Taking Back Our Stolen History
CIA Orchestrates Coup to Oust Venezuala’s President Hugo Chavez, but Coup Fails
CIA Orchestrates Coup to Oust Venezuala’s President Hugo Chavez, but Coup Fails

CIA Orchestrates Coup to Oust Venezuala’s President Hugo Chavez, but Coup Fails

While the private TV stations were broadcasting one opposition politician or commentator after the other, as well as the Chavista gunmen shooting from the bridge in the direction of the opposition demonstration, the state television station broadcast interviews with pro-Chavez politicians. Both opposition supporters and Chavistas said that they were ambushed and each argued that their side had suffered most of the casualties in the confrontation that day.

Then, at 7 pm, Chavistas began to realize that a coup was indeed in progress because at that time the first of several military pronouncements was made. Vice-Admiral Hector Ramirez, reading a prepared statement from an undisclosed location, with nine other military officers behind him, read a statement that said, “We direct ourselves to the people to no longer recognize the current government, the authority of President Chavez, and of the military high command. Ramirez went on to say that given the deaths of several people in the confrontation in the city center, “the constitution obliges us to avoid more bloodshed and this obligation implies the peaceful departure of the president and the substitution of the high command.”

Next, the entire National Guard leadership, with General Carlos Alfonso Martinez speaking, followed by the vice-Minister for citizen Security, General Luis Alberto Camacho Kairuz, and then by the leadership of the DISIP—the “political police” (similar to the FBI in the U.S.)—all declared their disobedience to the President on television. Camacho Kairuz’s statement gave the first foreshadowing of what was to come. In his televised comments after calling for Chavez’s resignation, he suggested that a provisional junta should be installed to govern the country, which would initiate procedures for modifying the constitution to “return us to what we have always been: the Republic of Venezuela;”[16] that is, to remove the word “Bolivarian” from “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” General Camacho Kairuz also announced the defection of various regiments throughout the country.

The final blow to Chavez’s presidency came at 8 pm when the head of the army, General Efrain Vasquez Velasco appeared on television to renounce Chavez’s leadership, saying “until today I was loyal to you, Mr. President.” Perhaps the greatest surprise was that one of the generals considered to be closest to Chavez, the head of the military high command, General Manuel Rosendo, also declared his disobedience.

The general public that was following the events on television that evening was presented with very contradictory images. On the four major private television channels, which had been off the air temporarily, but which could be received by those with cable or satellite access, the images were of Chavistas shooting at off-screen targets and commentators claiming that they were firing at unarmed opposition demonstrators. The constant repetition of this footage was intermingled with the pronouncements of various opposition politicians and of military officers declaring their disobedience. Meanwhile, on state TV (channel 8), the broadcast was live from the Miraflores presidential palace, where several ministers and pro-Chavez National Assembly deputies were being interviewed about the day’s events. Key to the Chavista understanding of what had happened, the deputies flatly contradicted the private TV stations’ claim that it was opposition demonstrators who had been shot at. Instead, they said that it was Chavistas who were killed, many of whom were lying dead in the presidential palace itself. Deputy Juan Barreto said during these broadcasts that it was the oppositional party Bandera Roja that was the main culprit in the deaths that day; that they placed snipers in the neighboring buildings to shoot at Chavistas.

Between 9 pm and 10 pm, the state television channel (VTV) explained to its viewers that Chavez was meeting with both his ministers and the military high command, to decide how to deal with the crisis. Then, suddenly, at about 10 pm, VTV went off the air. More or less around the same time the private TV channels could be received over the regular airwaves, via antenna, again.

Rumors began to spread that Chavez had resigned and that he had asked to be taken to Cuba. Supporters of the opposition became ecstatic at the news of this possibility and congregated at the Caracas city airport, La Carlota, in the hopes of seeing Chavez’s departure. An airplane there appeared to be getting ready to leave. However, it was then announced, at about 10:30 pm, that the plane was for Chavez’s wife, Marisabel Rodriguez de Chavez, who was flying with her daughter to her hometown of Barquisimeto, in western Venezuela.

The mystery of what was happening in Miraflores continued until 1:30 am, when General Efrain Vasquez Velasco confirmed that Chavez was negotiating with military officers the conditions of his resignation. The negotiations continued with little news until 3:30 am, when General Lucas Rincon Romero took to the airwaves to announce in a brief statement that the “President of the Republic was asked to resign, which he accepted.” Rincon added that the military high command would be at the service of the “new authorities.” About half an hour later, television viewers were able to barely make out images of Chavez, as he was being escorted into the military compound of Fuerte Tiuna (Fort Tiuna). To Chavistas it seemed that Chavez had been toppled via a classic coup, while to anti-Chavistas it seemed that a ruthless dictator was finally removed from office.

