Hugo Chávez

Hugo Chavez, recently deposed elected president of Venezuela, under militatry arrest following a widely predicted military coup that has been compared to the violent destruction of the reformist government of Salvador Allende in Chile and of the democratist Mossadegh in Iran.

He has been replaced by an unelected business leader by the military.

An ex paratrooper, Chavez came to prominence after heading a failed militray coup ten years ago. Chavez won Presidential elections in 1998 and again in 2000 by the largest majority in four decades an anti-corruption and anti-poverty platform. He has been governing Venezuela following the principles of his own social movement called the Bolivarianism, named after the Venezualan-born South American independence hero Simón Bolívar.

He was deposed in a military coup on the 13th April 2002, which has been publicly condemned by nineteen South American nations. He was replaced by the leader of the Venezualan Chamber of Commerce(FEDECAMERAS), Pedro Carmona.

An earlier coup was attempted two men, Air Force Col. Pedro Soto and national Guard Capt. Pedro Flores Rivero, held a small rally to accuse the government of being 'non-democratic' and called for a coup. They were sent home in uniform and placed under investigation by a joint civilian and military board.

Although Chavez originally had popularity a rating of around 80%, his popularity has steadily declined in the past year, supposedly reaching the low 30’s by Spring 2002. According to a recent Asociated Press article, polls indicate that he would have however have been reelected if an election had been called at that time.

Chavez had a deeply antagonistic position to the entrenched landed and commercial elite of Venezuela, and also the media . Out of about five major TV networks, and one out of approximately ten major newspapers is completely opposed to Chavez. Chavez claimed that this was because they were controlled by the business interests he was considered to be undermining, whereas the media accuse him of having intimidated journalists with his pronouncements and of sending gangs to threaten journalists with physical violence.

The other thing Chavez has done to antagonize the media is to exploit a law which permits the government to take over all of the airwaves for important government announcements.

Chavez passed a slew of 49 laws, which, among many other measures, were supposed to increase the government’s oil income and redistribute land. FEDECAMERAS, the Venezualan chamber of commerce vehemently opposed these laws and decided to call for a general business strike on December 10.

Chavez was repsonsible for the replacement of the upper management of the Venezualean oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), allesgedly on gorunds of mismangaemnt and corruption, but supporters of the PDVSA board call the aciton "politically motivated".

Internationally Chavez has antagonised 'Western' governments through his oil exporting policies.

On April 9 2002 Venezuela’s largest union federation, the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV) led by Carlos Ortega called for a two-day general strike, perhaps in response to Chavez having forced the unions to carry out new elections of the leadership amongst fraud allegations. Chavez did not recognise the reelection of the union leadership. Bizarrely this was shortly after Chavez raised the national minimum wage by 20%.

FEDECAMERAS joined the strike and called on all of its affiliated businesses to close for 48 hours.

100,000 to 200,000 people were to march to the headquarters of Venezuela's oil company, PDVSA, in defense of its fired management.

The organizers decided to re-route the march to Miraflores, the president's office building, so as to confront about 5,000 pro-government demonstrators.

After violence erupted between demonstrators and police, 17 people were killed and nearly 100 wounded, almost all of them demonstrators. Some demonstrators were armed and unknown snipers were seen on rooftops, according to an American eye-witness probably members of the extreme opposiiton party known as Bandera Roja.

Others claim that Chavez armed and then ordered his supporters to shoot at the opposition demonstration.

So far Carmona has:

- Dissolved the National Assembly, promising elections by December

- Pledged presidential elections within one year

- Declared void the 1999 constitution introduced under Mr Chavez

- Promised a return to the pre-1999 bicameral parliamentary system

- Repealed the 49 laws that gave the government greater control of the economy

- Reinstated retired General Guaicaipuro Lameda as president of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

Chavez' term as president was to end in 2007.