But he did not disperse the
crowd. The horde held the embassy staff including some of their children
hostage into the night, without food. "Gentlemen, those who are
inside, Diosdado Cabello and your friends," one protestor shouted. "You
are going to have to eat the rugs. You are going to have to eat the chairs
and the tables that are inside, because we are not going to allow food to
enter." Around midnight they finally let some food in, but on the condition
that it was only for the children.

A Jesuit priest, the Reverend Arturo Peraza, who had taken part
in the opposition march the previous day, went to the embassy about
9:30 P.M. dressed in his clerical collar. He stood on top of a car and
tried to calm the crowd and get them to abandon the embassy. Few listened.
The embassy staff was in serious danger. "If they came out, they
would be killed, I have no doubt," Peraza later stated. He left, came
back about midnight, and tried again. There were fewer people. But
they were still seething. Some were drunk.

As the mob assaulted the Cuban embassy that afternoon, on the
other side of town many of Venezuela's elites flocked to Miraflores
Palace.
Carmona was preparing to be formally sworn in and announce
his first actions as president. International news reports were quickly
describing him as "mild-mannered" and "respected." A
Financial Times
story said the "balding, soft-spoken" Carmona had "a reputation for
being a safe pair of hands." He was likely to include in his transitional
government "other calming influences."
The New York Times
ran a
"Man in the News" profile on Saturday, April 13, titled "Manager and
Conciliator." It described Carmona as "slight and meek." It added, "Mr.
Carmona, experts said, is a level-headed manager who is also known as
a conciliator."

But Carmona's first actions as "president" of Venezuela that Friday
were hardly meek, conciliatory, or levelheaded. In one fell swoop he
wiped out nearly every democratic institution in the country and
installed a dictatorship. Carmona shut down the National Assembly,
eliminated the Supreme Court, tore up the constitution, and fired
every public official from the attorney general to state governors to
local mayors. He said new presidential elections would be held — in a
year. He even changed the name of the country back to the Republic
of Venezuela, eliminating the
constitutional reference to Bolívar, and
ordering the Liberator's portrait removed from the presidential palace's
walls.

As Daniel Romero, the former aide to Carlos Andrés Pérez who
was with
Carmona in Fort Tiuna the previous night, read off each of
Carmona's decrees, the assembled elites in Miraflores Palace erupted
into wild,
Orwellian cheers of
"Democracia! Democracia!"
Romero
floated a rationale for the draconian measures. "As President Chávez
has offered his resignation to the military chiefs of staff" and as "Vice
President Diosdado Cabello has abandoned his post, we must fill the
power vacuum and for that reason we decree a democratic, national
unity government," he told the assembled elites.

After Romero read Carmona's decree, representatives of
business,
the media, the church, and other sectors came forward to sign the document.
They included Archbishop Ignacio Velasco and
Rocio Guijarra,
whose business organization,
CEDICE, was the recipient of a National
Endowment for Democracy grant. Carmona named other NED beneficiaries
to his cabinet including Leonardo Carvajal as education minister
and Leopoldo Martínez as finance minister. Also signing a list of
four hundred people who came to Miraflores that afternoon and evening
to support Carmona's decree was María Corina Machado, the
head of the NED-funded "electoral monitoring" organization Sumate.
Machado later contended she had come to visit Carmona's wife, an
old family friend, and thought the paper she was signing was merely a
sign-in sheet typically used at government offices. She claimed she had
no idea Carmona had assumed dictatorial powers and eliminated all
democratic institutions even though the decree-signing ceremony was
broadcast live all over the country on nearly every major television and
radio station. It was almost impossible to miss.

Carmona also named several key leaders of the military revolt
against Chávez to high-level posts. He appointed Rear Admiral Carlos
Molina Tamayo head of security at Miraflores Palace. He returned
Guaicaipuro Lameda to his post at the head of pdsva. He also named
Vice Admiral Héctor Ramírez Pérez, the officer who made the taped
announcement renouncing support for Chávez, his defense minister.
Notably absent from the junta was Carmona's co-leader of the opposition
movement, union boss Carlos Ortega, and General Efraín Vásquez
Velasco, the head of the army who on Thursday evening as the streets of
Caracas were bathed with blood had quit as he uttered the devastating
phrase to Chávez: "Mr. President, I was loyal to you until the end."
Carmona was to pay for the slights.