The whirlwind events of April 13-15 spell uncertainty for the Future of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela and the United State’s relationship with each.

by Gustavo A. Mata and Victor Pineda
The trajectory was uneasily similar: massive demonstrations, overreaction by the government, the intervention of the military, and another Latin American leader overthrown. So it seemed last month to leaders across the Western Hemisphere, when Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was toppled and swept back into power over one weekend, reinvigorating memories of the bad old days in Latin American politics.

Despite the massive demonstrations and considerable public discontent with Mr. Chavez, the coup was masterminded by business interests, as was evident by the appointment of Pedro Carmona Estanga as head of the “transitional” government”. Before his ill-advised power grab, Mr. Carmona was the president of the National Business Chamber (Fedecamaras), Venezuela’s summit business organization.

HOLLOW AT THE CORE

Immediately after assuming power, Mr. Carmona committed a series of political blunders that ensured his doom and gave Mr. Chavez the opening he needed to resume office. First, Mr. Carmona dissolved the National Assembly and ordered the arrest of a number of public officials that supported the former president. He went on to roll back some of the popular social programs implemented by Mr. Chavez, including a 20 percent payroll increase for public employees. For his finale, Mr. Carmona invalidated the Constitution of 1999, which an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans had approved in a national referendum.

Mr. Carmona might have survived despite these measures if his appointments had been more judicious. He excluded two powerhouses in Venezuelan politics, Accion Democratica, one of Venezuela’s traditional political parties, and the National Confederation of Labor (CTV). Shutting the door in the CTV’s face was a particularly curious decision, given that Fedecamaras and the CTV have enjoyed good relations for the past fifty years. They were united in opposition to Mr. Chavez, even combining to organize three general strikes against the government in the past year, including the April 10 strike that culminated in Mr. Chavez’s ouster. Such a convergence of interest of business and labor is rare in politics, but Mr. Carmona evidently felt his position was strong enough to exclude a powerful ally. According to political scientist Jesus Herrera from the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Carmona’s dismissive attitude toward such powerful political forces shows the extent to which his government was dominated by elements of the extreme right.

In the end, these self-imposed internal schisms brought down the Carmona government. When he dissolved the National Assembly, armed forces chief General Efrain Vasquez threatened to withdraw his support. Mr. Carmona reconsidered his decision and suspended the inauguration of his new cabinet. Now Mr. Carmona appeared weak in addition to high-handed: Dr. Herrera suggests that it appeared that the real power lay with General Vasquez.

Meanwhile, on the day after the coup (April 13) Chavez supporters surrounded the presidential palace and demanded his return. Mr. Carmona was forced to leave the palace and move to Fuerte Tiuna, a military base in Caracas. Concurrently, military bases in the cities of Maracay, Valencia and Barquisimeto rebelled against Carmona’s government and threw their support behind Mr. Chavez.

Upon being removed from office, Mr. Chavez had been sequestered and taken to four different locations, until he finally arrived at the Isla de la Orchila, an island in the Caribbean. When Mr. Carmona fled, Mr. Chavez was released by a group of loyal paratroopers. He returned to the presidential palace in the early morning of Sunday, April 14, barely catching his breath before he declared triumphantly in a press conference, “to God what belongs to God, to the Caesar what belongs to the Caesar, and to the people what belongs to the people.”

THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

As soon as he assumed power, Mr. Carmona announced that Venezuela would pursue its own interests in the Western Hemisphere ahead of its commitments to the Organization of Petroleum Producing Countries (OPEC). In other words, Venezuela would no longer adhere to OPEC’s production quotas and threaten the effectiveness of the cartel. Mr. Carmona went on to announce a moratorium to Venezuela’s shipments of oil to the state of Cuba.

The policy shift played well to American audiences. With turmoil in the Middle East threatening oil prices (which rose sharply in April), the prospect of Mr. Carmona deviating from OPEC collective action appealed to nervous American businessmen. And even apart from omnipresent oil rows, the U.S. government has had its own problems with Mr. Chavez. The Venezuelan president has been an outspoken advocate for third-world countries, and maintains warm relationships with pariah states Libya and Cuba. Mr. Chavez was the first head of state to visit Iraq after the sanctions were imposed. He spoke out publicly against the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and refused to provide the American government access to the private records of thousands of Arab-Venezuelans.

Mr. Chavez also has been a continual thorn in the side of American efforts to promote free trade in Latin America. He has criticized the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, and he reluctantly signed the hemispheric Declaration of Quebec because he thought it promoted representative democracy instead of the participatory type.

When news of the coup reached the U.S., the Bush administration sent conflicting messages: it stopped short of endorsing the coup, but it blamed Mr. Chavez for his troubles rather than condemning the undemocratic transfer of power. Apart from El Salvador, the U.S.’s voice was alone in the Western Hemisphere in failing to denounce the coup. Instead, the U.S. held to the line that Mr. Chavez had “resigned” (albeit under pressure) as a result of popular pressure.

Although Venezuela’s neighbors have been critical of Mr. Chavez, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica and the European Union expressed concern for the manner in which the transition was orchestrated. Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Paraguay refused to recognize Mr. Carmona’s government until free elections were held.

THE AFTERMATH

On the Monday following the turbulent weekend, Mr. Chavez alleged that he had seen private airplane with U.S. markings when he was being held at the Isla de la Orchila; he plans to conduct an investigation. Venezuelan journalists reported more plausible U.S. involvement, writing that the organizers of the coup met with the U.S. Ambassador, Charles Shapiro, in Venezuela prior to the coup. The U.S. government confirmed that the meeting took place but denied that the Bush administration had anything to do with the coup preparations.

Upon the return of Mr. Chavez, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice chided him for failing to heed the Venezuelan people’s message that his policies “were not working” and that he had dealt with them in a “high-handed fashion”.

Calling for national reconciliation, Ms. Rice said: “We do hope that Mr Chavez. . . takes advantage of this opportunity to right his own ship which has, quite frankly, been moving in the wrong direction for some time.” While Venezuelans wait to see where their destiny will take them, Mr. Chavez must practice the political flexibility Mr. Carmona so sorely lacked if he is to unite Venezuelan society and regain international confidence.