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Editor, The Konformist
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Beast of the Month - May 2002
Pedro Carmona, Failed Venezuelan Coup Leader
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
It would make a great tale in The Big Book of Losers: the junta that
couldn't shoot straight. On April 12, military leaders ousted
populist President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela as head of his country.
By the end of the next day, the coup leaders were on the run, and
Chavez was quickly restored back to power early Sunday morning.
The coup almost looked like it could pull off the legitimacy act
early on: after all, their excuse for overthrowing Chavez seemed to
be a sympathetic one. The military generals had arrested Chavez for
allegedly ordering gunmen to fire on a massive opposition protest on
Thursday, which had killed sixteen and left hundreds wounded. The
image of Chavez resorting to even worse authoritarian tactics than
the WTO-IMF-G8 defenders in Seattle, D.C. and Genoa was both brutal
and hypocritical. On closer examination, however, the excuse seemed
bogus: an eyewitness account (by journalist Gregory Wilpert) of the
bloody protest stated that snipers from the extreme right-wing
Bandera Roja (Red Flag) fired the deadly shots from nearby rooftops.
The claim was backed up by the fact that most of the dead on were
actually Chavez supporters. As Al Giordano of Narco News put
it, "There was no military nor political motive for the Chavez
government to order sniper fire. To the contrary, the only side that
had motive to do that was that of the ones who have now seized
illegitimate power. But the US correspondents say, without offering
a shred of testimony or proof, that it was government troops who
fired into the crowd."
Whatever the case in the April 11 protest, if there was any
legitimacy in the ouster of Chavez, the coup leaders soon settled
they were illegitimate themselves: the line of the succession should
have fallen into the Vice-President's lap: instead, it was handed to
Pedro Carmona, a Chavez opponent and The Konformist Beast of the
Month.
The lack of respect for legitimate authority didn't end there:
Carmona and the junta immediately dissolved the National Assembly,
which was loaded with Chavez supporters. They quickly did the same
to the Supreme Court, the attorney general's office, the national
electoral commission, and the state governorships. Carmona then
declared the 1999 Constitution sponsored by Chavez (and authorized
overwhelmingly by 90 percent of the Venezuelan public) null and
void. The junta then had "Security Forces" conduct house-to-house
searches for members of Hugo's Bolivarian Circles, or supporters of
the imprisoned leader, claiming in Orwellian fashion that they feared
assassination by the Chavistas.
The coup leaders soon developed major enemies due to its contempt for
democracy and its arrogance. About 100,000 people had gathered in
the streets surrounding the Presidential Palace to protest the coup,
many of them the poor who were Chavez's most devoted supporters.
Thousands of others demonstrated across the country, demanding his
return. Vicious riot squads faced off with them, who, showing the
coup's craven hypocrisy, killed up to 40 people in the melee. As one
protestor put it, "We have every right to protest, but they are
gunning us down out there." Still, the vast numbers of Chavez
supporters took over the state television show and had the Palace
completely surrounded. Meanwhile, the National Honor Guard remained
loyal to Chavez throughout, and the overtly fascist and right-wing
policies of the junta led to disaffection among the middle class and
organized labor displeased with the Chavez reign. Soon, most of the
country's military leaders realigned with Chavez, and the coup
leaders were hightailin' outta there.
Throughout Latin America, there was widespread disapproval of the
coup, and no country in the region would recognize the junta as a
legitimate government. The same can't be said for the Bush Team,
which nodded in favor of the coup from moment one. They welcomed it
as a "return to democracy," ironic considering the source: Chavez was
legitimately elected president of Venezuela twice (overwhelmingly
both times) to Shrub's zero.
Of course, like all national leaders, Hugo Chavez was far from
perfect. His popularity had dropped in opinion polls from 80 percent
to under 30 (that is, if the polls were to be believed.) Whatever
the drop, it was due to the fact that he had failed to deliver fully
his promises of helping the Venezuelan people (although, to be fair,
he had promised much and delivered an impressive amount.) He had
alienated large sectors of the middle class with his rhetoric (who
had instituted massive strikes which had crippled the Venezuelan
economy), leading to massive strike and the 150,000 person protest of
his rule in Caracas. And yet at the same time, for all his talk, he
had not deviated from IMF and World Bank policies too widely.
For all his faults, however, Chavez was still beloved by the
impoverished in Venezuela, and for good reason. He was the first
leader to show real concern and implement policies to change the lack
of economic justice in his country. He had refused to evict groups
of squatters from unused buildings in the nation's capital, stating
to the New York Times, "I'm not going to send in troops. I will not
rest until every human being who lives in this land has housing,
employment and some way to manage his life."
Thanks in part to that, he has become a bogeyman among the American
elite. In an incredible sense of timing, Disinformation released the
book collection Everything You Know Is Wrong last month, which
included an article by Konformist editor Robert Sterling,
titled "Viva Kadaffi!" The article highlights the demonization of
leaders and movements of the Third World which threaten Western
interests (most notably the tale of Colonel K of Libya.) Besides
Moammar, profiles were presented of General Aidid of Somalia, Haiti's
Aristide, the FARC of Colombia, the Mexican Zapatista, the Tupac
Amaru of Peru and, of course, Chavez himself. Here's what was said
about Hugo: "In marketing his platform, the former paratrooper and
lieutenant colonel combines machismo (he often appears dressed in
combat fatigues) and leftist economic nationalism to promote a manly
form of radical populism inspired by Simon Bolivar."
