Posted on 04/12/2002 6:40:56 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez, the former army paratrooper who polarized Venezuela with his strongarm rule and whose friendship with Cuba and Iraq irritated the United States, resigned under military pressure Friday after a massive opposition demonstration ended in a bloodbath.
Chavez, 47, presented his resignation to three officers after he was confronted by the military high command at the presidential palace, said the Air Force chief, Gen. Regulo Anselmi, who was present at the time.
At 3 a.m. Friday, Chavez, wearing military fatigues and a red beret - as he did when he led a failed 1992 coup against then-President Carlos Andres Perez - left the palace for Caracas' Fort Tiuna army base. He was being held there while investigators decide what charges he could face for Thursday's violence, said army commander Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco.
Chavez asked to be allowed to go into exile in Cuba, but the miltiary turned him down, army Gen. Roman Fuemayor told Globovision television. "He has to be held accountable to his country," Fuemayor said.
Oil prices dipped on news of Chavez' downfall, amid expectations it would bring an increase in production at the world's fourth biggest oil exporter. Venezuela is the No. 3 supplier to the United States. Output had been sharply cut amid a strike at the state-run oil monopoly, which spiralled into a massive protest against Chavez.
Pedro Carmona, head of Venezuela's largest business association, announced he would head a transitional government to be installed later Friday. He also announced an immediate end to a general strike called earlier this week against Chavez.
Thousands of Venezuelans celebrated overnight, waving flags, blowing whistles and jamming a main highway in Caracas. Police warned that Chavez supporters reportedly were distributing weapons, especially in the hillside slums surrounding the capital. Officers raided storehouses, seizing dozens of firearms.
Downtown, streets were littered with debris - and in some places, stained with blood. Shops and businesses remained closed, and most people simply stayed home, stunned and wondering what would come next. Buses were half-empty, and those reporting to work hurried amidst rubble-strewn sidewalks.
Chavez quit just hours after at least 13 people were killed and 110 wounded during a 150,000-strong opposition demonstration in downtown Caracas. Chavez had ordered National Guard troops and civilian gunmen, including rooftop snipers, to stop the marchers from reaching the palace, military officers said.
The demonstration was the culmination of a strike called by the 1 million-member Venezuelan Workers Confederation and the business association Fedecamaras. The strike was in support of executives at the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, who were protesting Chavez's appointments to top company posts.
"I urge Venezuelans to maintain calm, to keep faith, to continue working on the road toward democracy, freedom and peace," said retired Gen. Guaicaipuro Lameda, who until February headed the oil company and was a leader of the movement to oust Chavez. "It's with sadness that to reach this point, so many people had to die, so many wounded."
The Bush administration said it was closely monitoring the political upheaval in Venezuela. "Our interests are in democracy and democratic institutions," said a senior U.S. official traveling with Secretary of State Colin Powell in Jerusalem.
In London, Brent crude oil opened 44 cents down from Thursday at $24.60 per barrel. In New York, May contracts of light sweet U.S. crude fell 46 cents a barrel to $24.53.
During Thursday's clashes, National Guard troops fired tear gas at the front ranks of marchers bearing sticks and throwing rocks. Tear gas drifted into the presidential compound. Rooftop snipers and
Chavez supporters repeatedly fired upon the protesters and even ambulance crews trying to evacuate the wounded. As many as 110 people were wounded, Greater Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena said.
As the bloodbath unfolded, Chavez ordered five Caracas television stations off the air - charging they were inciting violence. Most Venezuelans were denied images of "Chavistas" repeatedly firing on unarmed protesters, bodies lying in pools of blood on the streets, and hooded thugs attacking police until after the military rebelled.
The rapid developments stunned this oil-rich, yet poverty-stricken nation. But opposition to Chavez's three-year presidencey had been growing for some time.
He had irritated Washington with his close ties to Cuban President Fidel Castro visits to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and to Libya, and criticism of U.S. bombings in Afghanistan.
And he had alienated virtually every sector of Venezuelan society, with his attacks on the news media and Roman Catholic Church leaders, his refusal to consult with business leaders, and his failed attempt to assert control over labor groups.
Chavez's government also inherited a staggering $21 billion in back wages and pensions owed workers by previous administrations - a debt he was unable to pay.
His suspected ties to Colombia's leftist guerrillas angered many in the military and abroad.
Domestic opponents claimed his government was secretly arming neighborhood block committees known as "Bolivarian Circles," named after South American liberator Simon Bolivar, to defend his revolution. The Circles were created after Castro urged Chavez's supporters to organize during a 2000 visit.
Chavez also exasperated Venezuelans with his frequent use of "cadenas" - hours-long presidential speeches that by law had to be broadcast by all Venezuelan TV and radio stations.
For Chavez, who on Tuesday boasted he would remain president until 2021, the end came quickly.
