Mass-mediated coup in Venezuela.

Hellinger, Daniel

The political class that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela vanquished in the December 1998 election was, from outward appearances, the product of a democratic system. But Venezuela was far from a model democracy.

As in other Latin American countries, newspapers in Venezuela depend heavily upon government advertising, as well as subsidies for paper and ink. In return, publishers pay politicians lucrative stipends for writing (or ghost writing) regular columns. Broadcasters count on government advertising revenues, concessions and licenses, which have become especially lucrative as communications companies have been privatized. Chavez threatened this cozy relationship.

International human rights organizations found little reason to criticize the state of press freedoms in Venezuela--mainly because complaints originating in Venezuela, which formally supports human rights strongly, pale compared to reports of abuses elsewhere in the hemisphere. The victims most often faced loss of employment, not disappearance, assassination or torture. Complaints largely originated from leftist journalists, like the current Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel, who did not have the support of the country's media barons.

Only when the owners of media outlets were confronted with a government that threatened their interests did they encourage journalists to take complaints about the government to international forums. After Chavez came to power, the politicians and union leaders associated with the old system--suddenly isolated from government subsidies--used their overseas connections to build opposition to the populist president. Organizations affiliated with the U.S. taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy passed hundreds of thousands of dollars to individuals who were deeply implicated in the recent coup attempt.

Still, overall criticisms of the Chavez administration are rather slight considering how politically and socially polarized the country is. In its annual report, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) summarized the overall situation in 2001 as one where the local media could "still report the news freely" but that "the antagonistic relationship between the media and the president took a turn for the worse."

CPJ cited some incidents that gave it cause for concern. In February 2001, Pedro Aure, a lawyer and freelance columnist, was detained for one day by military authorities for writing a provocative letter to the editor. Aure chastised Venezuela's generals and admirals for tolerating Chavez. Aure was investigated but never charged with slander. Given that his letter was a thinly veiled incitement for a coup, more serious consequences could have followed.

In its report, CPJ cited two other incidents. It called for the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights to take under advisement the government's slander investigation of the editor of La Razon, which had accused a pro-government businessman of receiving insurance contracts in exchange for funding Chavez's 1998 campaign. CPJ also expressed concern that Chavez was threatening to review the broadcast license of Globovision after its news operation incorrectly reported that nine taxi drivers had been murdered one night. (One had been killed.) In neither case did the government act, but neither did it entirely cease threatening action against papers and stations deemed its sworn enemies.

The greatest concern cited by CPJ was with a provision in the new constitution engineered by Chavez and his supporters two years ago, and passed overwhelmingly in a national referendum. The Constitution defines the public's "right to timely, truthful and impartial information." CPJ and other critics warn that this clause provides an excuse for government interference with press freedoms.

The dangers of such a clause are obvious, but it should be placed in the context of Latin American legal traditions. Many Latin American countries require journalists to obtain licenses to practice, and social obligations are often written into media law. In this case, the strictures on media in Venezuela's Constitution were a reaction to the symbiotic relationship between government and media under the old regime, and in anticipation of the highly biased coverage the new government felt it was attracting.

Chavez, media superstar

Chavez came to power through a landslide election in December 1998. A populist, Chavez promised to clean out corruption, restore an economic safety net for the poor, wrest Venezuelan oil policy back from the state-owned oil company, and create a more participatory democratic culture.

Venezuela is the fourth largest oil exporter in the world, and since 1976, when its foreign oil companies were nationalized in a negotiated, consensual manner, only the state-owned oil company has a right to pump oil. Created to assert Venezuela's sovereignty over its most important resource, the company has grown as powerful as the private entities it replaced.

Oil executives painted Chavez's oil policy and appointments as an attack on the company's independence and meritocracy. In reality, Chavez's goal was to rein in a company that was maneuvering Venezuela out of OPEC and signing agreements (service contracts, shared risk agreements for new exploration, joint ventures) that offered foreign companies access to oil on terms better than they could get under the old system when they negotiated leases with the government.

Ultimately, critics warned, the goal was to re-privatize the company. With a powerful public relations apparatus, company executives painted the company as an island of efficiency in the midst of a sea of government corruption. The business publications of Europe and North America were receptive to this message. Hence, when Chavez moved to take back some aspects of national oil policy, it was not difficult to paint his actions as a simple grasp for power and patronage.

