Posted on 04/19/2002 11:50:30 AM PDT by Axion
Venezuela: Postmortem of a Coup
19 April 2002
Summary
As the smoke clears from an attempted coup in Venezuela, it is becoming more and more obvious that no fewer than three opposition factions were involved. The lack of cohesion between these groups, combined with President Hugo Chavez's own contingency plan, rendered the coup a failure.
Analysis
The military coup that briefly toppled Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez April 11-12 was unusual in several ways: There was no organized plan in the armed forces (FAN) to launch a coup against Chavez that specific day; rival military factions never fired at each other; and the same military factions that toppled Chavez returned him to power within 24 hours, according to published reports and knowledgeable STRATFOR sources in Caracas.
International audiences -- and in fact, many Venezuelans -- were baffled by Chavez's tumultuous overthrow and swift return to power between April 11 and April 14. Many have speculated that Chavez launched a controlled auto-coup to flush out his numerous opponents within the FAN and opposition political groups.
In fact, as Caracas returns to normalcy, it's becoming clearer that extremist groups on both sides that strongly support or oppose the Chavez regime likely took advantage of this situation -- the largest anti-government demonstration in Venezuela's history -- to trigger a violent confrontation that unseated Chavez, but ultimately restored him to power. STRATFOR has pieced together the following chain of events April 11-12 from public and private sources in Venezuela:
About three hours before gunfire erupted in downtown Caracas, the FAN's high command knew from intelligence personnel that infiltrated pro-Chavez Bolivarian Circles that a plan existed to disrupt an anti-Chavez protest march of at least 350,000 Venezuelans, the daily El Universal reported April 18. FAN intelligence indicated that extremist anti-Chavez groups were also seeking a confrontation that day. However, efforts to coordinate an effective security response and pre-empt the violence were hindered by disagreements between Chavez and senior military officers over how to proceed.
Reportedly, Chavez insisted that soldiers and tanks be deployed to Miraflores presidential palace to break up the unexpectedly large anti-Chavez march. However, General Manuel Rosendo, chief of the FAN's joint unified command, CUFAN, resisted the president's orders because he and other military officers opposed confronting peaceful protesters with assault rifles and tanks.
Rosendo also argued that Chavez should issue orders to withdraw several thousand civilian Bolivarian Militia members from the downtown area near Miraflores. However, Chavez ignored Rosendo's advice and issued orders to Fort Tiuna to deploy troops and armored vehicles. Meanwhile, in downtown Caracas, a cordon of several hundred National Guard soldiers formed a line that was intended theoretically to keep the pro- and anti-Chavez groups far apart. The National Guard security cordon was facing the advancing anti-Chavez protesters, while behind the soldiers several thousand Bolivarian Circle members and pro-Chavez supporters armed with rocks, clubs, Molotov cocktails and, in many cases, handguns, became visibly more inflamed, according to STRATFOR sources on site.
A phalanx of Caracas Metropolitan Police reinforced by a water cannon protected the front of the advancing anti-Chavez march on Baralt Avenue. As the marchers reached the corners of Llaguno and La Pedrera, still several blocks from Miraflores, snipers began firing simultaneously at both anti- and pro-Chavez protesters from at least three buildings, including the Eden Hotel, La Nacional office building -- in which are housed municipal government offices -- and the rooftop of the Foreign Ministry's parking garage, according to the daily TalCual, which confirmed the presence of six snipers atop two of the buildings.
Two of the alleged snipers subsequently were detained and identified by name as Environment Ministry security department employees. Television video footage of the violence also showed dozens of alleged Bolivarian Circle members firing handguns in the direction of the anti-Chavez protesters. Although Chavez government officials claim that no MVR or Bolivarian Circles fired weapons at anyone, one of the videotaped shooters was identified by name as an elected MVR municipal official, while three or four others were also identified as having links to the MVR.
