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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/020418/7/1eyd5.html
THE UGLY AMERICAN REDUX
Wed Apr 17, 9:31 PM ET
Bush Backs a Botched Coup in Venezuela
by Ted Rall
"They hate what America stands for. They despise freedom. They now know we
love freedom, and we will defend our freedom with all our might." -George
W. Bush, March 28
NEW YORK-You didn't have to blink to miss it. Let the record show that
George W. Bush, reconstituted Cold Warrior and ardent defender of democracy,
has suffered his first Bay of Pigs. Whether this experience will chasten him
as much as it did JFK remains to be seen.
In a stunning reminder that the Resident's 76 percent approval rating stops
at the Rio Grande, an American-backed coup against Venezuela's President
Hugo Chávez went from fait accompli to farcical footnote in a matter of
hours.
It all began at three o'clock in the morning of the 12th of April, when
flamboyant populist Chávez was arrested by mutinous army officers and
unceremoniously replaced by "interim president" Pedro Carmona Estanga.
Carmona, chief of a national businessmen's association, immediately reverted
to the right-wing strongman's play book. He suspended scheduled elections,
tossed out laws regulating big business and promised "a pluralistic vision,
democratic, civil and ensuring the implementation of the law." Following
that declaration of devotion to democracy he dissolved both the National
Assembly and the Supreme Court.
It comes as little surprise that the Bush Administration, itself the
beneficiary of a coup, would endorse similar subversion elsewhere. But the
American media also proved astonishingly sanguine at the replacement of a
legally-elected leader by a `70s-style junta composed of right-wing army
officers and corrupt businessmen. "We know that the Chávez government
provoked this crisis," said White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (news
- web sites) in a statement welcoming news of the unfolding coup d'état.
Describing Carmona as "a respected business leader" in a glowing puff piece,
The New York Times slammed Chávez as "a ruinous demagogue."
Ruinous, perhaps. Demagogue, maybe. Nonetheless, Chávez was the
legally-elected president of Venezuela. What had Chávez done, in the minds
of the American establishment, to justify overthrow, exile and the
subversion of democracy?
"According to the best information we have, the government suppressed what
was a peaceful demonstration of the people," said Fleischer, in reference to
an April 11th incident in which armed men wearing clothes indicating loyalty
to Chávez shot 13 anti-government strikers to death and wounded more than
100. Was Fleischer suggesting that the Kent State shootings in 1970 should
have precipitated a coup to remove President Richard Nixon?
Chávez's real crime was refusing to suck up to the U.S. or to its powerful
corporate interests. A maverick elected with the overwhelming support of
Venezuela's poor in 1998, he referred to his nation's upper classes as
"squealing pigs" and "rancid oligarchs." He had a point, too: Venezuela's
tiny elite have hogged its immense oil revenues for itself while millions
starved.
Unfortunately for the downtrodden masses whose votes propelled Chávez into
office, Venezuela produces 15 percent of America's oil. This makes the
nation of particular economic and geopolitical interest to Washington. In
February Chávez, acting on a campaign promise to distribute his country's
oil revenues more evenly throughout its impoverished population, replaced
Brigadier General Guaicaipuro Lameda with a politically progressive ally as
head of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela.
The business community howled in fearful anticipation of further reform.
Company officers, fearing that decades-old systemic corruption was drawing
to a close, ordered work slowdowns, company-mandated strikes and street
demonstrations against their own government in the hope of crippling the
economy and destabilizing Chávez's rule.
The Times summed up the case against Chávez succinctly: "He courted Fidel
Castro (news - web sites) and Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), battled the
media and alienated virtually every constituency from middle-class
professionals, academics and business leaders to union members and the Roman
Catholic Church." He visited nations hated by the U.S., including Libya and
Iran, and criticized the "war on terror." And he dedicated his rule to
forcing business to share profits with ordinary citizens. In short, Chávez
remained loyal to his leftist principles and to the desperate constituency
who had elected him.
But it didn't matter whether or not the Venezuelan people liked him or
approved of him. Chávez had to go.
It's too soon to know for certain whether the CIA (news - web sites) tried
to engineer an Allende-style operation in Venezuela, but anyone who's read
ex-spy Philip Agee's seminal "Inside the Company" recognizes classic signs
emanating from New York and Washington: official statements of encouragement
are laced with just enough ambiguity to provide plausible deniability;
blithe dismissals of democratic principles in friendly media are followed by
rapid reversals when things start to go wrong. Don't be too surprised if
those gun-toting "Chávez supporters" who opened fire on the April 11th
ultimately turn out to be CIA-employed provocateurs.
It gets better: Chávez, while being held on the Venezuelan Caribbean island
of La Orchila, noticed an American jet on the runway, and presumed it was
waiting to take him into exile. "I saw the plane. It bore the markings of a
private plane from the United States, not an official plane...What was it
doing there?" Chávez asked, noting that the American ambassador to Venezuela
recognized the plane. Days passed without a Bush Administration denial of
involvement in the coup. Finally, on April 16th, Ari Fleischer acknowledged
that State Department assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs
Otto J. Reich called coup leader Carmona hours after the ouster of Chávez.
In that call, according to Fleischer, Reich asked Carmona not to dismiss the
National Assembly in order to avoid offending world opinion.
Operation Caracas went wrong nearly the second it started. A fervent U.S.
ally, Mexican President Vincente Fox, joined Fidel Castro in condemning the
coup and refusing to acknowledge the new regime. Soon every government in
the Western hemisphere except our own had condemned the coup. Tens of
thousands of demonstrators took to the streets demanding Chávez's return. By
April 13th, Carmona had replaced Chávez in the pokey and the U.S. State
Department was calling for the "return of democracy."
Asked whether the U.S. knew about the coup in advance, Fleischer waffled.
True, numerous anti-Chávez activists had visited the White House in recent
weeks to request U.S. help in deposing the president. "We explicitly told
opposition leaders that the United States would not support a coup," he
said. He wouldn't say, however, whether or not the U.S. ultimately
green-lighted a covert action.
The moral high ground has eroded out from under the U.S. in the months
following September 11th. First our bombing campaign killed 10,000 innocent
Afghan civilians as we sought vengeance for the murder of 3,000 Americans.
Then we supported Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s murderous rampage in the
West Bank. Now we're back in the business of creating-or trying to
create-banana republics in South America. Not only are we reinforcing the
worldwide perception that Americans are pompous hypocrites; we're setting
the stage for the kind of instability that followed U.S. coups in Iran.
"I haven't said that this conspiracy (against me) has its roots in the
United States," President Chávez said April 15th. He didn't need to.
(Ted Rall's new book, a graphic travelogue about his recent coverage of the
Afghan war titled "To Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Back," hits stores
next week. Ordering and review-copy information are available at
nbmpub.com.)
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