There is no basis for such an assumption, but we have to keep in mind that the interviewee who voices his hope (before 9 November 2001) that "The people are learning, the economy is developing. This is not a violent revolution -- it'll take time" is a restaurateur -- i.e. an urban petty producer -- so we can say he is expressing a sentiment typical of his sector of the population. The sort of mobilization that brought Chavez to power probably wouldn't have been possible without men and women who felt like Don Julio Cezar. I wonder what has happened to Don Julio since last year and how he feels today.
That said, one PEN-l poster wrote recently that "the best thing chavez did was to arm the poor." Moreover, loyalty to Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution among rank-and-file soldiers and mid-ranking officers appears remarkably strong. He got two things going for democracy in Venezuela.
Let's take a look at "How to default: A Primer" in the _Left Business Observer_ #99, February 2002 @ <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/HowToDefault.html>. Its author remarks that "if there are any army units whose loyalty you doubt, now would have been a good time to have sent them on maneuvers somewhere a month ago" (@ <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/HowToDefault.html>). "Somewhere" had better be very far away. Perhaps, the government that is planning on defaulting should sign them up for a UN peace-keeping mission in a remote corner of the earth. A joke aside, the question of armed forces is terribly important, but there is no easy solution to many problems that are bound to arise even in the best case scenario like Venezuela's:
***** ZNet | Venezuela Rebick Interviews Marta Harnecker by Judy Rebick and Marta Harnecker; September 10, 2002
...Rebick: So what happened during the coup, according to Chávez?
Harnecker: It is important to understand that this coup was overturned by a popular uprising. First we need a little context. The traditional rightwing parties had been marginalized in the political process during Chávez's presidency [Yoshie: The traditional political parties had already disintegrated before Chavez came into power; Chavez succeeded in part because of their self-destruction.]. So the interests of these parties were represented directly by big business, and it was the interests of these corporations that were represented by the generals who lead the coup.
Also, it's important to understand that there is a popular army in Venezuela. You can go from being a peasant to being a general. This is not the case in many other Latin American countries. Chávez himself rose from a poor background. Of course, unlike Chávez, a great number of generals who come poor backgrounds get co-opted by the ruling class.
Although the grassroots of the army and the junior officers are Chávez supporters, many generals are against him. When the leaders of the coup went to the U.S. to discuss the situation and told the U.S. government that they wanted Chávez out, they were very well received. This encouraged them. We could see from the U.S. reaction after the coup that they supported it.
Chávez had a plan in place in case of a coup, which they were expecting. The problem was that the plan involved one of the generals who Chávez mistakenly thought was loyal. So when Chávez decided to activate the plan, he couldn't. The original plan was to defend the Miraflores Palace [the government] against attack. If they couldn't defend it, Chávez and his government would move to a region where they had the support of the troops. The generals knew of these plans so they cut off all communication - no radio, no television, no telephone, no cellular.
One interesting story is that the couriers who ride motorcycles got organized after the coup to run messages between the palace and the poor neighbourhoods. They became quite politicized and are still active. If they hear a rumour that the right is mobilizing, they organize en masse on their bikes and loudly ride to the palace. They are a fearsome sight.
Anyway, the generals threatened Chávez that if he refused to resign there would be a lot of bloodshed. Chávez is very sensitive about loss of life....
Rebick:...Why didn't the right fight back against the demonstrators?
Harnecker: Because the army was then with Chávez, the generals that participated in the coup were isolated, and a clear majority of the people were chavistes. Also the opposition began to split when they saw what Pedro Carmona, the self-proclaimed new president, was proposing to do. In fact, the right was and is divided. The opposition is now divided into three groups: the fascists who want a new coup d'etat; the conservatives who want to remove Chávez by constitutional measures without bloodshed; and people who were in the opposition but have now decided that Chávez is better than his opponents.
Rebick: So were the leaders of the coup prosecuted?
Harnecker: No. Chávez told me that when he was in prison, he thought only about how to re-unify the country. For the generals to be judged, the High Court has to agree to allow it according to the constitution. The High Court is anti-Chávez and didn't allow the generals to be prosecuted. The court said that there was no coup d'etat and that the military only acted because there was a vacuum of power. So those involved in the coup are still in the army, but they have no responsibility.
But the parliament denounced this attitude of the High Court internationally and are discussing what happened with the people of Venezuela. They conducted a public inquiry into the events and all the generals have had to testify and explain themselves.
The people and some of the army are more radical and want the generals prosecuted no matter what the constitution says. But Chávez understands the balance of forces and says they can't have a civil war or the United States would step in. Everybody must know that Chávez is the only one that can avoid a civil war.
The situation is still precarious. Both Chávez and the people are prepared this time for another coup. Most important is that it was the people who returned Chávez to power, so they feel very strong and powerful. The people feel like they are actors in the political situation and as you know this is a very revolutionary situation.
Rebick: So what is happening now?
Harnecker: Chávez is telling the people to organize in every way possible - Bolivarian circles, co-ops, women's groups, popular radio, etc. The generals returned to the army, but everyone knows who was involved. Chávez is organizing a referendum to reform the constitution so that they can prosecute the generals and appoint new judges....
Marta Harnecker is the director of MEPLA (Memoria Popular Latinoamericana). She is Chilean but currently lives in Cuba. Judy Rebick is the publisher of www.rabble.ca where this piece first appeared.
<http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=2314§ionID=45> ***** -- Yoshie
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