The author’s perspective

By April 11, I had been living in Venezuela for about one and a half years. I considered myself to be an interested bystander, in that I thought the Chavez government’s policies were interesting and worth supporting, but I had reservations about Chavez because I thought that too often he seemed to do himself more harm than good because of the way he pursued his policies. It was not until the days leading up to the April 9th general strike, though, that I involved myself in a deeper analysis of political events in Venezuela. By the time the CTV and Fedecamaras called for an unlimited general strike, it had become obvious to me that something big was about to happen. The rhetoric was so extreme on both sides that it seemed nearly impossible for any kind of resolution of the conflict without a major confrontation of some sort.

So, on April 10th, I suspected that what some members of the opposition were aiming for was a coup, as this seemed to be the only solution for the opposition.[17] That is, the opposition was arguing that it wanted Chavez’s resignation, but given that Chavez had declared unequivocally that he would never resign, a confrontation in the form of a coup seemed the only option for the opposition. A referendum, as many in the opposition had suggested, also seemed unviable, since that option was flat-out rejected and a recall referendum would, according to the constitution only be possible once half of Chavez’s term in office had passed, on August 19, 2003. More likely seemed to me was that the opposition was hoping Chavez would declare martial law and that the opposition would use such an occasion as an excuse for a coup.

The day of the opposition demonstration to Chuao and then to Miraflores, my wife and I were at home, watching the protest on television. In the early afternoon, shortly after the demonstration headed for the presidential palace, my wife received phone calls urging her to join the pro-Chavez demonstration at Miraflores. We both decided to go, but we first had to find a babysitter for our daughter. Around 3 pm we decided that she would go ahead and I would join her later, once the babysitter arrived.

I was finally able to head towards Miraflores at about 4 pm. Taking the subway, I got off one stop beyond the closest one for the Miraflores presidential palace because the Miraflores stop had been closed. Walking back, I had to cross El Calvario, a city park where opposition demonstrators had gathered who did not want to fight the National Guard. Since the park is much higher than the surrounding area, one could clearly see the battles between opposition demonstrators and the National Guard from there. Tear gas was everywhere and the demonstrators were breaking down a schoolyard wall, to use its rocks against the Guard. I phoned my wife and told her where I was and that I had to circle around the entire area, since soldiers were blocking my way to get to the pro-Chavez demonstration. As I crossed the now infamous Avenida Baralt, I saw some motorcycles and then a police van zoom past me. Hardly any opposition demonstrators were to be seen on the street. I did see someone lying on the street who looked like he might be dead. I took a picture of him and just as I was about to get closer, I heard shots being fired. Just like most people, my first thought was that it could be fireworks, which were quite common, but then I realized that the man lying on the street might have been shot. Suddenly I could hear rapid bursts of gunfire and I and some other people who were milling around the area ran for cover behind the columns of a building (at Plaza Caracas). Once the shooting stopped, I continued towards the National Assembly, figuring that somewhere there must be a gap in the National Security line, so I could get to the Chavista demonstration.

I found a gap at the National Assembly and finally made it to the pro-Chavez demonstration, on Avenida Urdaneta. However, as I approached the overpass over the Avenida Baralt (Puente Llaguno), the crowd got extremely dense and I could not advance anymore. I asked someone what was going on and he exclaimed to me, “They are shooting at us!” I struggled to figure out where the shots where coming from, which I could hear and then noticed that people had completely cleared away from the overpass. Everyone seemed to be trying to hide behind the buildings that kept them protected them from shots coming from the street below. At the two ends of the bridge I saw several men returning fire towards the street below, just as was later shown on television.

At one point many in the crowd pointed at one of the buildings nearby. When I looked, I could see a soldier on the roof. At first I thought that perhaps this was one of the snipers that I heard people mention. But then I realized that he seemed to be searching the rooftop and people were shouting at him to go to one of the lower floors, where they seemed to have seen someone shooting.

