Chávez Comeback Exposes U.S. Government & Media Lies
By D. Baatar, Jared Israel, Nestor Gorojovsky & Nico Varkevisser [Posted 14 April 2002]
To paraphrase an old proverb: "Celebrate in haste; repent at leisure."
On September 13th the New York Times rushed to gloat that one more opponent of the US Empire had been crushed.
Never you mind that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had been elected by overwhelming popular vote. (In contrast, might
we note, to George Walker Bush.)
An editorial in the Times described the Venezuelan military/big business coup d'état as an effort to reassert democracy:
"Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator...[because] the military intervened and handed
power to a respected business leader." - N Y Times (1)
And the Times added:
"But democracy has not yet been restored, and won't be until a new president is elected." (1)
In the bad old Cold War days, the US Establishment used to attack its opponents for not holding multiparty elections.
Well, Venezuela did hold multiparty elections and Chávez won by a landslide. But this was not sufficient.
In the New World Order, democracy is not defined any longer as holding elections. Democracy is defined as supporting US
polices. No matter how many elections Chávez won by how many landslides, his resistance to US Diktat made him by
definition antidemocratic, that is, "a would-be dictator."
Thus when the military took over Venezuela three days ago and installed a pro-Washington big business leader as
President, the Times did not describe this military coup d'état as a threat to democracy. Rather, they described it as
*ending* a threat to democracy.
Similarly, in the past, NY Times editorials have immediately applauded coup d'états in Yugoslavia (overthrowing elected
President Slobodan Milosevic) and the Philippines (overthrowing elected President Joseph Estrada).
But this time the Times gloated a bit too soon.
EVERYBODY IS IN SUCH A HURRY
Since the New World Order has re-defined democracy as subservience to US diktat, it is only fair that the democratic
content of every event should be given a rating by the US government.
Thus it is by no means surprising that the US State Department issued a Press Statement rating the democratic content of
the Venezuelan coup d'état.
The only problem is, the State Department, like the New York Times, published a bit too soon.
Within hours of the coup, a State Department Press Statement declared unqualified support for the coup. This document
praised the military, which had just seized power, for acting with "restraint" and blamed Hugo Chávez for the coup
d'état because under his government:
"essential elements of democracy...have been weakened in recent months." - State Dep't Statement (2)
To what "essential elements of democracy" might State be referring? They didn't say, but all the newspapers have pointed
out that the big dispute in Venezuela has been over the State-owned oil company.
Venezuelan President Chávez had weakened "essential elements of democracy" by appointing as leaders of the state-owned
oil company people that were (horrors!) loyal to his administration rather than to Chevron Oil and, perhaps even worse,
by selling oil to Cuba at an affordable price.
Chávez must not have been aware that that willingness to strangle Cuba is a crucial component of the New World Order's
definition of "democracy."
The State Department declaration repeated the common media line, without introducing a shred of evidence, that:
"Chávez supporters, on orders, fired on unarmed, peaceful protestors, resulting in more than 100 wounded or killed." (2)
And:
"The results of these provocations are: Chávez resigned the presidency. Before resigning, he dismissed the Vice
President and the Cabinet. A transition civilian government has promised early elections." (2)
So let's get this right.
First, Chávez ordered his supporters to kill a few opponents. This could hardly have been expected to disperse a large
demonstration which had been called by leading TV stations and part of the military. But it could certainly have been
expected to assist military leaders who were openly looking for - or trying to manufacture - an excuse to stage a coup
d'état.
Having provided this excuse by murdering said opponents Chávez then switched character and acted with remorse by firing
himself and everyone else who was (we are told) involved. This Chávez is very mercurial, no?
We can now state with certainty that a) Chávez never resigned; b) he never dismissed his vice president and cabinet. In
other words, the State Department, confident that Chávez had been silenced for good, was lying.
But why?
Because they wanted the military takeover to appear as a "Change of Government" (which, by the way is the title of the
State Department declaration) rather than what it was: a US instigated military coup d'état.
To allow this, it was necessary that before departing the scene Chávez should dismiss every single top government
official, and then himself.
Mind you, it would have been entirely unacceptable for Chávez to begin by firing himself. Once he dismissed himself he
would no longer have had the authority to dismiss the vice president and all cabinet members. This would have violated
prescribed State Department procedures, making it undemocratic.
Since we know for sure that the State Department was lying through its teeth when it claimed Chávez had resigned and
fired everyone, isn't it reasonable to believe they were also lying through their teeth when they claimed he ordered
supporters to shoot some opponents?
Keep in mind that shooting opponents was an act which (like dismissing his government) could only have helped his
opponents by giving them a seeming justification for the coup d'état which had been openly called for by some military
officers, appearing on "opposition" TV stations.
Even as the Mighty and their Media congratulated themselves on the "democratic" coup and admired this reassertion of
their invincibility, another voice was heard.
The wretched of this earth, residents of the slums of Caracas, whose suffering is the ugly secret of the glossy US
Empire, came in their thousands, in from the countryside, down from the hills around Caracas, and with loyalist soldiers
they took Venezuela back from the hands of what the CIA boys like to call "Civil society," and all we can say is this is
how the current worldwide empire of lies will end: by just such actions of the ordinary, wonderful, decent people of
this world, God bless them.
Ends