In all, 15 persons were killed and over 157 wounded by gunfire April 11 in downtown Caracas. STRATFOR sources in the Caracas medical examiner's office report that nearly all of the fatalities resulted from head or neck shots fired from higher elevations. The violence -- especially videotaped footage of pro-Chavez supporters firing into the anti-Chavez protesters and eyewitness accounts of senior National Guard officers on the scene -- appears to have triggered a spontaneous military revolt against the Chavez regime from a moderate center-right faction led by Army Commander Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco.
However, this moderate "middle-road" center-right faction was only one of at least four groups struggling to topple or defend Chavez that day within the FAN. The other three groups included:
*A center-left or "soft" faction that identified with moderate pro-Chavez civilians whose ranks include people like former Interior and Justice Minister Luis Miquilena, who publicly broke with Chavez last December after the president decided to radicalize his confrontation with the political opposition.
*An ultra-conservative or "hardcore" group of military officers, businessmen, and some members of the extremely conservative Catholic Opus Dei organization. Additionally, this ultra-conservative group was bankrolled by Isaac Perez Recao, a wealthy Venezuelan whose late uncle Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo founded OPEC. This group planned to launch a coup against Chavez last February 27 but reportedly aborted the scheme after the U.S. government warned very strongly that it would never recognize a coup.
* The fourth group was pro-Chavez and numerically smaller than the anti-Chavez factions, although this group controlled key infantry and armored units, which evened the battlefield in any potential confrontation with anti-Chavez military factions. The leader of this group was General Raul Baduell, who commands the 42nd Parachutist Brigade in Maracay less than 100 miles from Caracas, and who is considered politically more leftist than Chavez.
In the early hours of the military rebellion against Chavez April 11, the moderate center-right group commanded by Vasquez Velasco appeared to have control of the situation. Although Vasquez Velasco did not have a large following in the army, center-right business, labor and civic leaders were supporting him. More importantly, a majority of the FAN's officer corps that favors removing the armed forces from politics and reinforcing its institutional national security role also were backing Vasquez Velasco at this point.
There was considerable overlap between the "soft" and "middle-road" factions. In fact, STRATFOR sources report that Miquilena had constituted a block of 23 National Assembly members from the pro-Chavez Fifth Republic Movement's moderate wing who were prepared to join the political opposition in ending the Chavez regime constitutionally.
Outside the FAN, the "middle-road" and "soft" anti-Chavez groups had started to negotiate a transition agreement April 10 when a group called the National Democracy and Freedom Coordinator was created to provide a venue in which opposing groups could negotiate a compromise transition deal to get rid of Chavez constitutionally. Despite State Department denials of involvement in the attempted Chavez ouster, several sources tell STRATFOR that U.S. embassy "observers" were present at meetings of this group.
STRATFOR sources say the "soft" and "middle-road" centrist groups did not realize until too late that the hardcore faction -- which had thoroughly infiltrated the other two factions -- was hijacking the transition government.
The "hardcore" group took control of the transition government in its formative hours, during the late night and early morning of April 11 and 12. As Vasquez Velasco's faction was reaching out to Miquilena's bloc in attempts to lay the constitutional and legal groundwork for Chavez's orderly removal, the conservative putschists were decreeing the dissolution of the National Assembly and tearing apart other key government institutions. Sources say these controversial decrees, which Carmona announced at his swearing-in ceremony, were written by two lawyers - one of whom was Daniel Romero, formerly the private secretary of ex-President Carlos Andres Perez.
Carmona's presidency ended the instant it began, when he announced the National Assembly's dissolution and fired the Supreme Court, attorney general, comptroller of the republic and public defender. At that point, the moderate center-right military faction headed by Vasquez Velasco withdrew its support from Carmona, as did the powerful Venezuelan Workers Confederation (CTV), and the entire anti-Chavez political opposition, which was banking on the assembly to preserve the constitutionality and legitimacy of the process of replacing Chavez.
