|
 |
 |
|
If you read our column posted here yesterday, you know Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez was deposed over the weekend. This column is here to advise you that his dismissal didn't take. Twenty-four hours after some military chiefs got his resignation and held him prisoner at an army base, some other chiefs prevailed and restored him to power at Miraflores, the presidential palace in Caracas.
It's not that the overwhelming public sentiment against Chávez evaporated in 24 hours; it is that many more military chiefs than those initially involved in the coup did their political arithmetic and enough of them concluded that his departure from power might not be in their best interests-or, as they would rather put it, "in the interests of the fatherland."
Sure there were public demonstrations of support for Chávez when it became known he was overthrown, but nothing like the nation-wide protests against him by labor unions, businessmen, the news media and the Roman Catholic Church that had mounted in the last few months for his failure to stop the rise of unemployment, crime and inflation and for policies that nosed-dived the economy instead of helping to fulfill his promise of eradicating the poverty that afflicts 80 percent of the 24 million people of that oil-rich nation.
His downfall was triggered last week when, seeing his popularity plummeting from 80 percent when he took office three years ago to 25 percent today, he ordered National Guard troops and civilian gunmen, including rooftop snipers, to break down a 150,000-strong opposition demonstration in the country's capital, with at least 16 people killed and 110 wounded and, as the bloodbath unfolded, ordering five television stations off the air-charging they were inciting violence. Faced with these events, some military chiefs thought the time had come to ask Chávez for his resignation-which he easily provided. He now says he never did resign, which appears to be technically true because, according to one of the military chiefs involved, there is a recording in which Chávez says he will resign, but he did not sign a resignation.
It has become clear now that military chiefs who has remained uninvolved in the coup had second thoughts about the international echo a constitutional disruption might have and the domestic unrest Chávez's hardcore supporters might generate-and in the subsequent 24 hours moved to support Chávez, even as the successful coup leaders were appointing on Friday a transitional president, businessman Pedro Carmona, who himself resigned Saturday when he saw the tide was changing.
Late Saturday afternoon some military chiefs were publicly discussing where Chávez would be sent to exile; by midnight the word was that he would return to Miraflores; by early dawn on Sunday he was making his way into the palace and, shortly after, clutching a crucifix in one hand and a miniature copy of Venezuela's 1999 constitution in the other, he was telling a news conference "Let's put our house in order."
"There isn't going to be any retaliation, no witch hunt. I haven't any thirst for revenge," he said, although he did say that the coup leader would be brought to justice.
Recognizing that both his government and his foes had made mistakes, Chávez urged both the government and its opponents, to seek consensus. "There has to be an agreement between the two sides to get this country going."
In one apparent conciliatory gesture, Chávez said he had accepted the resignation of the board of state oil giant PDVSA. His nomination of the new board in February had triggered a six-week dispute in the strategic oil company which badly disrupted the country's oil output, refining and exports.
History provides mixed messages about deposed rulers who return to power. In some cases they did not do well the second time around; in others, they did well, but their own countries did badly.
Europe's most famous example among those who did not do well personally is Napoleon. When he escaped in March 1815 from Elba, the island to which he had been banished by his adversaries, the European allies, he reached France and marched on Paris, winning over the troops sent to capture him. But was defeated by his enemy allies at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815, one hundred days after he had staged his comeback. He was then exiled to Saint Helena, a remote island in the south Atlantic Ocean, where he remained until his death on May 5, 1821.
A more pertinent example in Latin America is Juan Peron.
Upon his return to Argentina in 1941 from a military mission to Italy, Col. Peron, an admirer of dictator Benito Mussolini, joined other officers in a secret military lodge that staged a coup d'état in June 1943. He took over the department of labor and proceeded to transform the labor movement by weakening the influence of left-wing parties on it, enacting new laws and implementing old ones, and creating new unions-much as Chávez has done. As his power grew-he was made vice president as well as minister of war-opposition within the armed forces became widespread. On October 9, 1945, he was forced to resign from his three posts, detained, and imprisoned. Peron's resignation triggered a government crisis that was resolved on October 17, when his labor supporters, mobilized by his mistress, María Eva Duarte (who became famous as Evita after he married her), obtained his release.
Elected president in 1946, Peron pursued prolabor, pronationalist policies, helped by his wife, who became an influential, although informal, member of his government. In the early 1950s, benefits to labor began to diminish. The death of Evita (1952), economic difficulties, increasing labor unrest. His excommunication by the Roman Catholic church further weakened Peron's government, and in 1955 he was ousted by the military. Through 18 years of exile, however, Peron retained his labor support and influence in Argentine politics. He was finally allowed to return in 1973 and was then elected president.
Peron died in office on July 1, 1974, but the damage he did to Argentina's economy with his misguided policies is the main source of the problems the country is now facing.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com