The Two Faces of Hugo Chávez

...The President knew then that his only chance was to turn to the people, and he went straight to the studios of Venevisi6n to speak to the nation...

...Colonel Hugo Chivez Frfas, in sacred homage to famous dates, was leading the assault from an improvised headquarters in La Planicie Historical Museum...

...He overthrew Isafas Medina Angarita, an old military democrat who had tried to cleanse the country of the 36-year legacy of Juan Vicente G6mez...

...We were worried because we didn't want to leave the army," ChAvez said...

...18REPORT ON VENEZUELA or incorrectly remembered today as the father of Venezuelan democracy...

...He developed a passion for the life and work of Bolivar-his senior Leowhose proclamations he learned by heart...

...As a musician, he became indispensable at birthday parties and serenades with his mastery of the cuatro and his excellent voice...

...And I asked him: 'So, where are you going running like that?' 'My squad left me behind,' he said, 'and my lieutenant is headed off in that truck there...

...The officers, his own and those who were not, listened impassively...

...Now his father is my foreign minister...

...At the end, I changed some of the words," Chlivez told me...

...Among his mother's books he found an encyclopedia, whose first chapter seemed heaven-sent and seduced him immediately: "How to Succeed in Life...

...To what end...

...He has a great sense of timing and a memory that has a touch of the supernatural, allowing him to recite poems by Pablo Neruda or Walt Whitman, or entire passages of R6mulo Gallegos...

...Over ten years," Chivez told me, "we held five congresses without being discovered...

...The strongest argument against him during the campaign was his recent past as a coup-plotting conspirator...

...And instinct tells me they ordered him killed," said Chivez...

...Take me, my major, take me.' I caught up to the truck and asked the driver, 'Where are you going?' And he said to me, 'I don't know a thing.' Who would have imagined...

...We had met three days earlier in Havana, during a meeting with Cuban President Fidel Castro and Colombian President Andr6s Pastrana, and the first thing that impressed me was his body of reinforced concrete...

...His mother wanted him to be a priest, but he only made it to acolyte, though he rang the bells with such delight that everyone recognized his ring...

...He waded through historical archives and military libraries, covering the region from town to town, his historian's kit in a backpack, to reconstruct his great-grandfather's travels by the testimonies of his survivors...

...We held meetings that lasted for two days in hidden places, studying the situation in the country, analyzing it, making contact with friendly civilian groups...

...And the colonel told me: 'To the streets, to the streets.' The order they gave was this: 'This thing has got to be stopped no matter how, and here we go.' 'My God, but what orders do they have?' 'Well Chavez,' the colonel replied, 'the orders are to stop this thing no matter how.' And I told him: 'But my colonel, you can imagine what's going to happen.' And he told me: 'Well ChAvez, it's an order and there is nothing you can do...

...May it turn out as God wishes...

...But he told me he was using the word conspiracy only in its figurative sense of pulling people together for a common task they all agreed to...

...believed to be a Communist...

...But the history of Venezuela has absorbed at least four like him, beginning with R6mulo Betancourt, correctly NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS The latest book by Gabriel Garcia Mjrquez is News of a Kidnapping (Knopf, 1997...

...As soon as he had set foot in Miraflores, the artillery blasts began...

...He is a captain of today's men, and when you hear what he said in his speech, you will piss your pants...

...He was buying meat for his troops when a military helicopter landed inside the base...

...Which of the two was real...

...First, the historical hour...

...the regiment commander asked as he watched him climb up on the stage without any papers...

...As a 12-year-old painter, astonished by the works of Michelangelo and David, he won first prize at a regional exhibit...

...But now it is 1999 and we can reveal that the fourth man is here with us on this plane...

...I asked...

...It was a short speech, inspired by Bolivar and Marti, but with a personal take on Latin America's situation of oppression 200 years after its independence...

...At one in the afternoon, with the battalion standing at attention on the soccer field inside the base, the master of ceremonies introduced him...

...e often repeated: "Napoleon said that a battle is decided in a moment of strategic inspiration...

...I gave the order for him to give that speech, and everything he said, although he did not put it in writing, he told me yesterday...

...From the first moment I realized that he was a natural storyteller, a product of Venezuela's creative, exhilarating popular culture...

...Although he spent two years in jail before being amnestied by President Rafael Caldera, many of his supporters, and not a few of his enemies, view the speech he made in defeat as the beginning of the electoral campaign that would carry him to the presidency just seven years later...

...At a very young age, by chance, he discovered that his great-grandfather was not a mass murderer, as his mother had told him, but a legendary warrior from the times of Juan Vicente G6mez...

...The real drama was that what was about to occur did occur, and they were not ready...

...One day he crossed the Arauca bridge at the Venezuelan-Colombian border, unaware that he had crossed into Colombian territory...

...Its founding members: five soldiers and himself, with the rank of sub-lieutenant...

...He was referring, of course, to the street riots of February 27, 1989 that have become known as El Caracazo...

