On Saturday I saw The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, a film about the 2002 coup in Venezuala that unseated President Hugo Chavez for a couple of days before his government was restored. The film was made by some Irish documentarians, who happened to be following Chavez around at the time of the coup.
It’s an incredible experience, taking you right inside the halls of power during an extraordinary set of events. Essentially, the plan for the coup was to send an anti-Chavez march right into a pro-Chavez demonstration, and then have police snipers kill some demonstrators. The coup leaders would seize the government-run television station and add its voice to the five they already own, and broadcast that the deaths were caused by a brutal overreaction by Chavez’s forces. This would give them the moral authority to seize control.
I was reminded of the CIA-managed coup in Iran, in 1953, which also relied on massive public demonstrations resulting in stage-managed deaths. (I wrote about that here.)
It reminded me again that here in New Zealand we were party to this coup. I remember vividly the story as it appeared in our local newspapers, that Chavez security forces fired into an unruly anti-Chavez demonstration, killing dozens. The truth (as I realised at the time thanks to some internet research) was almost precisely opposite to this: anti-Chavez plotters had ordered police to assassinate Chavez supporters. The spin and disinformation had issued from the table of the coup leaders, and found its way straight into my morning newspaper. It was something of a wake-up call to me at the time.
I went to Venezuala partly because of these events, and generally to lay eyes on the place. I wrote about it here. It added extra resonance to the documentary, because I recognised many of the locations. It felt familiar.
(There have, of course, been claims that the film is Chavez propaganda. Don’t believe it. Wikipedia has a summary; check the Discussion page for more.)
So am I a fully-signed up member of the Huge Chavez personality cult, as Russell Brown unhelpfully puts it? Nope. There are problems with Chavez, not least his desire to stay in power forevermore. But the more I read about the situation there, the more it seems like these caveats are small in the face of the incredible transitions over which he has presided. The Venezualan political project is a fascinating and exciting one, and I am certainly a fully-signed-up member of those who wish it well.