Just last Friday, he refused to negotiate with the striking oil executives, who were demanding that he remove a company board he had appointed Feb. 25. The executives claimed Chavez was trying to strengthen his hold on a multinational corporation that cherishes its autonomy.
The oil executives launched a slowdown last week that cut production at the Paraguana refinery complex, one of the world's largest, to below 50 percent capacity. They closed another refinery, disrupted gasoline deliveries and all but stopped loading of oil tankers. Oil generates 80 percent of Venezuela's foreign earnings.
Anselmi said the military urged Chavez on Wednesday to negotiate. He agreed, but by then the Petroleos de Venezuela executives had rejected such overtures.
After Thursday's violence, the high command decided Chavez had to go, and they confronted him en masse in his offices, Anselmi said. Troops seized the government television station as tanks rumbled on the streets. Chavez's longtime mentor, former Interior Minister Luis Miquilena, condemned the repression.
Chavez, surrounded by a nervous Cabinet, finally handed his resignation to Anselmi, Armed Forces Inspector General Gen. Lucas Rincon Romero and National Guard commander Gen. Belisario Landis.
"Being a friend of his for many years, I advised him to resign and allow Venezuelans to avoid a bigger bloodbath," said Gen. Francisco Uson, who until Thursday served as Chavez's finance minister.
Vasquez Velasco, the army commander, said 95 percent of army forces were under his control, as well as all airports and major military bases. Incoming international commercial flights were canceled until further notice.
"We ask the Venezuelan people's forgiveness for today's events," said Vasquez Velasco. "Mr. President, I was loyal to the end, but today's deaths cannot be tolerated."
So was Mugabe. Go back to Cuba, hack.
As opposed to Chavez looting the same, and giving the money to his slum-thugs to keep them happy and himself in power
At least the oligarchs have an incentive to keep the economy going smoothly -- Communist-types never seem to manage that competantly
Contrast the aftermath of the French Revolution: the propertyless engaging in mass killing over who would get the loot confiscated from the nobility
Much of South America resembles 18th Century France and 19th Century Russia more than it resembles early US: you have wealthy oligarchs surrounded by numerous unskilled, uneducated, propertyless peasant-types. "Democracy" then becomes a code-word for "lets have us educated intelligensia types organize the poor into a thug army that will allow us to loot the rich"
Guess he's not Hitler after all.
The next guy will be same animal just different stripes. Probably Soto, ex general who was in Washington earlier this week. Probably have an ex Arther Anderson guy counting the barrels they pull out of the ground...just like next door in Colombia.
Chavez stepped down at the point where he was his choices were to step down or be killed
He saw he was not likely to get hung on a meathook, like Mussolini, so he didn't see a need to put a bullet in his head in his bunker
You paint a rosy picture of the typical Cuban's affluence. What else do they have besides the Giorgio Armani suits, Rolexes and $100 perfumes? Yachts? Annual per capita income in Cuba is ~$1700, in case you didn't know. And the internal exchange rate is 22 pesos to the US dollar. Even professionals, such as doctors and professors, are grossly underpaid and frequently moonlight as bartenders and waiters. The majority of Cubans eat a subsistence diet consisting of about half the calories they should be getting. They have many problems, but obesity is definitely not one of them.
Gordon DiRenzo, leftist professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, was recently permitted an extensive tour of Cuba. He observed and interviewed many people all over that island and concluded the following:
"...less people in jail than in the US..."
There is no way you or your "friend" could possibly how many people are imprisoned in Cuba. Castro has consistently refused to release prison population statistics to anybody, including the left-wing "human rights" groups who clamor for them endlessly. It is well-known that the island is peppered with many jails, prisons, detention centers and forced labor farms, and the prison population estimates I've seen vary wildly. But even if we accept the lowest of these estimates, Cuba would have one of the highest prisoner densities in the world. In any event, Cuba has less than 6% of our population, so why would it surprise anybody that they would have fewer people in prison than we do?
Your "friend's" claim of a rapidly expanding tourism industry is also contradicted by the facts. Cuban tourism is declining. Hundreds of hotel rooms have been shut down and so have some of the hotels themselves. Yes, there are still many tourists who go there, but recent years have seen a net loss in their numbers and also in the available accomodations.
For once, maybe you should just face facts -- after slaughtering these demonstrators, Chavez failed to get out of the country in time and had no choice but to finally step down. He was surrounded and out-numbered.
I could have guessed...
Just as a matter of curiousity, what makes you think I've never been to Venezuela? As a matter of fact, I have been there, and I have Venezuelan friends and colleagues.
And Hitler was elected; it's a matter of fact.
And I think you've probably gone back to whatever left-wing infested little corner you crawled out of - after somebody pointed out that you just joined a day ago!
I think some US envoys may have been talking to the new government: "You need money, you need US support, we need the price of oil to drop below $20 in order to get us out of recession. Come, let us reason together..."
BTW, Oil finished the day down $1.50/barrel
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