From: "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Now, let me go on to Brett directly: > > > John, what group was behind the coup? Democrats? > > First of all, let me ask you: Were the actions of Chavez in the week before > the election the actions of someone who was ruling in line with the > constitution? Every indication was that his government was in severe danger > of falling, by normal constitutional methods. He seized control of the > media and his supporters fired on demonstrations. >
I may well have had my hyperbole meter set a bit high and not perhaps explained things as fully as I should have. As you say, a general strike against what Chavez was doing is par for the course political protest. From what I've seen of Chavez, he was not an ideal candidate for president in the first place. Let's face it, like Situveni Rabuka in Fiji, how in hell can anyone elect someone who has already staged a coup as your country's leader? Still, he was elected. And democracy means that, however appropriate the person is or not, if elected, they are the elected leader and should stay same until the next election. Hell, John Howard has been Prime Minister of Australia since 1996. All electorates do stupid things occasionally. The beauty of democracy is that we are allowed to make those mistakes. Not being an expert on the Venezuelan constitution, I agree that Chavez was probably acting unconstitutionally. In Australian terms, it is then up to the Governor General to remove the Government's mandate. Maybe it was up to the Venezuelan High Court? It was not up to the Army. > >No, it was the generals and the ultra rich. Sound familiar? > > How in the world could the generals and ultra rich have a meaningful general > strike all on their own? I mean, so what if they went on strike, who would > notice? If it was a right wing elected government, say Marcos, that seized > control of the media and shot at a political demonstration, what should the > United States have done. I bring this up because the US also supported the > military of the Philippians when they refused unlawful orders of > Marcos...who was the elected president at the time. That action was hailed > by the world as pro-democratic. It was the generals and business leaders who staged the coup. Yes, at least some of the unions were probably in on it too. The general strike may or may not have been part of the coup, or maybe the plotters were opportunistic or maybe the Army was sincere in fully restoring democracy but just chose the wrong person as the new President. There are grey areas where a despotic leader denies people's rights to hang on to power. But had Chavez passed that point? Clearly there was civil unrest, but he had not yet abolished or rigged an election, for example, as Marcos had done innumerable times. Everything happened very, very quickly in Veneuela. So quickly that Bush and Rice and Reich should have just shut up and let the dust settle a bit. What pressure was there on the Bush Administration to react to what happened in Caracas? Any halfway smart politician could have come up with a neutral statement condemning the usurpation yet criticising the crisis that caused the coup. But that's not what happened. Ari Fleischer and Condoleeza Rice were all but chortling about how that Castro loving Chavez had been deposed. By the Army. In Central/South America. And by the way the new government is going to increase its oil exports to the US. Oops, the other guy's back in power, well let this be a lesson to you and just remember to abide by democracy y'all... Brett > > Let's see now, what was the first act of the plotters? Oh yes, suspend the > > constitution and close the parliament. This was a coup for democracy? No. > Dan > As the web site I quoted above indicates, the generals dropped their support > of Carmona very quickly after he undertook these actions. Pro-Chavez > demonstrations probably had something to do with it. But, it also was > associated with Camona grabbing more power than intended. I would guess > that the politics were very complicated. > Undoubtedly. But the music had stopped and the US was already sitting in midair. Dan > Let me give a parallel with the United States. Suppose, during Watergate, > there were mass protests and military units with personal loyalty to Nixon > fired on the crowd, and CBS, ABC, and NBC were seized by other units loyal > to Nixon. Would the Joint Chief of Staffs be justified or unjustified in > arresting Nixon? If, perhaps, the High Court had asked them to. If popular opinion was clearly against Nixon. There are constitutionally viable means available to remove that President without immediately going the Army-coup-route. What about the State/Regional governors? What about the law courts? Civil disobedience is an option. Sanctions, world opinion, almost anything else but not the Army, anyone but the Army. The attempted coup in fiji a couple of years ago also involved Army units. In Papua New guinea just in the last couple of months some army units mutinied, calling for a coup. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of either case, at least the Australian government came out immediately and condemned the METHOD. The grievance is a separate matter, but the method - a military coup - must be automatically condemned if you want to foster democracy. Let's face it; what is the sterotypical South/Central method of changing governments? Army coup. So what type of method should least be praised, no matter what justification events around a coup may have had? Army coup. Dan > In short, I am a bit bothered with both John's and Brett's positions. John > seems to indicate that the US can and should support the overthrow of bad > democratic governments. Brett seems to paint the actions in Venezuela as a > typical right wing coup against a democratically elected government. > Neither seem accurate to me. > It boils down to the perception much of the rest of the world has that America is a champion of (democracy/free trade/human rights/...) except where (democracy/free trade/human rights/...) conflict with US interests. What I mainly tried to argue was that it was incredibly clumsy for the Bush Administration to show such joy at a non-democratic solution to the Venezuelan problem. The rights or wrongs of Chavez as president don't really come into it. Either the US upholds the democratic right of people anywhere to choose whatever government they want or it doesn't. In this case, plainly, the US didn't. Brett