Nothing matters more than oil in U.S. policy on Venezuela, but certainly Chavez has challenged U.S. hegemony in other ways too. He angered the Bush administration by criticizing the air war in Afghanistan and refusing to cooperate with U.S. operations against Colombia's guerrillas. Not only did he challenge international capital by leading the re-invigoration of OPEC, but he restored normal relations with Iraq and Libya. And, of course, he has openly admired Fidel Castro.

For two years, the popularity ratings of the mercurial president were high. However, in the last year, his approval ratings shrank below 50 percent as his supporters began to loose patience with his government's inability to improve their living conditions. Also close associates of Chavez were caught dipping into the public trough, just like the politicians he dislodged from office. Chavez has been unable to oust corrupt labor leaders associated with the past because workers are suspicious of his efforts to dominate the unions. The coup makers in Venezuela probably thought the time was ripe for his ouster. Certainly the media thought so.

A made-by-media coup

Venezuela's major newspapers, Internet sites and private television networks are geared to the sectors of the population most distrustful of Chavez. Middle- and upper-class Venezuelans are mostly white and European in appearance. When they marched on the presidential palace to demand Chavez's resignation, the media inside and outside Venezuela were quick to label them "civil society." The term was never applied to demonstrators in support of Chavez. More often they were labeled "turbos," the mob.

Chavez is from the interior and his face is a demographic composite of Venezuelans' Indian, African and European heritages. His rhetoric and style have a popular touch that distinguishes him from the traditional Venezuelan ruling class, which he routinely labels a "squalid oligarchy."

This is key to understanding the popular reaction that reversed the coup. "Approval ratings" in polls indicate dissatisfaction with a president; they fail to capture deeper sentiments that Chavez elicited. Venezuelans saw in the faces of the junta that claimed power on April 12 the image of the very oligarchy that they blamed for squandering Venezuelan's considerable oil wealth.

On April 10, Venezuelan media, on orders from ownership, began to issue, at 10-minute intervals, direct calls for people to attend a demonstration in front of the oil company's headquarters the next day. This demonstration was in support of a floundering general strike called by business and union leaders to demand reinstatement of oil company directors and executives fired by the president.

At the last moment, organizers called on the demonstrators to march on the presidential palace and throw Chavez out of power. Violence broke out when they were confronted by the National Guard and supporters of the president. Television stations transmitted images of pro-Chavez supporters brandishing arms and carried reports that military commanders were resisting the president's orders to fire on protesters.

Days later, it was learned that demonstrators on both sides had died. Apparently the Caracas police, under control of Chavez's main political opponent, also fired on chavistas. At the time of coup, the national and international news media showed little interest in verifying the electrifying reports they were carrying. All initial news reports blamed the government exclusively and said that Chavez had broken his pledge never to turn the army against the people.

A few hours later came the "news" that Chavez, being held against his will in an army garrison near the presidential palace, had resigned. Opponents of the president began to celebrate. Among the most festive were the privately owned print and electronic media. Understandably so, since there is circumstantial evidence suggesting they organized it.

Initial reports in the United States characterized the coup as a restoration of democracy, implying that Chavez, though elected twice in landslides, had become a dictator. As the coup unraveled, the news media backtracked and began to question the role of the United States, largely focusing on Washington's haste to recognize the new government. Reports speculated that the U.S. may have been involved in planning the coup, but reporters tended to emphasize the lack of a smoking gun, despite strong circumstantial evidence of U.S. involvement.

The U.S. media had made up its mind that Chavez was a dictator long before the events of the last few weeks. The New York Times' Larry Rohter produced a steady drum beat of anti-Chavez articles, beginning with his report on Chavez's Dec. 6, 1998 election victory, when he labeled the new president a "populist demagogue, the authoritarian man." Seizing on reports of the president's resignation last month, Rohter quoted sources only too willing to blame Chavez for his own demise.

After the coup attempt, Rohter gave the Bush administration a clean bill of health, saying that unlike the cases of Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1973, there were "no obvious American fingerprints" on the attempted golpe. Of course, the "fingerprints" in those cases only became visible when investigators used the Freedom of Information Act to pry the incriminating documents out of classified government files.

Dan Hellinger is professor of political science at Webster University.