[Cincinatus' Wife]

Venezuela: Postmortem of a Coup*** 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:***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Chavez Saves Democracy? The restored Venezuelan president has many problems***But President Chavez has many problems. The insurrection preceding his 48-hour dethronement was something substantially of his own making. There were tens of thousands of demonstrators out there protesting Chavez policies. He confronted that problem in high autocratic style: He forced television stations to go off the air, and ordered snipers and other armed loyalists at the presidential palace to open fire. When word got around that a dozen people had been killed and many wounded, military commanders took over, effecting his momentary withdrawal.

....... We have an endless problem, contending with our superstitious assumption that a democratically elected leader is absolutely entitled to govern. He is presumptively entitled to govern. Allende was democratically elected in Chile, and in three years was busy subverting freedom of the press and the nation's Constitution, inaugurating years of despotism by Pinochet. The restored Hugo Chavez has said he will seek to cooperate with the policies of his opponents, and so far, he hasn't executed anybody, but democratic standards aren't automatically guaranteed by his restoration. The U.S. didn't engineer the attempted coup, but there is no reason to rejoice in its failure.***