Taking Note
FR
VENEZUELA: WASHINGTON SUFFERS A SETBACK "We have been concerned with some of the actions of Venezuelan President Chivez and his understanding of what a democratic system is all about,"...
...Hugo Chivez's friendship with (and discounted oil sales to) Fidel Castro, his criticism of the U.S...
...On this occasion at least, they stood steadfast for constitutional rule and against a return to the not-so-distant past when the United States decided which democratic votes were "democratic":' and which represented the "irresponsibility" of a country's not-so-sovereign people...
...Rather, he said, "we were sending informal, subtle signals that we didn't like this guy...
...A few months before the public remarks of Secretary Powell and Director Tenet, in the days of the heaviest bombing of Afghanistan, when Chdvez opined that "terror should not be fought with terror," U.S...
...Powell's comments made frontpage news in Venezuela on February 6, sharing the headlines and the talkshow news with similar remarks made by CIA director George Tenet on that very same day...
...Indeed, the quick U.S...
...leadership by the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean...
...They stood as one in support of constitutionality and democracy...
...The United States was the only country in the hemisphere that welcomed the apparent overthrow of Chivez on April 11...
...A few days after the coup attempt, a Department of Defense official told the New York Times that the Department had neither encouraged nor discouraged the opposition to overthrow President Chdivez...
...officialdom...
...drug war missions have all been sore points with U.S...
...What neither Washington nor the opposition counted on-and what proved to be one of the more remarkable aspects of this remarkable episode-was the universal rejection of the coup and of U.S...
...war on terror, his "dropping in" on his Middle East OPEC partners for cordial visits, his apparent sympathy for Colombia's FARC guerrillas and his denial of Venezuelan airspace for U.S...
...Too much was at stake for their own stability...
...He hasn't been as supportive as he might have been...
...The degree to which U.S...
...But Washington has suffered a blow to its hegemony in the hemisphere...
...countenance of the military coup that briefly overthrew Hugo Chdvez calls into question Washington's understanding of "what a democratic system is all about...
...VENEZUELA: WASHINGTON SUFFERS A SETBACK "We have been concerned with some of the actions of Venezuelan President Chivez and his understanding of what a democratic system is all about," said Secretary of State Powell to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this past February 5. "And we have not been happy with some of the comments he has made with respect to the campaign against terrorism...
...It may, indeed, have been decisive that the leadership of every country in the Americas-excepting only the United States-quickly, unequivocally and unambiguously condemned the coup...
...agencies were involved in the attempted coup of April 11 remains a matter to be investigated, but it is already clear that official Washington dearly wanted it to succeed...
...Having been rebuked, its democratic credibility at stake, Washington had no choice but to backtrack...
...embassy calls for democratic changes, "the accent is not on democracy but on the changes...
...And Washington has a new version of events: There was no coup, just a misunderstanding, a temporary vacuum of power that needed to be filled...
...The critical comments of Tenet, Powell and Hrinak were not perceived in Venezuela as opinions...
...When she later commented that "the changes in Venezuela should be democratic," it was noted by a Venezuelan publisher that when the U.S...
...Now Secretary Powell says the United States strongly condemns all military coups, and the State Department's point man in Latin America, Assistant Secretary Otto Reich, plays the role of Bart Simpson: "I didn't do it...
...they were perceived as signals...
...The opposition felt it had the green light to remove ChAvez from power, and the eventual coup leaders were, in fact, reading the signals well...
...The pointed comments of the U.S...
...On her return to Caracas she expressed Washington's strong displeasure with Chivez's remarks and showed notable sympathy for Venezuela's opposition...
...Washington was simply caught off-guard just like everybody else...
...All the Latin American heads of state-even sworn adversaries of ChAvez like Peru's Alejandro Toledo and sworn buddies of Bush like Mexico's Vicente Fox-were vehement and explicit in their refusal to recognize the brief regime of the coup plotters...
...If gold stars are to be awarded, they go to the Latin American leaders-not all of them model democrats by a long shotwho probably made the difference...
...We've expressed our disagreement on some of his policies directly to him, and he understands that it is a serious irritant...
...Secretary of State and Director of the CIA are worth recalling in light of Washington's murky role in the three-day overthrow of Venezuela's elected government this past April 11-14 [See "Chavismo at the Crossroads":' p. 8, and "Coup and Countercoup, p. 2...
...Ambassador to Venezuela, Donna Hrinak, was temporarily recalled to Washington "for consultation...
...And he drops in some of the strangest countries to visit...
Vol. 35 • May 2002 • No. 6
