VENEZUELA The Military's Wake-Up Call
Ricciardi, Joseph
Carlos Andres Perez returned home triumphant from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on February 3, lauded by the international financial community for Venezuela's neoliberal reforms and...
...colonel, 58 junior officers, 90 professional troops and some 2,000 soldiers were arrested...
...There are no military shortcuts," insists Jesuit activist Arturo Sosa...
...Still P6rez spends more time reassuring foreign investors that their money is safe, and that business opportunities abound than devising effective social programs to attend to the country's deep inequities...
...Betancourt also made promotions above the level of colonel contingent on congressional approval...
...Deep disaffection led 10% of the nation's armed forces to break ranks...
...Rampant corruption in the highest echelons of the military also sparked indignation among the rank and file...
...The Joint Staff no longer coordinated defense policy and budgets between the four branches of the armed forces...
...The rebels took control of the petroleum state of Zulia, and immobilized the industrial capital of Valencia, in the state of Carabobo...
...The mutineers controlled the country's principal air base, a key missile division, a key tank division and an elite parachute battalion...
...Yet belief in a savior who will magically resolve intractable social ills is a dangerous abdication of political responsibility that usurps popular initiative...
...Finally, the president replaced the Armed Forces General Staff with a Joint Staff, which was strictly advisory...
...With Machiavellian precision, P6rez has begun to militarize his cabinet, placating the political appetites of a divided high command...
...During the 1960s, traditional national defense was coupled with counterinsurgency to glue military loyalty to the rule of the political parties...
...Popular support for a military coup raises some alarming issues for a country considered a cornerstone of democracy...
...The GNS would dissolve Congress, reduce the number of government ministries, restructure regional administration, and call elections for a constituent assembly...
...Within hours of his arrival, a pitched battle for power erupted between the government and rebel military officers...
...In 1959, after the fall of the 10-year dictatorship of Marcos P6rez Jim6nez, popularlyelected President R6mulo Betancourt implemented structural reforms to subordinate the army to civilian rule...
...Chivez intimated in his televised surrender that there would be future unrest...
...proposals to down-size existing military forces while expanding the National Guard to contain domestic unrest and fight drug trafficking...
...Living conditions for military personnel deteriorated substantially, and their demands for $216 million in health, housing and benefits went unheeded...
...In his unflinching delivery, Chdvez transformed his botched military rebellion into a successful political coup, serving notice to the ruling parties of the uncertainty that lies ahead if nothing is done to correct the country's deep social ills...
...The retirement policy effectively reduced the average tenure of a defense minister to a maximum of one or two years, making it next to impossible for the minister to orient policy and consolidate administrative control...
...The revolt-which resulted in 70 deaths-was defeated in less than 24 hours...
...But leaflets and photos of Chivez circulated with impunity among the poor in Caracas' "belt of misery...
...pressures to "denationalize" the Venezuelan military in the wake of U.S...
...U.S...
...It is time to avoid spilling more blood...
...The Erosion of Democracy "Good coup" versus "bad coup" debates are politically treacherous...
...Moreover, it is naive to think that Chivez and his cohorts could weather the austerity of national reconstruction without a comprehensive program and organized popular support...
...each branch now had military and administrative autonomy...
...The politiciA caricature ot Perez at a 1988 presidential campaign rally...
...Gone are the abundant oil revenues that once financed patronage and preserved peace among conflicting social classes and sectors, including the military...
...Compafieros,forthe time being, here in Caracas, we were unable to take power," he said...
...An April survey indicated that 44% thought the military evoked confidence while only 5% thought Pdrez did...
...Rebels as Folk Heroes Despite the speed with which his revolt was squashed, Chavez became an instant hero among Venezuela's poor for lashing out at the moral bankruptcy of the ruling elite...
...For now, "collective bargaining" has tranquilized military ranks: Pdrez increased military salaries by 40%, enhanced social security benefits, and promised a $50-million housing program with subsidized loans...
...The illusion of harmony has been shattered...
...and exorbitant equipment purchases such as Israeli tanks bought without regard for military need...
...In the 1970s, when Jimmy Carter made U.S...
...Venezuelan democracy must be reconstructed out of mobilization from below...
...There will be new situations...
...arms sales conditional upon the purchaser's human rights record, the nationalist military responded by diversifying arms sourcing...
...Hugo ChAvez Frfas, self-styled leader of the Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario (MBR...
...Venezuela hardly seemed a likely candidate for a coup...
...Social and economic decline intensified long-standing divisions of rank, generation and social class in the military...
...and Ezequiel Zamora, caudillo champion of slave rebellions and campesino uprisings during the 1840s and 1850s...
...One hundred and eighty-one military officers ranging in rank from major to It...
...Venezuela could possibly find itself plagued with ongoing social strife and guerrilla violence, like neighboring Colombia...
...He cut government subsidies and privatized state companies to lure new foreign investment...
...hemispheric drug and national security agenda...
...Sim6n Rodriguez, a philosopher and Bolivar's mentor...
...According to March opinion polls, he enjoyed a 92% approval rating...
...Central University professor D.A...
...Venezuela's democratic experience is complicated by the unresolved issue of the military's role in the state and civil society...
...They could "no longer justify being at the service of unrepresentative political cogollos who are dragging the country to the brink of moral and civil war," MUller said, using the Venezuelan expression for its ruling oligarchic elite...
...The manifesto revealed that the mutineers intended to create an emergency Government of National Salvation (GNS) headed by a nine-person civilian general council...
...Enhanced representation without redistributive reforms to address the country's growing inequities will inevitably fail...
...Among Third World nations, Venezuela is the International Monetary Fund's rising star...
...The 1980s economic crisis drastically reduced Venezuelan autonomy from the U.S...
...P6rez campaigned in 1988 with the slogan: "Vote P6rez again, You will live better," promising a return to the hey day of the oil bonanza of his first term in office...
...7The MBR has been characterized as a populist left-leaning formation within the military, fomenting a guerrilla-style insurgence to end corruption and dismantle the current political oligarchy...
...Proclaiming the military's duty to preserve social justice, the manifesto invoked three nineteenth-century Venezuelans: Sim6n Bolivar, liberator of Venezuela from Spanish rule...
...Fernando Ochoa, defense minister at the time of the coup attempt, warned politicians that "more violence will result" if profound changes are not introduced to "reorder the excessive concentration of power in the privileged sectors" and to "create a genuine democratization of political power...
...overpriced and unfulfilled munitions contracts for tear gas and bulletproof vests in the wake of the February 1989 riots...
...Two new war colleges and a scholarship program-Plan Ayacucho-upREPORT ON THE AMERICAS I 8graded university training for officers...
...Former president Rafael Caldera argued that the absence of civilian support for the government on the day of the coup signaled the collapse of Perez's legitimacy and the deterioration of Venezuelan democracy...
...Illustrating the extent of that erosion, an April Mercanalysis survey indicated that 44% viewed the military as an institution evoking confidence...
...In Aragua, rebels paralyzed the strategic military city of Maracay...
...Rangel argued that civilian demonstrations in the barrios of Catia and 23 de Enero in Caracas and at the University of Carabobo in Valencia formed part of the insurrection...
...Perez's market reforms, coupled with his preference for industrial "megaprojects" over social welfare programs and public services, widened the already gaping chasm between rich and poor...
...Alberto Miller Rojas, the military was tired of quelling labor and student protest instead of defending national territory...
...The rebels held most of the firepower, but failed to seize control of the media...
...To restore order in the wake of the coup attempt, P6rez ordered a press ban and temporarily suspended constitutional guarantees...
...The military, an enthusiastic supporter of oil nationalization in the mid1970s, was enraged by Pdrez's privatization of state companies and his proposed territorial concessions to Colombia in the Gulf of Venezuela...
...Power struggles between the military and the political parties generated chronic swings between dictatorship and democracy...
...Venezuelan budget constraints reduced the defense share of government spending from 7% in 1988 to 5% in 1990...
...Initiatives for a constituent assembly and military suffrage are still ignored by the ruling parties out of fear that the democratic process would get out of hand...
...all other political institutions ranked in the single digits, with Prezpulling up therearat 5...
...Over 75% of Venezuelans have never lived under the perils of dictatorship, nor do they recall how military vanguards cling to power once installed...
