As the family story goes, Maisanta had fathered two sons in the village of Barinas, Pedro and Rafael Infante, without the benefit of marriage. The latter of the two was Chávez’s mother’s father, although Elena Frías de Chávez admits that she does not remember Maisanta and in fact never even laid eyes on him.
In 1974, the Venezuelan doctor and writer José León Tapia wrote the book Maisanta, el último hombre a caballo (Maisanta, the Last Man on Horseback). “Maisanta,” he writes, “was something like one of the last popular caudillos who galvanized multitudes for a revolution, the purpose of which even he was unable to describe with any clarity…. He had the very bad luck of living at a time in which revolutions with no real content had slowly begun to disappear, giving way to revolutions of the purely ideological kind, about which he only had the very foggiest ideas, which were only occasionally reflected by his actions.”16 Perhaps, in the same way, Tapia was attempting to explain Pérez Delgado’s rather ambiguous fame, the two sides of his legend. In 2004, when Tapia won the National Literary Award, sponsored by the government, he declined the honor, stating that he did not want his book used for political ends.17
Chávez, however, saw the book as a revelation. After reading it he felt himself rediscovering the heroic strain of his origins. Tapia himself recalls this: “When the book came out, I received a letter from a man I didn’t know at all, and to my surprise it was an army lieutenant who was terribly moved because his great-grandfather had been a military officer of the same rank, and his image of this man was that he had been a bandit. He went on to say that the book had opened his eyes to the person his great-grandfather had been, and I got the feeling that this young man had been very affected by that fact.”18
Chávez was so affected that he began to research and revisit the life of his great-grandfather, rescuing it and incorporating it into his own existence. While doing this, he learned of a filial relationship that made him even nobler and greater than he had presumed: he discovered that Maisanta’s father had been a colonel in Ezequiel Zamora’s army. This historical detail may well have reinforced Chávez’s conviction that there was a larger story, that he was part of a family saga, bound by blood, that directly linked him to the revolutionary struggle. These were the seeds of his fervor, his need to impose this new idol on those around him. His childhood friend Rafael Simón Jiménez recalls that in 1985, when the army sent Chávez to the plains town of Elorza, “At headquarters, next to the portrait of Bolívar, he had someone hang a portrait of Pedro Pérez Delgado, Maisanta…. In the afternoon he would order his soldiers to pay tribute to the Liberator and Maisanta.”
In 1989, Chávez met Ana Domínguez de Lombano, Maisanta’s daughter, who was seventy-five at the time. Chávez would visit her from time to time, and she remembers how he would always offer a military salute to the portrait of Pedro Pérez Delgado that hung in her home whenever he came over: “And when he brought soldiers around, he would have them stop right here, in front of the photo, so that they could pay him tribute. Once he took the photo so that he could make a copy of it; he has it in his house. Hugo would pray to Maisanta for everything he did.”19 Just after Chávez was sent to jail at the Cuartel San Carlos, she sent Chávez a gift: Maisanta’s scapular, an amulet he had always carried with him, just as a Catholic would a crucifix. In a way, there was something sacramental about this act, and it was duly noted by the press. The news reports describe how Ana’s son brought Chávez the scapular in “a kind of ceremony that unified everyone there.” “‘My cousin,’ said the man, visibly moved, ‘I impose this scapular upon you so that you, too, may call out the war cry just as Maisanta did. He has now been reincarnated through you.”20
Francisco Arias recalls how, one night in prison, he went over to Chávez’s cell. “Hugo was wearing a pair of shorts, holding Maisanta’s scapular and a huge cigar. Some people had brought us some soft drink bottles filled with rum, kahlua, whisky…. And there he was, with one of those bottles of rum and with that tobacco and the smoke pouring out. ‘We are summoning the spirits,’ he said to me. I walked in, bit my lip, and lay down in his bed. Suddenly, something came over him and he began to tremble and speak like an old man, ‘How are you, boys?’ he said. One of the kids who was sitting next to me immediately jumped to attention and said, “General Bolívar!” Chávez answered, ‘No, I’m not General Bolívar. Don’t flatter me.’ Then Ronald Blanco jumped up: ‘General Maisanta!’ ‘That’s right, my son, here I am,’ Chávez said.”
Had Chávez not rescued him from the forgotten annals of history, Pedro Pérez Delgado would probably be just one more Los Llanos legend, a shadowy figure whom historians would never know quite how to label—as a political activist or an outlaw. José Esteban Ruiz Guevara has his own view of the man: “It is very hard to write anything about Maisanta because there are no sources—all we have are oral sources, and some of them are not particularly reliable.”
Ruiz Guevara also states that the blood relationship between Hugo Chávez and Pedro Pérez Delgado may in fact be “questionable.” In any event, it is impossible to prove. There are no legal records, no papers. It is the stuff of legend—not the legend of Maisanta but of Hugo Chávez.
As for Bolívar, at one point a rumor began to circulate that Hugo Chávez’s devotion to Simón Bolívar bordered on delirium. People often told of how at meetings Chávez would ask to leave a chair empty, promising attendees that the spirit of the Liberator would descend and sit in the chair, to enlighten them as they talked. Nedo Paniz, a close collaborator who gave Chávez a home to live in after his release from jail, confirms the anecdote about the chair. In his office, which Chávez used for a while, Paniz points to the chair in question and says, “That was the Liberator’s chair!”
The historian Elías Pino Iturrieta consulted with at least six people who attended those debate sessions. “As they discussed things, drafted work plans, and organized projects for more immediate activities, the solitude of that chair would attest to the presence of the hero. Occasionally the commander’s eyes would gaze at that space, occupied by no one, because in reality it was just a lone chair, an empty hole.”21
This type of legend fuels the perspective of those who see Chávez as someone imbued with a special historical mission. These people speculate that even before his spell in prison, Chávez already felt marked by destiny, though perhaps to a slightly lesser degree.
Other testimonies, however, from those close to him, suggest something else. Yoel Acosta, another of the leaders of the 1992 uprising, says that the process began when Chávez’s popularity began to swell during the furor that followed the coup attempt. After February 4, the men behind the uprising were kept in basement cells at the Directorate for Military Intelligence, where they remained for days, incommunicado, their movements recorded by video cameras, with the light shining twenty-four hours a day. They had absolutely no contact with the outside world. “When we left the Directorate for Military Intelligence,” says Acosta, “and headed to the jail at the Cuartel San Carlos, that was when we realized that we had really made an impact, that we had shaken the foundations of the system, and that there was a mob of people out on the streets, anxious to see who Chávez was…. Exactly two weeks after the coup attempt, as we were riding in a caravan, we saw all those people in the street…. Wow, we said, we’re like stars, so it wasn’t such a failure after all.”
While Chávez was in jail, his movement grew stronger and his star rose. Without a doubt, he enjoyed the acclaim. In a 2002 interview, though, he depicted himself as a victim of history: “They lit candles for me, next to Bolívar. The people actually invented a prayer: ‘Our Chávez, who art in jail, hallowed be thy name.’ How was I supposed to fight something like that?”22
It was also during this time that Chávez’s marriage came to an end, as did his nine-year relationship with Herma Marksman. Chávez had become a sex symbol, and the gossip about his presumed love affairs, even while in jail, spread like wildfire. His relationship with Marksman soon implo
ded because of his fame.
“He would receive these letters,” says Herma, “from all over Venezuela: from children, from entire families, and from women saying the most unbelievable things…. He told my daughter that it maybe my love just wasn’t strong enough to be able to endure all that without getting hurt.” From one day to the next, Hugo Chávez became a heartthrob. Although Marksman does not deny that the gossip took its toll on the relationship, she also insists that the popularity phenomenon affected Hugo Chávez himself, transforming him into another person.
“I said to Francisco Arias, ‘Listen, Francisco, I think this has to be stopped, because Hugo is becoming a messianic figure.’ And he said, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, right now that’s what we need. Because, aside from the fact that it keeps the attention focused on the jail, it may help get us out of here sooner.’” That was, in fact, exactly what happened. They got out of jail much earlier than anyone expected. But as far as Marksman was concerned, Hugo had died. “Yes, I feel a lot like a widow.” The metamorphosis that occurred as a result of his dizzying popularity was so profound that she says she no longer sees even the slightest trace of the man she loved and conspired with for so many years. The Hugo Chávez who walked out of the San Carlos jail was another man, someone she did not know. “I’d sure like to meet him,” she says dryly.
CHAPTER 9
The Skinny Guy in the Liqui-Liqui
“BEFORE THIS CENTURY IS OVER, WITHOUT A DOUBT, WE WILL BE THE government.” This is how Hugo Chávez expressed his desires, as a kind of premonition. At the time, though, most journalists noted this comment with boredom and disdain. By late 1996, the former conspirator barely managed to capture 7 percent at the polls.1 One of the main contenders for the votes at stake back then was a former beauty queen, Irene Sáez. Also an outsider, she was nonetheless the antithesis of Hugo Chávez and had recently enjoyed a successful stint as mayor of a Caracas municipality. With two years to go before the 1998 presidential elections, the only person in Venezuela who would have bet everything on a Chávez candidacy was Chávez himself.
At that time, the ex-conspirator, in the cynical slang of Venezuelan journalism, was hastily deemed a galápago, a caliche: a man who was not newsworthy but who did everything he could to get his face in the news. With neither fanfare nor entourage, Hugo Chávez would visit the newsrooms of the country’s major dailies. He was discreet, friendly, self-confident, and without a trace of arrogance. And he always wore the favored outfit of the Venezuelan plainsman: a liqui-liqui, preferably in olive green.2 This suit, similar to the one worn by Gabriel García Márquez the day he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, highlighted his nationalist sentiment, and in it he felt elegant, at ease. In Caracas, people said he wore it on the recommendation of the comedian Julián Pacheco, but Chávez has always denied this: “I decided to use it after I got out of jail.”3
Once he made it to Miraflores, he never again donned the suit, with its straight pants and Mao collar that made him look so slender. But during those early days many people looked at Chávez as part of the past: just a skinny former insurgent wearing a liqui-liqui.
Though his army training developed his chest and back, Chávez is naturally thin, in part because food has never mattered much to him. During this period in his life, he would eat poorly and at odd hours. For months he lived like a gypsy, traveling in his van to the remotest corners of the country in his endless quest to promote himself by shaking people’s hands and showing his face in person. Without a job, without a political party, and at the nadir of his popularity ratings, he had run out of possibilities. Apart from a few breaks here and there, this was what he did for the two years following his release from prison on March 26, 1994.
“Nobody thought that Mr. Chávez had even the remotest chance of becoming president of the republic,” sighs ex-president Rafael Caldera, with the gloom of someone reflecting upon the inexorable. To this day, there are still those who will never forgive Caldera for letting Chávez out of jail, though it was certainly something of a fait accompli: during the 1993 presidential campaigns all the candidates promised to free him. The political temperature at that time was highly unstable and the institutions exceedingly fragile. February 4 had shaken the armed forces to their core, and another wave of tremors shook the country when Carlos Andrés Pérez was removed from office4 after being found guilty of misappropriating public funds. At the time, it was believed that the mastermind behind February 4 was more dangerous inside the prison, where he had become a constant source of conflict, than outside. The consensus was that once Chávez was out on the street, his myth would deflate.
“He had to be sentenced, and after the sentencing, he could have been pardoned, but that would have left him inoperative politically. [Instead,] Caldera dismissed the case, got him out, and handed him the opportunity to be president,” recalls Carlos Andrés Pérez. “Caldera dismissed the case, in effect telling Chávez, ‘You have not committed any crime.’”
There had been, in fact, two possibilities for Chávez’s release: on one hand, he might have been brought to trial and then pardoned. Today, many people reproach Caldera, a renowned constitutional lawyer, for having taken the shortcut of possibility number two, that of discontinuing the proceedings. Some even claim he took this route as a way of thanking Chávez because the February 4 coup allowed him to give a much-vaunted speech, broadcast on live television direct from Congress, that paved the way for his own political resurrection.5
“I have to say that on February 4, I was quite positively impressed by Chávez, as was everyone. Those few moments Chávez spent on television presented him as a sensible, well-balanced man. He said what he had to say quite well, and he came off as a real television artist, without a doubt,” remarks Caldera, who denies any previous contact with Chávez, despite the coup leader’s best efforts to connect with him. While in Yare, Chávez “called my house, and María, the woman who works for us, answered the phone. And so we made jokes with her, saying ‘Oh sure, you’re one of Chávez’s friends, aren’t you?’ because she had had the chance to speak to him when she picked up. But after that I don’t remember if we ever exchanged a single word. And if we did, it was very brief, because I was very careful…there were no conversations, nor any kind of negotiations.”
In his faint voice, Caldera defended his decision to free him: “Dismissal does not imply a value judgment. When you dismiss a legal proceeding, you are not saying that the proceeding is relevant or irrelevant, nor are you pardoning anyone. You simply put an end to the case for reasons of acute national interest. In that sense it was much easier to make the decision to dismiss the case.” The veteran Christian Democrat leader invoked this logic as a way of thwarting any attempt to blame him for the ex-insurgent’s political victory and the country’s situation, present and future. Those who made Chávez president, he says, are the ones who voted for him.
While they tended to present themselves to the press as something of a fraternity, there was actually a great deal of friction among the officers behind the February 4 coup. The sixty insurgents who had not been returned to their barracks were split up among four prisons: San Carlos, Yare, Lino de Clemente (inside Fort Tiuna), and the eighth floor of the military hospital. The men at Yare were widely considered the most volatile, recalls Raúl Salazar, a commander of the Third Army Division, who was in close contact with the prisoners known as the “Gallows 13”: “There was a severe lack of discipline in there. They were rebellious, didn’t listen to anyone. There were problems among them, as well. After a while it calmed down.” According to Salazar, who later became Chávez’s minister of defense before distancing himself from the movement in 2002, the great majority of the detainees were “dreamers conquered by historical theory, who believed that they could change the course of Venezuela without any political knowledge.”
A few days before his release from prison, Hugo Chávez and his close friend Jesús Urdaneta spoke about their imminent liberation. Of the entire group of insur
gents, they were the only two still behind bars. They were likely stunned by their good luck, for they had spent only two years in jail, at a time when the crime of military insurgence was punishable by a thirty-year prison sentence. The only consequence was that they would have to hang up their military uniforms forever. As they prepared to go, Chávez turned to his friend and said, “You go first. I’ll go out after.” Then he added, “Caldera wants to talk to us, do you want to talk to him?”
Urdaneta replied, “Yes, I think we ought to thank him for being willing to resolve the issue of the officers in jail.”
According to Urdaneta, Chávez bristled at that, and said, “No, compadre. I’m not doing that! That old slob, I’m not talking to him. He only did it because the whole country pressured him into doing it.”
Urdaneta then said, “Well, you have your reasons, then, and I have mine. I am going to talk with him because anyone else could have kept us in jail for as long as he pleased.” That, says Urdaneta, “caused some unpleasantness between the two of us.”
One month after their release, Caldera phoned Urdaneta, who went to see him with his family. “I told him how grateful I was that he had allowed the officers involved in the uprising to reintegrate back into society…my military career was over. He told me that he wanted me to start my life over and offered me a job in the foreign service.” Shortly afterward, the former insurgent Jesús Urdaneta moved to Spain as head of the Venezuelan Consulate in Vigo, where he remained for five years. Arias had also accepted an olive branch extended by the Caldera government, when he agreed to head the Food Program for Mothers and Infants, which served as a launching pad that helped him secure the governor’s seat of the oil-rich state of Zulia one year later. Yoel Acosta was offered a job at the communications ministry. Hugo Chávez, however, held his ground, refusing to budge. Or offer his thanks.
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