...In other words," Chavez concluded, "the strategic minute caught us by surprise...

...Instead of 'When we have broken all the chains that oppress us by will of 0NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20REPORT ON VENEZUELA Spanish power,' we said: 'Until we break the chains that oppress us and oppress the people by will of the powerful...

...Not at all," Chdvez protested...

...Said and done: From that moment they began to plan the coup d'6tat that would end in failure three years later...

...The soldiers were beating the prisoners with baseball bats wrapped in rags so they wouldn't leave marks," ChAvez said...

...What's up...

...Chbvez, a fervent Catholic, attributes his charmed existence to the 100-year-old scapular which he has worn since childhood, inherited from a maternal great-grandfather, Colonel Pedro P6rez Delgado, one of his tutelary heroes...

...One rainy night, a colonel from military intelligence leading a patrol of soldiers sought refuge in his camp...

...At about ten o'clock, as Chivez was drifting off to sleep, he heard heart-rending shouts from the next room...

...He pointed his finger at a man in a seat by himself, and said: "Colonel Badull...

...hat was the situation on December 17, 1982 when an unexpected episode took place that Chdvez considers decisive in his life...

...The last time was during the recent electoral campaign before a crowd of over 100,000 people...

...It was a different Chavez...

...What's more," I told him, "you were about to kill him...

...Seven more died...

...Chdvez surrendered, but only under the condition that he too be allowed to speak to the people on television...

...He was not discovered on February 4 and he remained active in the army and reached the rank of colonel...

...It was a disaster...

...But now we can say that in reality there was a fourth man, whose identity we always hid in order to protect him...

...A year later, by this time commanding parachutists in a Maracay armored battalion, he began a larger conspiracy...

...On one side peasants in military uniforms torture peasant guerrillas, and on the other peasant guerrillas kill peasants dressed in green...

...Felipe Acosta, who was six-foot-six and who ten soldiers could not subdue, stood face-to-face with the commander, and told him: "You are wrong, my commander...

...Very simple, he replied: 'To prepare ourselves in case something happened...

...They assigned him to Oriente to head a squad of 13 soldiers and a communications team, on a mission to liquidate the last surviving guerrillas...

...The President said good-bye with a Caribbean embrace and an implicit invitation: "We'll see each other here on February 2." While he sauntered off with his bodyguards of decorated officers and close friends, I was overwhelmed by the feeling that I had just been traveling and chatting pleasantly with two opposing men...

...devastated "So I asked the colonel: 'Where is that big group of people heading?' 1989...

...But his first awareness of contemporary politics came with the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende in September 1973...

...He made a dramatic pause, and concluded with a cut-and-dry order: "None of this is to leave this base...

...Venezuela split from Gran Colombia in 1830...

...It was February 4, 1992...

...It was a good experience for a semi-retired reporter...

...From that thought, Chivez developed three concepts...

...I was on my way to class at the university, a graduate class, on the night of the twentyseventh, and I stopped at Fort Tiuna to find a friend who could give me a bit of gas to get home," Chdvez told me minutes before we landed in Caracas...

...Hugo Chivez Frfas told me this as we rode in a Venezuelan Air Force plane from Havana to Caracas less than two weeks before his inauguration as the constitutional president of Venezuela on February 2, 1999...

...The Colombian captain who searched his backpack found material reasons for accusing him of being a spy: He had a camera, a tape-recorder, secret papers, photos of the region, a graphic military map and two regulation pistols...

...Garcia Mdrquez is the editorial board director of the Colombian weekly newsmagazine, Revista Cam- bio, in which this essay originally appeared...

...While he told me his life, bit by bit I discovered a personality that did not correspond at all to the despotic image we get of him through the media...

...The commander of the base, visibly disgusted, gave him a scolding everyone could hear: "Chivez, you sound like a politician...

...Even more ironic is the fact that when he graduated he received his saber from the hands of the President whom 20 years later he would try to overthrow, Carlos Andr6s P6rez...

...I was nearly exhausted," Chdvez told me...

...From that time I had a concrete sense that something was wrong in Venezuela," Chavez told me...

...His successor, novelist R6mulo Gallegos, was overthrown by General Marcos Pdrez Jim6nez, who was to remain in power for 11 years...

...As a baseball player, he became a first-rate catcher...

...The discussion went on for several hours in an office where the only painting on the wall was a portrait of Bolivar astride his horse...

...They spray the streets with bullets, they spray the hills, the poor barrios...

...Chivez is no politician...

...The February coup seems to be the only thing that did not turn out well for Hugo ChAvez Frfas...

...He was a captain in a second regiment of parachutists, and an assistant intelligence officer...

...he asked, concerned...

...And he began to improvise...

...From then on, all officers joining the secret movement had to take that oath...

...His parents barely scraped by on their primaryschool-teacher salaries, and from the age of nine he had to help them by selling candies and fruit from a cart...

...When the ceremony was over, Chavez went on horseback with captains Felipe Acosta and Jesds Urdaneta to Samin del Guere, six miles away, and there they repeated the solemn oath Sim6n Bolivar made on Aventino Hill...