...It was no accident that public opinion immediately linked the coup attempt to the 1989 riots...
...Officers questioned U.S...
...Yet rumors of coups persist as minor skirmishes are reported in interior garrisons...
...In Caracas, rebel paratroopers seized the airport, attacked the presidential residence, and rolled tanks up the moonlit steps of Miraflores Palace, ramming open its doors...
...Chief among the coup plotters' concerns, it seems, was defense of the Patria-in the sense of the physical land...
...Machine-gun fire echoed in the city's deserted streets until midday...
...General strikes, chronic student unrest, daily revelations of open corruption, and unheeded rumors of planned coups contributed to a creeping decay in governability which opened the door to Lt...
...Not all of the arms brandished on February 4 made their way back to the barracks...
...According to military analyst Gen...
...The country is South America's oldest democracy-with 34 years of uninterrupted constitutional rule...
...intervention in Panama in 1989 constituted another source of discontent in military ranks...
...Pdrez narrowly escaped, smuggled via tunnel from the palace to a nearby private television station where, badly shaken, he addressed the nation on several occasions that night...
...The state's failure to alleviate this economic distress, even after the February 1989 riots-when security forces killed 300 people during the looting and protests-stoked mounting social discontent...
...Debt-linked austerity increased regional social unrest, dividing the armed forces with regard to the desirability of economic restructuring...
...A trade and financial embargo by multilateral interests that have propped up P6rez would prove devastating...
...Economic performance in 1991 was stellar: the country boasted a 9.2% real growth rate, $13.2 billion in accumulated foreign reserves, moderate inflation, and $2 billion in earnings from selling off the state's telecommunications system and national airline...
...Carlos Andres Perez returned home triumphant from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on February 3, lauded by the international financial community for Venezuela's neoliberal reforms and democratic stability...
...PNrez, once the architect of populist economic policies, promptly implemented the painful liberalization measures demanded by the international banks during the 1989 economic crisis...
...Growth came at the expense of equity...
...The rebel officers' 12-page manifesto, which surfaced in the aftermath of the foiled coup, opened with Thomas Jefferson's dictum: "The tree of liberty must be watered now and again with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants...
...This invited mediocrity in military echelons, as political loyalties overshadowed merit in professional advancement...
...The army's traditional hegemony over the forces was eliminated...
...VOLUME XXVI, NUMBER I (JULY 1992) Joseph Ricciardi has been working in Caracas for two years as a Fulbright Economics Faculty Fellow...
...In the event of another coup attempt, Venezuela's deeply divided military may not be on hand to save the president...
...And by June, all but 47 of the men arrested had been released, which served to defuse the increasingly heated demonstrations in support of the rebels outside the San Carlos military prison...
...To clear out the old guard, Betancourt made retirement mandatory after 30 years of military service...
...zation of the high command exacerbated its detachment from the rank and file...
...Organizational instability ensued due to the excessive turnover of the highest positions, only reached after 27 to 29 years of service...
...During his first term as president in the mid-I 970s, Pdrez purchased military allegiance with the proceeds from the oil bonanza...
...Among the widely publicized and unprosecuted cases were the following: overpriced foreign contracts to overhaul the nation's frigates...
...When the boom did not materialize, the country was vulnerable to military messiahs promising an end to corruption and a return to economic well-being...
...Between 1981 and 1991, real earnings plummeted 50%, and the number of people living in poverty more than doubled from 24% to 60% of the population...
...Moreover, historically, military solutions to popular woes have resulted in little social restructuring and have failed to empower the very social classes on whose behalf they are purportedly enacted...
...The 1989 riots left deep scars-soldiers were ordered to fire upon the same poor communities from which they were recruited...
...But even failed coups produce some positive results...
...This fragmentation reduced the military's negotiating power vis-hvis the state, and created divisive rivalries between the forces, manifested the morning of the coup in some unusual crossfire between the army and the internal security police...
...Generals never lacked the latest in luxury vehicles, while rebel officers complained that elite parachute troops went without proper combat boots...
...The February 4 coup attempt rudely awakened Venezuela's political elite to the dire economic and political crises underlying these sanguine statistics...
Vol. 26 • July 1992 • No. 1
