Ray,
I�m not from
Venezuela, but I have been hearing for several weeks about the bosses ordering
their employees to participate in their demos. �Hugo Chavez clearly played into their hands (or was sandbagged by
some of his military) by shooting at the demonstrators. �I think the demonstrations against the coup
are very telling. �Chavez - and
hopefully soon, Brazil � is (are)the only hope for stopping the re-colonizing
of South America by the US.
Bruce
-----Original
Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Ray Evans Harrell
Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2002
7:33 PM
To: futurework
Subject: Venezuela
This
was just sent to me. Do any of you know anything about
it? Is there anyone on the list from Venezuela?
Ray
Evans Harrell
U.S. ANTI-WAR
GROUP DENOUNCES U.S.-BACKED COUP IN
VENEZUELA
April 12, 2002
According to an anti-war organization based in the United
States, the U.S. government working with Venezuelan
reactionaries, the wealthy classes of that South American
country and the international pro-U.S. media, has fomented
and carried out a military coup against the popularly
elected leader, President Hugo Chavez.
Teresa Gutierrez of the International Action Center (IAC)
said ;the coup has all the markings of a CIA plot,
much like the one carried out against the Chilean
President Salvador Allende in September 1973.
Gutierriez pointed out that the ;so-called strike
leading up to the coup was really an action by the wealthy
owners of the factories, aided by a corrupt sector of the
trade union movement representing only the most privileged
workers in the oil industry.
The moneyed media has all joined in an attempt to
blame pro-Chavez forces for the deaths of
demonstrators,; she added. Our own sources,
from those sympathetic to Chavez, say that it was
reactionaries and police who started the shooting, and
they fired at pro-Chavez demonstrators. Most of those who
died were from the poorer parts of the population who
voted for Chavez in overwhelming numbers and who still
support him, according to our sources.
The IAC, whose founder is former U.S. Attorney General
Ramsey Clark, has been a leading organization opposing the
Bush administrations post-Sept. 11 crusade,
including the bombing of Afghanistan. It is part of the
Internatioanl A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End
Racism) caoltiion, which is organizing a protest on April
20 at the White House calling for freedom for Palestine,
no new U.S. war on Iraq, and in opposition to U.S.
intervention in Colombia, Venezuela, Korea, the
Philippines and elsewhere in the Third World.
Sara Flounders, also of the IAC, said,That the
Bush administration has rushed to welcome the new
Venezuelan government, despite its illegal and
unconstitutional creation, is a clear sign that Washington
was in on the coup from the beginning, she said.
The Bush administration has targeted Chavez because
he had an independent foreign policy. He was friendly to
Cuba and he had the courage to criticize the U.S. war
drive against Afghanistan.
We consider the coup against Chavez in Venezuela as
part of the more aggressive U.S. military policy since
Sept. 11, said Flounders. It goes hand in
hand with the threats against Iraq, support for the
Israeli massacre of Palestinians, and of course with the
new threats of open U.S. intervention against the
revolutionary movement in Colombia, Venezuela's
neighbor.
Below is a copy of an eye-witness account of a leader of
the popular movement, directly from Caracas, published on
the web site of the Belgian Workers Party on April 12,
2002:
Is the resignation this morning of Venezuelan President
Chavez due to a popular uprising, as the media make it
appear? Nothing seems less true! An eyewitness account
from Maximilien Averliaz, a leader of the popular movement
that supports Chavez, directly from Caracas.
By Pol De Vos
April 12, 2002
Maximilien Averlaiz: The plot appears to have been
well prepared. It all started with a call for a general
strike for Wednesday, April 10, launched by an alliance
between the organization of the bosses FEDECAMARAS and the
corrupt union the Venezuelan Workers Central (CTV). The
big privately owned media helped create a climate of
tension. They agitated the population against the
government. The strike, however, for the most part failed.
It occurred only in a few places. In the other places, the
bosses purely and simply closed their factories in such a
way that the workers were unable to work.
After the first day of the strike, FEDECAMARAS and the CTV
prolonged their action for an indeterminate time period,
while calling for a demonstration April 11. During this
reactionary demonstration, large groups of partisans of
President Chavez gathered at Miraflores to defend his
Bolivarian Revolution. The poor people came
down from the neighborhood on the edge of the city toward
the government building to support their president.
Chaven has always guaranteed the right to demonstrate to
the opposition, all the while appealing to his partisans
to refuse to respond to provocations and denouncing the
crass media manipulation.
While Chavez was making a radio talk Thursday evening, the
second phase of the destabilization plan was unleashed.
The leaders of the right-wing opposition directed their
demonstration toward Miraflores, where the progressives
had assembled. Their aim was clear: blood must flow.
The government gave an order to the National Guard to
place itself between the two groups to avoid battles. At
this moment, some elite sharpshooters began to fire on the
pro-Chavez demonstrators. They had been posted on the tops
of high buildings, at 200 meters (650 feet) from the
crowd. The first two deaths fell from among the defenders
of the populist president.
It is then that the right-wing demonstrators attacked the
National Guard, while the auxiliary police of the extreme
right-wing mayor of Caracas, Alfrede Pena, fired on the
pro-Chavez demonstrators. They unleashed violence to make
a counter-revolution possible. The majority of deaths were
from defenders of Chavez.
In the night from Thursday to Friday the following step
took place. A group from the National Guard and a large
part of the Command of the Army turned openly against
President Chavez and seized the state television station.
The national and international media have been the most
important instruments of this coup d'etat,
orchestrated by the wealthy elite classes with the direct
support of the United States.
http://www.iacenter.org