Finally, at around 6 pm, the shooting stopped and I could cross the bridge. I joined up with my wife, just as the rally in front of the presidential palace was ending. We decided to go back home. Once home, we turned on the TV and I saw the scene that I had witnessed of the Chavistas shooting from the bridge. To my amazement, though, the announcer was claiming that the Chavistas were firing at the unarmed opposition demonstration. I could not believe my ears because I had seen—with my own eyes, from the bridge—that no opposition demonstrators were visible on the street below. Then, later in the evening, when I heard the pronouncements of the military claiming that Chavez was responsible for the deaths and shootings, I was convinced that a coup was in progress. I immediately decided to tell my side of the story and began writing about it.[18]

What Happened Behind the Scenes

To this day much controversy and speculation remains about what really happened on April 11, behind the scenes of the coup. Large sectors of Venezuela’s opposition still claim that what happened was not a coup, but the resignation of a president, who decided to do so after realizing that he no longer had the support of the military. On the other hand, many Chavez supporters argue that what happened was a classic coup that was largely organized and financed by the CIA. It seems that while the former story has no basis in reality, aspects of the latter story are possible, even though little evidence for it has emerged so far. The truth of what happened behind the scenes will probably never be fully known, but a more sophisticated analysis of the complicated events is possible.

Much of the behind the scenes account presented here is based on research conducted by Sandra La Fuente and Alfredo Meza, who try to present one of the more balanced and thoroughly investigated accounts, even if they have blinders of their own as regards to the possible existence of a larger conspiracy that brought the coup about. This is actually precisely the unresolved issue that exists to this day: was the coup a planned conspiracy that was carried out according to plan (in its earlier stages), but which ultimately failed due to the conspirators’ hubris and the Chavistas’ superior strategy? Or, was it a confluence of unforeseen events that first favored the opposition by removing Chavez from power and then favored Chavez by putting him back into power? Some, such as the Venezuela blogger Francisco Toro,[19] argue that it was a little bit of both, while investigators such as La Fuente and Meza seem to argue that it was mostly unplanned. Chavista analysts, such as Guillermo Garcia Ponce and Rodolfo Sanz, argue that it was all planned to the last detail and carried out according to plan.[20] It seems obvious to me, that there was indeed a carefully planned conspiracy where elements of luck aided the conspirators at first, but failed them later on. At heart, though, it seems that whether the entire coup in its early successful stage was a plot depends on whether two key players were in on it from the beginning: Generals Efrain Vasquez Velasquez, the head of the Army, and Manuel Rosendo, the head of the military high command (comparable to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S.).

According to the accounts of several key opposition players in the coup, such as by Admiral Carlos Molina Tamayo and Colonel Julio Rodriguez, work on the plot to overthrow Chavez had begun at least nine months prior to April 11th.[21] Also, there are several circumstantial indications that a plot to overthrow Chavez was in the works well before April 11, such as Pedro Carmona supposedly having ordered a presidential sash while he was in Spain a few weeks earlier and General Medina Gomez, who some say was the mastermind behind the plot, requested to be Venezuela’s military attaché to the U.S. and returned from Washington DC one day prior to the coup. All this strongly suggests that there was a carefully laid out plan for a coup.

Perhaps the first conspiratorial element to come into play on April 11 was the decision to redirect the opposition march towards Miraflores. During an April 10 planning meeting for the protest, it was already decided to re-route the march to Miraflores and to present this as a spontaneous suggestion. The idea was to spread it as a rumor, as a chant “towards Miraflores!”, and then as a suggestion to be made by one rally speaker after the other. The reason it had to appear spontaneous was that, first, the opposition had no permit to march to Miraflores and, second, announcing the plan in advance, would surely have meant an early confrontation with state security forces, long before they got near the presidential palace.

However, apparently the DISP and also pro-Chavez activists had infiltrated the opposition’s planning meeting and knew of the plan to re-direct the demonstration to Miraflores. Pro-Chavez forces were thus more or less prepared for the march and had extra time to get ready for it. They were convinced that the reason for the re-directing of the march was to try and take the presidential palace by force. “The objective of the plan was to surround and assault the seat of government in order to consummate the coup against the president and the constitution,” says Guillermo Garcia Ponce, who belongs to the president’s inner circle of advisors.[22]

The government knew it could not trust the metropolitan police, under control of the vehemently oppositional mayor Alfredo Peña, to stop the demonstration before it got to the presidential palace. It thus had to rely on the National Guard, which was equipped and trained to deal with crowd control. A plan was in place already to post National Guard troops on the Avenida Bolivar, in order to keep the opposition demonstration at least one kilometer away from the presidential palace. However, the order to position the National Guard troops had been countermanded by someone. National Guard General Carlos Alfonso Martinez, who was one of the first generals to renounce the government that day, explained the situation as follows during the National Assembly hearings that investigated the coup:

In the organizers’ speeches in front of the masses, they began to insist that the march should not end here [at PDVSA Chuao] and that it should continue to the Miraflores Presidential Palace to solicit the resignation of the president. In practice, scenario 1 had ended and began to transform itself into scenario 2.

