Leonel Vivas
Since President Hugo Chavez won five years ago a national election with an overwhelming majority, a revolution is developing in my country — a very original revolution is being made by peaceful and democratic means, without violence, respecting human rights and with the active participation of the Venezuelan people.
The Bolivarian Revolution is a struggle waged by those who have those who have always been socially excluded against those who have traditionally been privileged against. It's a battle of dignity against ignominy, a battle for the rights of the peoples of Venezuela and Latin America. The Bolivarian Revolution is a result of and a struggle of the will and hope of the Venezuelan people to be independent and the owner of the riches of my country.
The Bolivarian Revolution, and President Chavez as its leader, is the result of this struggle, inspired by the ideas of our national hero, Simon Bolivar.
As it is very well known, Chavez was elected twice as president of Venezuela by means of two democratic, popular and universal elections. If President Chavez is not a dictator, then what is happening in Venezuela nowadays? How to explain, then, the attempted coup of April 11, 2002? Why the brutal and even terrorist political opposition he has had to confront through out the time he has been in power?
It's very simple to explain these things. The reason for them is because Chavez is the leader of a revolution — a revolution of the poor, a revolution of the people in search of justice, dignity, sovereignty and hope.
The Venezuelan oligarchy, and especially the petroleum oligarchy, the big entrepreneurs, the owners of private TV networks and other media, the bureaucrats of corrupt and pro-management unions, the traitorous military chiefs and the representatives of Venezuela's political past, allied in a perfidious pro-coup coalition, intend to take power by any possible means. They intend to overthrow the legally elected government of President Hugo Chavez, and frustrate the dreams of social justice of the overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan people, who witnessed the way in which those same classes have squandered the resources of the country for more than 40 years.
April 2002 coup
The coup d'etat, which today we are celebrating the second anniversary of its defeat, was perpetrated by the same people that attempted to paralyse Venezuela and bring Chavez to his knees in December and January 2002; they are the same people who in the very few hours they held power, dissolved the National Assembly and all state institutions, broke into private houses, and humiliated several political and social figures involved in the Bolivarian process, unleashed unprecedented media terrorism and tried to wipe out in one fell swoop all the just laws adopted by the Bolivarian government.
In despair at their failure, those coup plotters have tried many new ways to attain their goals including violent means. They have organised street demonstrations in which most of the participants come from the upper and middle classes. They have attempted to convene an illegal consultative referendum and then a fraudulent recall to force the president to resign. They tried to shut down the banks by reducing working hours and closing them. They have appealed to people not to pay their taxes, nor pay for water, electricity, and gas; and they are trying to sabotage the many social programs the government has being implemented.
Private television networks and other media were at the centre of the coup plot. Their owners, who used to be the puppeteers of governments in the Venezuela of yesterday, attack the Chavez government 24 hours a day, calling all the time for disobedience, disseminating gross lies about the domestic situation in Venezuela. It was and it is media terrorism, something unprecedented in Venezuelan history.
What the coup plotters wanted and still want is to take power away from the people. What they want is to reinstate the past with all its social exclusion in violation of the people's rights.
That is the reason why the Venezuelan people have taken time and time again to the streets to defend their dreams and hopes. President Chavez is at the forefront of that battle with honour, courage and a high sense of his patriotic duty. He is determined not to give the power entrusted to him by the people to the fascist fanatics. His combative and philosophical words urge the Bolivarian forces into battle and are also a resounding denunciation of what the forces of internal reaction and their foreign allies want to do in Venezuela.
US involvement
It is very clear and obvious that the opposition in my country has strong external support. It was entirely true in the case of the April 2002 coup. If it had not been so, the coup leaders would not have embarked on their adventure.
On April 12,2002, officials of the US Department of State and of the Permanent Mission of the United States to the Organisation of American States (OAS) carried out intense lobbying within this organisation and with the diplomatic corps of Latin American and Caribbean countries posted in Washington, in an attempt to justify the Venezuelan coup.
Meanwhile, in Caracas, the ambassador of the United States, Charles Shapiro, was paying a "courtesy visit" to the dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga, who usurped the presidency for 36 hours.
That same day, in a letter that is now in possession of my government, Phillip Chicola, acting for the State Department, made several "suggestions" to Pedro Carmona Estanga, which he accepted — as can be seen in the letter he sent to the secretary general of the OAS, Cesar Gaviria, on April 13, 2002.
The previous day, Phillip Reeker, in an official communique released by the State Department, accused President Chavez of being responsible for his own overthrow. He said that "Chavez resigned the presidency. Before resigning, he dismissed the vice-president and the cabinet. A transition civilian government has promised early elections..."
Our government has photographs, recordings and abundant evidence that prove the involvement of US government officials in the planning and the execution of the coup. It has evidence that US military helicopters landed in Maiquetia airport during the coup; that US warships illegally penetrated Venezuelan waters in the Caribbean, infringing on our sovereignty; that US military personnel met with Venezuelan military officers involved in the coup, both before and during the coup.
On April 12, 2002, a US airplane was in Orchila, the Venezuelan island to which President Chavez had been taken when he was kidnapped by the coup leaders. This airplane made a hurried take- off when its crew members realised that patrol frigates of the Venezuelan navy were on their way to that location.
It has been hard for the Bush administration to deny its involvement in the April 2002 coup. Even a New York Times editorial published on March 9, stated: "The Bush administration has so openly allied itself with the anti-Chavez camp that it would be hard for it to play a mediating role [in Venezuela]."
Dear friends, be confident that every intent to overthrow President Chavez and defeat the Bolivarian Revolution will be unsuccessful because they have the support of the people and the army that are fighting now and will fight with resolution in order to preserve dignity, justice, hope and the dreams of my people.
The Bolivarian Revolution we are pushing ahead with is not an isolated Venezuelan social, political and economic phenomenon. Today this revolution is happening in Venezuela, but tomorrow it will happen in many other countries, as it already has in Cuba. That is why we Venezuelans appreciate so much international solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution like this meeting organised by Resistance. We feel that any international solidarity with the Venezuelan revolution means also solidarity with the struggles of the Latin American peoples.
Times of change have arrived and are being felt throughout the continent. We have witnessed the collapse of a neoliberal model in which more than 6 million human beings in Latin America and the Caribbean are condemned every year to a sordid cycle of poverty.
Today we see the emergence of social and political currents, inspired with more exalted ethical principles, which challenge injustices and struggle for a new order based on justice and social inclusion. The Bolivarian Revolution is part of those times and processes.
[Leonel Vivas is the ambassador to Australia of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This is an abridged version of a speech he gave to the 33rd national conference of the Resistance socialist youth organisation, held in Melbourne on April 10-12.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 26, 2004.
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