8. Editorial, El Nacional, December 7, 1998.
9. Luis Ugalde et al., Detrás de la pobreza (Caracas: Civil Association for the Promotion of Social Studies and the Andrés Bello Catholic University, 2004).
10. “La boina imagen de Chávez,” Revista Producto 184 (February 1999).
11. El Nacional, June 8, 1998.
12. Petkoff ended his activism with MAS when the party decided to support the candidacy of Hugo Chávez.
13. El Nacional, July 24, 1998.
14. William Izarra, En busca de la revolución (Caracas: unpublished manuscript, 2001), 134.
CHAPTER 2: “ME, A COMMUNIST?”
1. Agustín Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 2nd ed. (Caracas: Fundación Cátedra Pío Tamayo, Central University of Venezuela, 2003), 332.
2. Ibid., 83.
3. Elizalde and Báez, “Chávez nuestro.”
4. A book by the Chilean journalist Marta Harnecker.
5. Marta Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo (Caracas: n.p., 2002), 24.
6. Elizalde and Báez, “Chávez nuestro.”
7. Venezolana de Televisión documentary, August 13, 2004.
8. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 562.
9. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 15–16.
10. Institute for Economic and Social Research, University of the Andes.
11. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 40.
CHAPTER 3: AN EXISTENTIAL CONFLICT
1. Elizalde and Báez, “Chávez nuestro.”
2. Ibid.
3. Venezolana de Televisión documentary, August 13, 2004.
4. Hugo Chávez, unpublished letters.
5. Venezolana de Televisión documentary, August 13, 2004.
6. Elizalde and Báez, “Chávez nuestro.”
7. See Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, and Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo.
8. Though he stepped down in 1978, Torrijos continued to control the political machine in Panama until his death in a 1981 airplane crash.
9. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 44.
10. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 20.
11. Ibid., 21.
12. Ramón Piñango, “Muerte de la armonía,” in En esta Venezuela, realidades y nuevos caminos (Caracas: Ediciones IESA, 2003), 17.
13. Ibid., 56.
14. Gabriel García Márquez, “El enigma de los dos Chávez,” Cambio, February 1999, www.voltairenet.org/article120084.htm.
15. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 57.
16. Ibid.
17. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 24.
CHAPTER 4: THE MAN, THE CONSPIRATOR
1. Alberto Garrido, Guerrilla y conspiración militar en Venezuela (Caracas: Fondo Editorial Nacional, 1999), 53.
2. The Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV), founded in 1931 and banned until 1969; the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), founded in 1960 as a Marxist-Leninist offshoot of the governmental Democratic Action party, banned in 1962 and legalized in 1969.
3. The Betancourt government reported the case to the Organization of American States, invoking the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. An investigative commission sent by the OAS concluded that the weapons had come from Cuba, and to this end in July of 1964 a group of foreign ministers held a meeting at which they decided (14 votes in favor, 4 against, and 1 abstention) to sever diplomatic, consular, and economic ties with Havana, which had already been excluded from the Inter-American system in 1962.
4. Elizalde and Báez, “Chávez nuestro.”
5. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 45.
6. Carúpano, on May 4, 1962, and Puerto Cabello, on June 2, 1962.
7. Izarra, En busca de la revolución, 67.
8. Garrido, Guerrilla y conspiración militar en Venezuela, 56.
9. The officer David López Rivas, brother of Samuel López, a member of the Party for the Venezuelan Revolution.
10. Alberto Garrido, Testimonios de la revolución bolivariana, (Mérida: privately published, 2002), 123.
11. The president was probably confusing the MIR with the Party for the Venezuelan Revolution.
12. Elizalde and Báez, “Chávez nuestro.”
13. Garrido, Testimonios de la revolución bolivariana, 11.
14. Ibid., 12.
15. Iván Jiménez, Los golpes de estado desde Castro hasta Caldera (Caracas: Centralca, 1996).
16. Marta Harnecker, Venezuela, militares junto al pueblo (Madrid: El Viejo Topo, 2003), 194.
17. Alberto Garrido, El otro Chávez, testimonio de Herma Marksman (Mérida: author’s edition, 2002), 107–8.
18. Carlos Croes, “El Ejército Bolivariano lo fundamos en el año del viernes negro,” Quinto Día (February 2, 1999): 4.
19. Garrido, Testimonios de la revolución bolivariana, 17.
CHAPTER 5: PREPARING THE UPRISING
1. M. Socorro, “Hugo Chávez,” Venezuela Analítica (www.analitica.com).
2. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 158, 466.
3. Ibid., 416.
4. Jiménez, Los golpes de estado desde Castro hasta Caldera, 134.
5. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 133–34.
6. Poll conducted by Gaither published in El Nacional, January 26, 1992.
7. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 135.
CHAPTER 6: STROKE OF LUCK
1. According to the report submitted by Vice Admiral Elías Daniels, inspector of the armed forces at the time, Hugo Chávez left Maracay with 2 superior officers, 13 subordinates, 3 noncommissioned officers, 3 professional soldiers, and 440 enlisted men. For more detail, see Daniels, Militares y Democracia (Caracas: José Agustín Catalá Editor, 1992), 188–89.
2. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 32.
3. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 479.
4. The rebel operative was headed up by Miguel Rodríguez Torres, at the time a captain and now the director of the Scientific Police (CIPCJ).
5. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 473.
6. General Eutimio Fuguet Borregales.
7. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 143.
8. The men in question were Captain Ronald Blanco La Cruz, governor of the state of Táchira, and Captain Antonio Rojas Suárez, governor of the state of Bolívar, who has since abandoned the ranks of the pro-Chávez party.
9. According to the testimony of Chávez and the other commanders, this was Captain René Gimón Alvarez.
10. Elías Daniels, Militares y democracia (Caracas: José Agustín Catalá Editor, 1992), 179–80.
11. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 147–48.
12. Ibid., 148.
13. Ibid., 491.
14. Ibid.
15. Daniels, Militares y democracia, 194.
16. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 473.
17. Jiménez, Los golpes de estado desde Castro hasta Caldera, 133.
18. The register kept by Vice Admiral Elías Daniels, inspector of the armed forces at the time, spoke of 2,668 troops involved.
19. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 476.
20. Ibid., 261.
21. According to the detailed account offered by the journalist Angela Zago in her book La rebelión de los ángeles, one captain, two second lieutenants, two corporals, nine soldiers, four policemen, one sergeant, and one civilian died in the operation.
22. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 550.
23. Ibid., 226.
CHAPTER 7: A MODEL OFFICER
1. “La noche de las boinas rojas,” Revista Zeta 885 (February 6, 1992): 56–62.
2. Judith Martorelli, “Interview with Hugo Chávez,” El Globo, February 29, 1992.
3. Golpes militares en Venezuela (Caracas: José Agustín Catalá Editor, 1998), 132.
4. Ibid., 124.
5. Alberto Arvelo Ramos, El dilema del chavismo, una incógnita en el poder (Caracas: José Agustín Catalá Editor, 1998), 56.
6. Golpes militares, 148.
7. Arvelo Ramos, El dilema del chavismo, 71.
9. Kléber Ramírez, Historia documental del 4 de febrero (Caracas: n.p., 1998).
10. Arvelo Ramos, El dilema del chavismo, 56.
11. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 149–50.
12. He said the following to Marta Harnecker: “Even I remember that I brought a truck full of weapons from Maracay to Caracas, and nobody ever came to pick them up. We had agreed to arm those popular combat groups…. There was no popular mobilization, nothing. So we were left alone in the rebellion, without people, as if in a void, like a fish without water.” This quote is taken from Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 32.
13. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 153–54.
14. Garrido, Testimonios de la revolución bolivariana, 23–24.
15. Ibid.
16. Reproduced by the newspaper El Globo, May 8, 1992.
17. Alfredo Meza, “Cuestionario Proust a Hugo Chávez,” Estampas, El Universal, August 9, 1998.
CHAPTER 8: “BOLÍVAR AND I”
1. Luis Bilbao, “Chávez por Chávez,” Brazilian Workers’ Party, www.pdt.org.brinternacional/hugochavez_4.htm.
2. Laura Sánchez, “Ya comienzan a oírse las cacerolas,” El Nacional, March 2, 1992.
3. “Hugo Chávez Frías: En vez de Superman mi héroe era Bolívar,” Revista Qué Pasa (Chile), August 16, 1999.
4. Luis Castro Leiva, De la patria boba a la teología bolivariana (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1987).
5. Germán Carrera Damas, El culto a Bolívar, 2nd ed. (Caracas: Alfadil Ediciones, 2003), 375.
6. Elías Pino Iturrieta, El divino Bolívar, ensayo sobre una religión republicana (Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata, 2003), 28.
7. Jiménez, Los golpes de estado desde Castro hasta Caldera, 238.
8. The leaders of the insurrection were Rear Admirals Hernán Gruber Odreman and Luis Enrique Cabrera, Air Force general Francisco Visconti, Army colonel Higinio Castro, and National Guard major Carlos Salima.
9. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 331.
10. Izarra, En busca de la revolución bolivariana, 97.
11. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 355.
12. Pino Iturrieta, El divino Bolívar, 187–96.
13. Néstor Francia, Qué piensa Chávez (Caracas: privately published, 2003), 31.
14. Hugo Chávez, Un brazalete tricolor (Valencia: Vadell Hermanos Editores, 1992).
15. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 59.
16. José León Tapia, Maisanta, el último hombre a caballo, 6th ed. (Caracas: José Agustín Catalá/El Centauro, 2000), 22.
17. The admiration and gratitude Hugo Chávez felt for Tapia led the doctor-writer to ally himself with the government in 1999, when he participated in the process of drafting the country’s new constitution. The president mentions him frequently, every time he makes any sort of allusion to Maisanta, and his name has been connected to the Chávez movement, something that has recently been a source of irritation for Tapia. He now refuses to grant interviews in which political topics are to be discussed.
18. Interview with José León Tapia, El Globo, February 19, 1992.
19. Gustavo Wanloxten, “Maisanta regresó con tanques,” El Globo, February 21, 1992.
20. Sánchez, “Ya comienzan a oírse las cacerolas.”
21. Pino Iturrieta, El divino Bolívar, 182.
22. Bilbao, “Chávez por Chávez.”
CHAPTER 9: THE SKINNY GUY IN THE LIQUI-LIQUI
1. According to a Datanalysis poll carried out in 1996, Irene Sáez had a 49.2 percent popularity rating; Chávez had 7.3 percent.
2. The liqui-liqui, also known as a liquilique, is worn in Venezuela and Colombia.
3. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 512.
4. After the 1992 coup attempts, the political pressure on Pérez continued to mount and it was suggested he resign from the presidency. In March 1993, the attorney general of the Republic initiated proceedings against Pérez for embezzlement of public funds. The money in question was $17 million worth of aid to the Nicaraguan president, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, which had come from the secret accounts of the presidency. On May 20, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that there was sufficient cause to try him, and the Congress resolved to replace him so that the trial could continue. Pérez was removed from the presidency and placed under house arrest while he awaited sentencing. Finally, on May 30, 1993, the court gave him a sentence of two years and four months of incarceration, which he completed at home.
5. In the parliamentary session that was intended to condemn the uprising, Caldera, a senator at the time, had this to say: “It is difficult to ask the people to sacrifice themselves for freedom and democracy when they think that freedom and democracy are incapable of giving them food to eat, of preventing the astronomical rise in the cost of subsistence, or of placing a definitive end to the terrible scourge of corruption that, in the eyes of the entire world, is eating away at the institutions of Venezuela with each passing day.”
6. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 41.
7. National Opinion Poll.
8. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 44.
9. El Nacional, February 4, 1996.
10. El Nacional, March 27, 1996.
11. Izarra, En busca de la revolución bolivariana, 95.
12. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 46.
13. Izarra, En busca de la revolución bolivariana, 97.
14. Blanco Muñoz, Habla el comandante, 512–13.
CHAPTER 10: STATE OF GRACE
1. Poverty Project, Andrés Bello Catholic University. According to official statistics, it was 42.3 percent.
2. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 54.
3. President Chávez’s proposal received 87.75 percent of the vote of 37.65 percent of the total electorate. The abstention rate was over 60 percent. In all, 11,022,031 Venezuelans were registered to vote, yet only 4,129,547 cast votes, according to data from the National Electoral Council.
4. Three other seats had previously been allotted to indigenous representatives.
5. Given the type of system in place—plurinominal with a single, open list—it was a very unfavorable situation for the opposition. With 66 percent of the vote, the Chávez party ended up with 95 percent of the 122 seats, whereas the opposition, with 34 percent of the votes, obtained only 5 percent of the seats—that is, 6. Had the principle of proportional representation for minorities been applied, the opposition would have secured 44 seats. Voter abstention hovered around 53.8 percent, according to the statistics of the National Electoral Council.
6. Marisol Decarli and Alicia La Rotta, “Chávez instó a venezolanos a acudir masivamente a votar,” El Universal, December 15, 1999.
7. Alicia La Rotta, “Chávez aseguró que no hará campaña por la presidencia,” El Universal, February 3, 2000.
8. There was a record-breaking abstention rate: 43 percent.
9. Harnecker, Un hombre, un pueblo, 57.
10. “Chávez: ¿le quitamos el subsidio a los colegios privados?” El Nacional, February 8, 2001.
11. Ibid.
12. Aló, Presidente, Sunday, June 17, 2001.
13. The initiative was in direct violation of two articles of the 1999 Constitution. The first article, 67, states that “the use of government funds to finance organizations of a political nature is prohibited” the second article, 145, stipulates, “Public employees are at the service of the State and not of any particular partiality.”
14. Heinz Dieterich, interview with Hugo Chávez, Venezuela Analítica (www.analitica.com), December 5, 2001.
15. Ibid.
16. The agriculture and livestock sector also questioned the fact that the adjudication of these properties to the small farmers would be limited: they could use them and transfer them to their heirs, but the plots could not be “the object of any legal sale.” Their properties could be only “object of a credit guarantee under the modali
ty of guarantee pending the harvest,” which would effectively halt any financing. Fourteen percent of the Venezuelan population is rural.
17. Dieterich, interview with Hugo Chávez.
18. Tulio Hernández, “No es un adiós sino un hasta luego,” El Universal, January 26, 2002.
CHAPTER 11: AROUND THE WORLD IN AN AIRBUS
1. “Chávez advierte a Bush sobre nuevos Vietnam,” El Universal, November 6, 2004.
2. The reader should bear in mind that this manuscript was completed on August 31, 2004.
3. A. Morán, “Le tengo el ojo puesto a La Casona,” El Universal, February 10, 1999.
4. Ibid.
5. Y. Delgado, “Gran fondo social,” El Nacional, February 10, 1999.
6. Elizabeth Araujo, “Los gastos del oficio,” Gatopardo, June 20, 2003.
7. A. Jiménez, “Presupuesto de la presidencia aumentó a Bs. 115,7 millardos,” El Nacional, May 11, 2004.
8. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria; Abdurrahman Wahid, president of Indonesia; Sayed Mohammad Khatami, president of Iran; Olusegun Obasanjo, president of Nigeria; Sheik Hamad ben-Khalifa ben-Hamed al-Thani, emir of Qatar; Hammad ben-Mohamed al Sharqui, member of the Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates; Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, crown prince of Saudi Arabia; Tami Ramada, vice president of Iraq; Mustafa al-Kharrubi, member of the Revolutionary Council of Libya; Saud Nasser al-Sabah, oil minister of Kuwait; and Rilwanu Lukman, secretary-general of OPEC.
9. Statistics from the Central Bank of Venezuela.
10. As of February 1999, the total number of people on the PDVSA payroll was 50,000, of whom 32,000 were on the per-day payroll, 16,000 were in the superior payroll, and 2,000 were in the executive payroll, according to information published in the newspaper El Nacional, March 19, 2004.
CHAPTER 12: ENTANGLED APRIL
1. Miguel Bonasso, “Anatomía íntima de un golpe contada por Chávez,” Página 12 (Argentina), June 12, 2003.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Marta Harnecker, Venezuela, militares junto al pueblo (Barcelona: El Viejo Topo, 2003), 208.
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