Scenario 2 was realized with the aggravating factor that the National Guard deployment that was planned for the Avenida Bolivar had not been executed.[23]

The government thus could not control the crowd as it had planned to. As a result, Chavez decided to activate a notorious military plan known as “Plan Avila.” Plan Avila, named after the mountain range that borders Caracas to the north, is a plan to mobilize the country’s armed forces in case of a national emergency. The first time it was activated, in February 1989, it was meant to control the riots and raiding that gripped Caracas and other cities as a reaction to a package of neo-liberal economic reforms. Between 300 and over 1,000 people were killed as soldiers and police fired on rioters and looters at will.

Chavez, when he first noticed that the National Guard troops could not be controlled, tried to activate Plan Avila by calling General Manuel Rosendo, the highest ranking officer of the military. However, he could not reach Rosendo and, suspecting that Rosendo might have switched sides and might be hiding, he called one of his most trusted generals, Jorge Garcia Carneiro. Using a two-way radio and a pre-established military code, Chavez told Carneiro to activate the plan by sending a deployment of tanks to the presidential palace. The tanks, though, had a difficult time leaving the military installations at Fuerte Tiuna because the rebelling officers had already begun to block some of the city’s main arteries, precisely to prevent troop movements and the mobilization of Chavez’s supporters. Also, as of 2 pm, several generals, in a coordinated effort, blocked the entrances to Fuerte Tiuna. This was well before any deaths had occurred in the city center, thus invalidating the common argument that the military rebellion was in protest against Chavez’s responsibility for deaths.

One of the main controversies over what happened during the coup is over the nature of Plan Avila. Generals Rosendo and Vasquez both used the activation of this plan as the main reason for declaring disobedience to their commander in chief. According to the opposition, this was exactly the same plan that was applied in 1989 and would thus have meant a massacre of civilians, had the plan actually been implemented. A ruling of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, in August 2002, found that the Venezuelan government must change this plan, in order to comply with human rights standards. The human rights organization COFAVIC says that the Chavez government has only partially applied the ruling, mostly as concerns reparations for affected families of the events of February 1989, but not with respect to the training of soldiers in human rights or crowd control.[24]

Even though the plan is meant to be secret, General Jorge Garcia Carneiro, Chavez’s one-time defense minister, testified during the National Assembly Hearings that the plan is primarily meant to secure important installations during a national disaster, such as food distribution, communication, and government centers. It is not meant to control crowds, which was not Chavez’s intention, according to Garcia Carneiro. Rather, Chavez called on it to secure the presidential palace, which some of the tanks he mobilized that day then proceeded to do by the evening.

While Chavez was struggling with getting his troops under control, the rebellious generals and other high-ranking officers were planning their pronouncements to the public. One of the stories, that of how Vice-Admiral Hector Ramirez made his public announcement, caught much attention and controversy because it potentially provides strong evidence that the coup was planned down to the last murderous detail.

Also unbeknownst to the general public at the time, while the opposition was marching towards Miraflores, the five newly appointed PDVSA board members turned in their resignation, seeing that the country was heading for a head-on collision between opposition and government over their appointment. The news about their resignation never got out to the public, though, other than in the form of a rumor.

The Neustaldt Testimony

The evening of April 10, the day before the opposition demonstration and coup, CNN correspondent Otto Neustaldt received a phone call from a close friend of his who was actively involved in the opposition.[25] According to Neustaldt, this friend told him, “Otto, tomorrow the 11th there will be a video of Chavez, the demonstration will go towards Miraflores, and there will be deaths and 20 high ranking officers will pronounce themselves against the government and will demand Chavez’s resignation.”

The next morning, at 11am, Neustaldt’s friend called again to say, “We no longer know if there will be 20 officers who will rise up, but it will still be a significant or at least representative number, who will ask for Chavez’s resignation. Everything else will remain as planned. There will be a video, several deaths, and then the officers will come out and talk.” It was going to be Neustaldt’s task to video tape the pronouncement and to then pass it on to the media.

