Hehad been elected President of Venezuela, the world’s fourth biggest oil exporter, a rich country in which 80% of the population remained poor, in 1998. In his victory celebrations, he drove through the city of Caracas in an open lorry surrounded by cheering crowds, some of whom ran alongside his lorry to shake his hand. He set out to redistribute the country’s wealth and encourage the excluded poor to organise themselves.
Education and health services were to be free and wherever he went, people crowded round to put their problems to him. He had a weekly unscripted phone-in programme on state TV, while five private TV stations spread the propaganda of the small rich group who had controlled the economy. In 2002, he tried to break their control of the state oil company. This oligarchy organised a march of their supporters on the presidential palace, where a large crowd had gathered in support of Chavez. The military surrounded the palace and captured the President.
Crowds of people came on to the streets spontaneously to protest against the coup. The presidential guard recaptured the state TV station, and Chavez’s cabinet put out a message appealing to the people to demonstrate in support of the constitution and their elected president.
A million people flocked to the presidential palace. Nobody paid for their transport; nobody forced them. They came to defend their rights, their constitution and the president they had elected. Junior army officers across the country responded to the call on TV for them to disobey their commanders and defend the constitution.
Commando units were sent to rescue the President. Before they arrived, the leaders of the coup realised that they could not hold out against such strong popular resistance and released Chavez. He returned to office, announcing there would be no witch-hunt against the rebels. The man they had tried to make president and a number of senior army officers fled to the USA; other coup leaders and some army generals stayed in Venezuela.
Those generals were removed from the army, but they and the other rebels remained free to campaign by constitutional means for the opposition. Chavez won two more presidential elections, the second being in December 2012 when he was already dying of cancer.
There are lessons for us in all of this. The first is that Chavez survived the coup because he had genuinely improved the lives of the poor. He enjoyed going among them, listening to their problems and they believed his promises to help them. He promised education and health services for all and that their voices would be heard in government. Not “sovereniti” and threats against old enemies, not land without the help to develop it, but real improvement in their standard of living and a real share in political power. We shall see now how his successor continues to honour his promises.
The final lesson is that the poor people were not passive recipients of government gifts; they saw that they were able to take control of their own lives. The biggest test of that was the 2002 coup; a million people swarmed to his support even before the elected government had recaptured their TV station and appealed for this support. They did not stay silent. They did not just grumble in private. They marched on the streets. They didn’t leave a few people to be brave for all of them. We could see the change we want if we stop leaving the protesting to Jenni Williams and Lovemore Madhuku.
Remember Bob Marley’s call in April 1980 for us to “Get up, stand up for your rights.” If anyone tries to steal an election again or to stage a military coup, we too must stand up and be heard.
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis