Similarity again comes into play in comparison of this coup to coups in other countries at other times, such as Chile under Salvador Allende or Australia under Gough Whitlam. The coup is already bloodier than the bloodless Whitlam/Kerr affair, whether it reaches the bloody massacres of Chile remains to be seen. So many factors had parallels to Australia and Chile – the ruling class in an uproar of socialistic changes, American business interests feeling threatened and US State Department condemnations, and rumoured CIA involvement. Perhaps most importantly, corrupt unions controlled not by the people but by the interests of the rich, perhaps even from foreign lands, played a crucial role, just as they did in Australia and Chile. Events have been moving in so much the same manner, with the countries ruling class, the US government and corporations working in concert to undermine this democratically elected government, that Conn Hallinhan of the San Francisco Examine! r ! said of Venezuela in a December article that “there is the smell of a coup in the air these days. It was like this in Iran just before the 1953 U.S.-backed coup overthrew the Mossedeah government and installed the Shah. It has the feel of 1963 in South Vietnam, before the military takeover switched on the light at the end of the long and terrible Southeast Asian tunnel. It is hauntingly similar to early September 1973, before the coup in Chile ushered in 20 years of blood and darkness.”
Hallinhan’s prediction came true today as Venezuela’s military overthrew the democratic government. Upset at this attack on democracy, upset about the bloodshed that I was reading about that the military was carrying out, I decided to show my displeasure by holding a vigil in front of the Venezuelan consulate in New York City. I posted on protest.net and Indymedia that I was holding a vigil tonight in front of the Venezuelan consulate in New York City and anyone could drop by who wanted to, as it was a little to short notice to organize anything for today. I went to the store and bought a marker, a blank sign and the New York Times. I wrote on the sign “Stop the coup! Restore democracy in Venezuela”. On the train I read about the events yesterday in Venezuela, and the army’s preparations for the events of this morning.
The Venezuelan consulate faces St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which is somewhat apropos considering the role of the church in priming it’s adherents for the coup (carrying on a political tradition in South America handed down from the last generation, when Monsignor Dragovich and Cardinal Hudal in the Vatican dealt with those who were holding the fort down locally. Someone raised Catholic such as myself knows how wacky these conservative, Vatican Council II hating Catholics can be). When I arrived in front of the Venezuelan consulate, there was a sign on the consulate door in Spanish and English saying the consulate was closed but to call the embassy in Washington in regards to the “events” of today. There were also many red, yellow and blue balloons taped to the consulate window, along with a sign in English and a sign in Spanish posted by right wing Venezuelans speaking of some of the right wing people who were killed yesterday. There were about four Venezuelans ! st! anding there and we began talking – and soon enough it came out that they were for the military coup and that I was against it. They were right-wing upper middle class (or perhaps upper class) people of Latin American ancestry. They didn’t seem to happy that I was raining on their parade, but feeling triumphant over their recent victory, most of them were pleasant, although argumentative.
5 PM rolled around and several other upper middle class right wing Latin Americans showed up. Several of them took my picture and one of them video taped me as I debated the coup with an older guy who seemed to be sort of a leader. More and more people came, including a Roman Catholic priest, and he pointed to the priest and said, “See? Even the priest is here with us.” I was also asked if I was a communist (I guess only communists oppose military overthrow of democracies in his mind). They also talked about “Chavezistas” a lot (I guess this is the term they use to describe Chavez supporters). The leader-type guys told me that I couldn’t be there because this was a “celebration” and I supposedly needed a permit to demonstrate (a one-person demonstration needs a permit, but a 40 person “celebration” doesn’t?) One young guy came over and I talked to him, he seemed more reasonable and not just trying to score points. I told him my main concern wa! s ! that there would be a bloodbath today, tomorrow, and for who knows how long. My second concern was that the military had forcibly overthrown a democratically elected government. He made the kind of points you’d expect a Chavez distracter to make – that he had lied to the poor and riled them up and was a charlatan, that the business community, Roman Catholic church and large unions (although he didn’t mentioned they’re corrupt and controlled by the rich) were against him and so forth. Surprisingly, he admitted without prompting that “foreign influences” had a significant sway over Venezuela. He also mentioned Chavez’s land reform as a supposedly bad thing, although I certainly would disagree with that. I kept mentioning that the rich were the ones who wanted Chavez thrown out and that the poor wanted him in, and he really didn’t have solid answers with regards to this like he did for other things. The young guy was not Venezuelan although his wife was. ! He!
also mentioned that a lot of people there weren’t Venezuelan, they were just part of the (right wing) Latin American community. I overheard several of the people talking who were from Colombia, a neighboring country with brutal left/right fighting.
Anyhow, a little after 6PM the Telemundo camera man starts setting up. I go to talk to him and he says he’s too busy to talk. I walk towards the Telemundo Noticias truck and the reporter starts ambling out. I ask him what the pro-Chavez/anti-Chavez angle is going to be and will he interview me, he says that he is not showing “pro or anti”. Well, I can’t say that there’s any disconnect from the veracity of that statement and the veracity that Telemundo is bound to show to the Venezuela coup. If their Elian Gonzalez coverage is any guide, they make Bob Grant look like Amy Goodman. Spanish televisions right-wing slant on international news, especially in Latin America, is like Fox News on steroids. In fact, Hugo Chavez had been complaining that Venezuelan corporate-owned television stations had been inciting people to go out and riot in the days prior to the coup. The reporter read his story with the background of right-wing Latin Americans of various ethn! ic! ities behind him singing a song of how happy they were that a Latin American military had overthrown yet another democracy. Knowing this was almost certainly live, the thought crossed my mind for a second of performing a little direct action and jumping into the frame in the background with the other side of my sign my sign saying in huge letters – GOLPE! (coup - to counteract the slant that Chavez had “resigned”). Unfortunately, I didn’t and thus it was portrayed by corporate owned Spanish television that everyone who had shown up at the consulate was happy about the coup, and implied that everyone there was Venezuelan when only a handful of them were, and that every Venezuelan is happy about this, when only the rich and upper middle class are. In fact, the thought just crossed my mind that one of the reasons the Venezuelan right wing here was able to organize a protest of two dozen on such short notice and that the left wasn’t was because the leaders were prob! ab! ly tipped off that this was going to happen a few days ago. A scary thought, they’re probably looking at the photographs they took of me now and thinking “Ronni Karpen Moffitt”. After all, if using violence to overthrow democracy isn’t punished, why stop using it?
I've posted pictures here: http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=170638&group=webcast
I don't know if any demonstrations about this are being planned. I may show up in front of the consulate again on Monday, and/or do some kind of A20 solidarity thing in New York or DC. The Colombian mobilization has been planning A20 actions for a while and I'm sure there will be some crossover there for the Venezuela thing.
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