Once at the location where the pronouncement was going to be made, Neustaldt and the officers, led by Vice-Admiral Hector Ramirez Perez, were ready, but the microwave equipment to make a live broadcast had not arrived yet. Neustaldt thus suggested to the officers that perhaps they should do a trial run of their pronouncement, which he could record. They agreed and recorded the pronouncement. To Neustaldt’s surprise, the Vice-Admiral, with ten other high-ranking officers behind him, said that there have been several deaths in the city, when, at the time the pronouncement was being read, around 2pm, not a single death had happened yet.

Finally, when the microwave equipment arrived to make the live broadcast, around 3:45pm, Chavez began his nationally televised broadcast, making it impossible for the officers to broadcast their pronouncement live. According to Neustaldt, he then offered the officers to take the test recording to the international media, so that they could at least get their message out this way. The officers agreed and Neustaldt took a motorcycle, leaving his equipment behind, to Reuters and to other broadcasters.

When Neustaldt’s version of this first recording became public, five months after the coup, it caused an uproar. If what he said was true, that the officers predicted the murders well beforehand and made a recording where the deaths are mentioned, then clearly there was a conspiracy to which the officers belonged. However, right after Chavez and the state television channel went public with Neustaldt’s video taped testimony, Neustaldt held a press conference, in which he denied that he said what he seemed to be saying at the conference. According to him, his statements were taken out of context and edited in a way to make it sound like he was saying things he did not say. Ironically, at Neustaldt’s press conference, sitting next to him, was the same lawyer, Carlos Bastidas, who was also the lawyer defending Vice-Admiral Ramirez. A few days later, Venezuela’s state TV decided to show the entire conference video and it was obvious that nothing Neustaldt said was taken out of context.

At least two other witnesses to these events, Neustaldt’s journalist friend[26] and Vice-Admiral Ramirez say that Neustaldt was lying at the conference and that actually the officers’ pronouncement was made after the death of the journalist Jorge Tortoza, which happened at 4:20pm. Coup investigators La Fuente and Meza recount how witnesses remember Tortoza’s name being called out as one of the dead, before the recording was made. However, in an interview made on April 12th by the journalist Ibeyese Pacheco, Vice-Admiral Ramirez clearly says that his recorded pronouncement of the 11th was made before any deaths had occurred.

There are several interesting things to note about this dispute about Neustaldt’s statement at the university conference. First, who is more likely to be lying? Would a professional journalist lie who was not involved in the coup and who would not have anything to gain by implicating high ranking officers who, if what he says is true, do not hesitate to kill innocent bystanders? Perhaps he was simply wrong about the timing of events and the recording was made after the first deaths had happened, which was around 3:30pm. In that case it would have been made during the president’s national broadcast. But then why would Ramirez himself say that the recording was made beforehand? Did he too get the timing wrong?

The second interesting issue is that clearly there are powerful interests at stake in covering up what really happened April 11. Why, for example, would Neustaldt come up with a convoluted and patently false claim that he did not say what he said? One can only speculate at this point, but given the presence of Ramirez’s lawyer at Neustaldt’s press conference, it would not be too far-fetched to assume that Neustaldt was acting under pressure from Ramirez, probably under a death threat.

Finally, the most thorough accounting of the coup, La Fuente and Meza’s book, El Acertijo de Abril (The April Puzzle), makes no mention of Neustaldt’s version of events, even though the book goes into great detail about how this first pronouncement came about. Also, the testimony is not mentioned even though the book came out one and a half years after the testimony and even though it was one of the most controversial post-coup incidents. If true, Neustaldt provides the most damning testimony that the rebellious officers deliberately organized the assassination of pro- and anti-Chavez civilians in cold blood, in order to blame Chavez for the deaths and to provide a justification for their rebellion. Given the seriousness of the charge, it seems as if the La Fuente and Meza book deliberately attempts to cover-up the involvement of some of the main masterminds behind the coup.

Chavez’s Dilemma

Towards the evening of April 11, once it was clear that the military was no longer fully under his control and with almost 20 civilian demonstrators killed and over 100 wounded near the presidential palace, for which the press blamed the president, Chavez had to decide what to do, but could not make up his mind right away. It appeared that the coup was successful and so Chavez had to decide whether to give himself up peacefully to the rebelling generals or whether to put up a fight.

In the late evening, Chavez met with the military high command in his office. Except for José Vicente Rangel, his cabinet was not in the meeting and everyone was wondering what was going on. Finally José Vicente Rangel emerged to say that the generals were rebelling and that most of them were demanding Chavez’s resignation. Others were demanding that Chavez be arrested and tried.