A recent article by author William Blum from The Konformist Newswire
listed some more of Chavez's "crimes" against the United States:
* He branded the US attacks on Afghanistan as "fighting terrorism
with terrorism", demanded an end to "the slaughter of innocents,"
held up photographs of children killed in the American bombing
attacks, and said their deaths had "no justification, just as the
attacks in New York did not, either."
* His defense minister requested the permanent US military mission in
Venezuela to vacate its offices in the military headquarters of
Caracas, which was described as an anachronism from the Cold War. He
also refused to provide US intelligence agencies with information on
Venezuela's large Arab community.
* He was uncooperative with the plan Colombia, the US war against the
Colombian FARC guerrillas under the transparent disguise of the "War
on Drugs." He had denied the US Venezuelan airspace for "counter-
drug flights" involved in the battle.
* He became a critic of WTO-style globalization, and pushed for a
Latin American trade bloc to build regional economic strength.
* Perhaps most important of all, he became an ally of fellow US
pariah leaders Fidel Castro (selling oil to Cuba at discount rates),
Saddam Hussein and even Mo himself.
Even worse than all that was what seems to come up with anything
involving the Bush Mob: oil. Chavez was once quoted as saying, "So
much riches, the largest petroleum reserves in the world, the fifth
largest reserves of gas - God, the immensely rich Caribbean Sea. All
this and 80 percent of our people live in poverty. What scientist
can explain this?" As a member of OPEC and the third-largest
supplier of oil to the US, he had become an increasingly greater
irritant to US plans of invading Hussein in time for midterm
elections: such an attack would almost certainly lead to a oil-price
spike and economic downturn unless a plentiful source of oil could be
found to replace potentially crippling reductions of supply. But
Chavez was heading in the opposite direction, appointing as leaders
of the state-owned oil company men who oddly felt their job was to
serve the Venezuelan public rather than Western corporations.
Obviously, something had to be done.
And apparently, it was. Al Giordano of Narco News termed the
supposed grass roots opposition to Chavez as "Astroturf" financed and
composed of corrupt layers of the Venezuelan establishment. This
decayed power groups included the Venezuelan Workers Confederation
(whose oil workers union who had been in bed with Petroleos de
Venezuela in plundering the country's vast natural resources wealth),
the military brass, the Roman Catholic Church and the nations
oligopolist media barons. Not a wise group of enemies to earn.
Perhaps the most important group among the opponents of Chavez was
the Fedecamaras, or Venezuela's largest business federation, who
disapproved of Chavez populist policies. The federation joined in
league with the Venezuelan Workers Confederation to organize the
massive strikes that almost brought down Chavez, Allende-style. The
president of the Fedecamaras, coincidentally, was Pedro Carmona
himself.
Unfortunately for the coup leaders, it didn't turn out like it did in
Chile. The people of Venezuela, showing an incredible combination of
bravery and intelligence, rebelled against the installation of an
illegal and fraudulent government. If only people in the USA showed
such brains and spine.
The punchline is that due to eagerness to cheer on the illegal
military takeover, Shrub and his cohorts now have egg on their face.
It is widely believed in Venezuela that the coup, like the Pinochet
takeover of Chile, was actually pushed, financed and promoted by the
CIA and US State Department. Considering that the Shrub Junta
includes such kreepy Iran-Contra cohorts as Elliott Abrams, John D.
Negroponte, John Singlaub and - as Assistant Secretary of State for
Latin America, no less - Otto Reich, to believe otherwise would be
ridiculously naive of politics. Assuming the coup was a US-backed
operation explains the failure: apparently after dealing with the US
public, the Bush Mob was unprepared for the possibility of facing a
public that resists dictatorial takeovers.
In any case, we salute Pedro Carmona as Beast of the Month.
Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Pedro!!!
Sources:
Hugo Chavez: A Servant Not Knowing his Place
William Blum
"Viva Kadaffi!"
Robert Sterling
>From the collection Everything You Know Is Wrong, edited by Russ Kick
The Disinformation Company
http://www.disinfo.com
CHAVEZ COMEBACK EXPOSES U.S. GOVERNMENT & MEDIA LIES
By D. Baatar, Jared Israel, Nestor Gorojovsky & Nico Varkevisser
The Emperor's Clothes
http://www.emperors-clothes.com
Venezuela: Not a Banana-Oil Republic after All
by Gregory Wilpert
April 15, 2002
FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS
http://www.fpif.org/
Viva President Hugo Chavez: Venezuela's Democracy Prevails
By Robert Miranda
DAY II:Democracy Held Hostage in Bolívar's Venezuela
April 12, 2002
Journalist Jules Siegel interviews Narco News Publisher Al Giordano
http://www.narconews.com
One to watch
April 15, 2002
Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange
( http://www.workingforchange.com )
The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com
Robert Sterling
Post Office Box 24825
Los Angeles, California 90024-0825
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