When Vasquez Velasco withdrew his support from the interim Carmona government, he also reached out to General Baduell and other nominally pro-Chavez officers who had refused to join in the rebellion against the president. In fact, Vasquez Velasco, Baduell and others quickly joined ranks, collapsing the short-lived ultra-conservative regime that tried to replace Chavez.
Although the identities of the coup leaders quickly became obvious, sources say another plan was at work behind the scenes: that of Chavez himself. In the face of a growing business and labor strike, the Chavez regime could see that trouble was coming but wasn't sure from which direction. Therefore, in the chaos that followed the April 11 shootings of unarmed anti-Chavez protesters, some STRATFOR sources feel that Gen. Lucas Rincon Romero set the contingency plan in motion by announcing publicly that Chavez had resigned. This essentially served to flush out the president's hidden opponents. However, other sources believe Lucas Rincon had joined the movement to oust Chavez, but later reversed his alliance when the ultra-conservative faction hijacked the transition regime.
Although opposition groups within the military were much larger than their pro-Chavez counterparts - sources give a 75 percent to 25 percent ratio - they quickly became crippled by internal power struggles and personal ambitions. Meanwhile, their ultra-conservative junta partners brought the interim regime crashing down almost before it had launched by dissolving the National Assembly. In effect, it was the "hard coup" faction -- the one most ready to end Chavez's regime by any means necessary and to quickly erase all vestiges of his rule -- that was mainly responsible for returning Chavez to Miraflores presidential palace by collapsing the political center inside the FAN and destroying Carmona's civilian support base.
But was the coup a complete failure?
Although Chavez remains in power, he has been significantly weakened. This is particularly true within the military, where the officer corps has been decimated by attempts to identify and round up coup participants. Chavez now has only a handful of military brass on whom to rely.
These supporters are led, for now, by Gen. Raul Isaias Baduell, commander of the 42nd Parachutists Brigade, which is Chavez's old unit. Hours after returning to office on April 14, Chavez created a special consultative council of six senior military officers. In addition to Baduell, these include four generals and a rear admiral. These are the men on whom Chavez now depends -- a fact made clear when Baduell described the council as "the president's personal high command."
When Chavez addressed the foreign press corps April 16, a reporter for Miami-based Univision asked the president if he was still in command of the FAN, or if his new personal high command was now equal or superior to Chavez. Significantly, Chavez declined to reply.
Ali Rodriguez, secretary-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has spent the week in Caracas, Venezuela, mulling Chavez's invitation to take the top job at Petroleos de Venezuela SA. Rodriguez had served earlier as energy minister under Chavez, and an OPEC source said there was a 70 percent likelihood that he would accept the president's offer.
Venezuela is the third-largest supplier of oil to the United States and a leading member of OPEC. Petroleos de Venezuela was at the center of a dispute that sparked last week's failed coup against Chavez.
As boss at OPEC, Rodriguez has shared Chavez's interest in trying to keep oil prices high by sharply limiting crude production by the group's 11 member countries. But Jan Stuart, head of research for global energy futures at ABN AMRO in New York, said Rodriguez would be more than just a Chavez puppet if he took the job at PdVSA.***
It's a fair bet that the snipers were members of Chavez's Bolivarian Circles. They are pro-government neighborhood watch groups set up to inform the government of activities in their neighborhood. Castro proposed the idea when he was in Venezuela celebrating his birthday as Chavez's guest. Chavez has been using them to counter any marches with violence. They've threatened opposition legislators and beaten up reporters. They heavily looted stores after the coup was reversed. Since one reporter was killed and others injured when the marchers were fired on from rooftops, it adds to the belief the snipers were Chavez's thugs, called Chavistas. It has also been speculated they were aided by the 100+ Castro agents in the country who have the run of the security offices. Other Castro exports to Venezuela are hundreds of teachers, sports advisors and doctors.
you'll need to show why they fired on both anti and pro chavez groups for this assertion to hold. i can think of a plausible rational or two, but without some hard evidence, i doubt many would be convinced.
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