It was around 8pm and the state television channel had been taken off the air, so there was no way now for Chavez to get a message out to the citizens or his followers. Shortly thereafter, cell phones no longer worked either, according to Guillermo Garcia Ponce’s account of the events. The executive had been almost completely cut off from the outside world. Nonetheless, the president of the National Assembly, William Lara, was able to reach CNN and Telemundo by telephone and made some statements to an international audience.

Several witnesses of those late night hours say that Chavez appeared depressed. Apparently he was stunned by the number of defections and betrayals that had occurred that day. Just a few weeks earlier, Chavez had said that the Armed Forces would never betray him and that he knew the military “better than the back of my hand.” Late that night, in a meeting with his cabinet, Chavez said, “I have considered that I should resign. There is a problem of governability here. What do you think I should do?” Defense Minister José Vicente Rangel responded, “President, we should resist until we are out of ammunition.”[27]

The cabinet discussed the situation and considered several alternatives. One was to move the executive to the main military barracks that was still supporting Chavez, in Maracay, where General Raul Baduel was in command of Venezuela’s best trained and equipped forces. Baduel had been part of Chavez’s original MBR-200 and was still loyal to Chavez. The second alternative was to resist in the presidential palace. And the third possibility Chavez and his cabinet considered was to surrender.

The first option, of going to Maracay, was discarded early on because doing so would only have been possible if there had been a safe way to get there. Originally Chavez thought he could do so with the tanks that he had ordered to come to Miraflores. However, the coup generals managed to convince the tank battalion to return to Fort Tiuna, so this option was no longer viable.

The second option, of resisting in Miraflores, with the help of the presidential honor guard, which remained loyal to Chavez, would have almost definitely meant a battle and bloodshed. According to Chavez himself and to most witnesses who were present, Chavez said he rejected that option for that reason.

Finally, after long discussions with both his cabinet and with the rebelling generals, the generals got impatient and phoned Chavez to tell him that if he did not resign in the next fifteen minutes, they would order a military attack on the presidential palace.[28] So, at about 3 am, Chavez decided that he would resign, but only if four conditions were met. First, if the physical safety of everyone in his government is guaranteed. Second, if the constitution is respected, which meant that the resignation would have to be presented to the National Assembly. Third, that Chavez could address the country live. Fourth, that his closest advisors and family could leave the country together with him. General Manuel Rosendo and General Hurtado Sucre, who were acting as go-betweens between Chavez and the main rebel generals, took the message to Fort Tiuna, where the rebel generals were ensconced. Rosendo and Hurtado returned shortly thereafter and told Chavez that his conditions had been accepted. Chavez thereupon authorized Lucas Rincon Romero, the highest ranking officer in the Venezuelan military, to tell the country that he had agreed to resign. Rincon, in a brief address to the nation, then read his famous statement that Chavez had resigned.

Most Venezuelans had waited until 3:20am to finally hear Rincon’s statement to the country. Opposition sympathizers were ecstatic with the news, while Chavez supporters became very depressed. However, many people could not be absolutely certain that Rincon was telling the truth. Given the large number of defections from the Chavez camp in the military, it seemed all too possible that Rincon might have lied to the nation because he too had decided to switch sides. The opposition, though, had no doubts that this was the end of Chavez as president.

However, as it turned out, despite Rincon’s seemingly last word on Chavez as president, the ordeal was far from over. Shortly after Rincon read the statement, according to Chavez’s version of events,[29] he heard from the rebel generals that they would not accept his conditions after all. Chavez thus decided that he would not resign, but instead let himself be arrested and was then taken to Fort Tiuna, where he was seen one more time on television, around 4am, as he entered the fort.

Once in Fort Tiuna, General Vasquez Velasquez asked Chavez to sign the resignation. Chavez responded, “I will not sign anything. From this moment on I am in your hands and you do what you believe to be right.” To which Vasquez said, “I inform you that from this moment on you will be in the custody of the Armed Forces.”

The debate that followed among the coup generals was about whether to let Chavez go to Cuba or whether to keep him in Venezuela and try him for “crimes against humanity.” Another option, which some chroniclers claim was considered, was to turn Chavez over to U.S. authorities, where he might be tried for a crime, along the lines of the capture of General Manuel Noriega or Panama. Later, after his release, Chavez would argue that supporting evidence for this hypothesis was a U.S. plane on the island where he was held captive for part of the time. In the end, on the insistence of Daniel Romero, a lawyer and assistant to former President Carlos Andrés Perez, the generals decided to keep Chavez in custody and to let the “transition” government decide his fate.

Continued on next page…