April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

government, justifying its ouster. As one top secret, now partiallydeclassifed
CIA document from April 6, 2002 (5 days before the coup took
place) outlines, after the violence was provoked by coup forces,
“President Chavez and other top members in his cabinet...would be
arrested” and a “transitional government” would be installed.
Chavez was detained by force on the evening of April 11, 2002, and
kidnapped by dissident military officers, on the orders of the coup leaders.
Meanwhile, the US ambassador in Caracas, Charles Shapiro, was
coordinating the actions on the ground with media owners, metropolitan
police forces involved in the sniper shootings, and of course the business
and political leaders that forcefully took over the government.
Documentary evidence proves that Shapiro held several meetings and
conversations during the events of April 11, 2002, with the metropolitan
police commissioner, Henry Vivas, as well as with Gustavo Cisneros, owner
of Venevision, and Pedro Carmona, who subsequently took over the
presidency and declared himself head of state.
PEOPLE’S POWER
As the coup unfolded and Carmona, then head of Venezuela’s chamber of
commerce, Fedecamaras, unilaterally and illegally swore himself into
office as president, the constitutional president, Hugo Chavez, was held
hostage and incomunicado on a small island military base off Venezuela’s
coast. The only non-private national television station, state-owned VTV,
was taken off the air by then governor of the state of Miranda, Enrique
Mendoza, in an effort to silence pro-Chavez forces and conceal information
and events from the people. Private media – all involved in the coup –
broadcast cartoons, old movies and soap operas, while print media
published articles justifying and supporting the “transition government”.
Before an audience of about 400 people in the presidential palace,
Miraflores, Pedro Carmona issued a decree dissolving all of the nation’s
democratic institutions: the Supreme Court, the National Assembly
(Congress), the Attorney General, Public Defender, Comptroller, the
Executive cabinet, and even the national Constitution. Police forces, under
the control of the coup regime, repressed pro-Chavez protestors in the
streets, killing and injuring over 100 people during those hours.
But despite the media blackout on the real events that were taking place,
millions of Venezuelans, unwilling to accept the disappearance of their
constitutionally-elected president and the imposition of a dictatorship that
openly dissolved their democracy, took to the streets in protest. Armed
forces loyal to President Chavez began taking over military barracks and
urging people to come out in the streets to express their popular will.
Within hours, the presidential palace was flooded with demonstrators,
demanding the return of President Chavez and the ouster of the coup
government.
Meanwhile, a low-ranking soldier guarding Chavez, urged the Venezuelan
chief to write a note saying he was alive and still President of Venezuela,
pledging he would find a way to get the letter into the public light. He
succeeded. The famous letter, written in Chavez’s unmistakable
handwriting, declaring the Venezuelan president had never “renounced
the legitimate power given to him by the people”, made it into the hands
of military forces loyal to their Commander in Chief. A rescue mission was
immediately activated and Chavez was flown back in a helicopter to the
presidential palace right around midnight on April 13.
The millions that surrounded the palace, together with the loyal
presidential guard, were able to force out the coup leaders, who