...Twelve hours later, the military coup was a failure...

...One to whom the caprices of fate had given an opportunity to save his country...

...They were recruits who were scared of the rifle they were carrying...

...Look at the way life unfolds," Chbvez told me with an explosive laugh...

...They held a few suspected guerrillas, recently captured, green around the gills and nothing but skin and bones...

...The more I explained the less he understood...

...Among them were Captains Felipe Acosta Carle and Jesds Urdaneta Hernfndez, sympathizers of his movement...

...The next day they threatened me with a court martial for insubordination," ChAvez told me, "but they only held me in observation for a while...

...We had founded a movement, but we weren't sure what for...

...A few days later he had another experience that overwhelmed the previous ones...

...Translated from the Spanish by Mark Fried...

...And that's what happened: thousands died, among them Felipe Acosta...

...Sometimes he went by donkey to visit his maternal grandmother in Los Rastrojos, a neighboring town that seemed like a city because it had a little power plant that provided two hours of lights in the evening, as well as a midwife who welcomed him and his four brothers into the world...

...Indignant, he demanded that the colonel turn the prisoners over to him or leave, as he was not about to allow anyone to be tortured under his command...

...Carlos Andr6s PNrez had just taken office as president after a landslide at the polls, and it was inconceivable that 20 days later something so serious would take place...

...The young creole colonel, with his parachutist's beret and his admirable ease with words, took full responsibility for the action and turned his speech into a political triumph...

...The idea was to set up a constituent assembly and return to the barracks...

...A short while later, the cap- aveling and tain of his company assigned him asantly with the task of keeping an eye on a son of Jos6 Vicente Rangel, who was sing men...

...They barely managed to get him to a car...

...And the speech...

...Chavez's enthusiasm was such that he decided to write a book to set the record straight...

...In his arms ChAvez carried a soldier who had several bullet wounds in his body...

...it was loaded with soldiers badly wounded in a guerrilla ambush...

...hdvez studied political science, history and Marxism-Leninism...

...He was about to fall asleep when the same minister of defense called to inform him of a military uprising in Maracay...

...I have no written speech," Chavez answered...

...When he least expected it, the commander of the regiment, Angel Manrique, gave him the task of making a speech to 1,200 officers and troops...

...He views it positively, however, as a providential reverse...

...Then the words that would save him crossed his mind: "Look, my captain, the way life is: Just a century ago we were a single army, and that fellow who is watching us from the painting was the commander of us both...

...And he climbed in, all nervous, sweating, a little 18-year-old kid...

...His identity documents, as usual with spies, could have VoL XXXIII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2000 19REPORT ON VENEZUELA been false...

...The other, an illusionist, who could pass into the history books as just another despot...

...It is his way of understanding good luck, or intelligence, or intuition, or astuteness, or whatever one can call the magic touch that has favored him since he entered the world in Sabaneta, in the state of I was over the feeling just been tr chatting ple two oppo Barinas, on July 28, 1954, born under Leo, the sign of power...

...The military option was not on the list, nor had it occurred to him until he was told that the best route to the major leagues was via the military academy at Barinas...

...1 The following morning, with a headache they both shared, the captain returned ChAvez's historian's tools and, in the middle of the international bridge, gave him a farewell embrace...

...Our plane landed in Caracas at three in the morning...

...The minister put him at ease with a story that was so believable that the President went home to the presidential residence La Casona, instead of his office in Miraflores Palace...

...For years, they held clandestine meetings, each The culminatin Ch4vez's lii El Caracazo, th uprising that c Caracas in one larger than the last, with representatives of military officers from across the country...

...He, in turn, was overthrown by an entire generation of young democrats who inaugurated the longest period of elected presidents...

...We both tried to meet up again, but it was not possible for either of us, so we decided to fly together to Caracas so we could chat about his life and other miracles...

...It was the moment we were waiting for to act...

...It must have been another of the scapular's miracles, because he entered the academy on the first day of the Andr6s Bello Plan, which gave students in military schools the chance to pursue academic studies as far as they wished...

...Another, the strategic minute...

...The Two Faces of Hugo Chavez 1. Gran Colombia was the political unit consisting of present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama, which won independence from Spain in 1821...

...And so he did at the age of 23, and gave it a name that was an obvious choice: the Bolivarian People's Army of Venezuela...

...From that point, he placed him on the altar of his heroes and began to wear the protective scapular that had been his...

...The following day he awoke convinced that it was his destiny to found a movement...

...vhelmed by Chavez did not understand: If Chileans elected Allende, why that I had should Chilean officers overthrow him...

...Among those most surprised was ChAvez himself...

...I saw from the window the swamp of lights of that unforgettable city where I lived for three crucial years for Venezuela and for me...

...At this point in our chat, the President laughed mischievously, and with a wicked smile he said, "Well, we have always said that at first we were three...

...ccording to Commander Chivez's version of his life, the culminating event was El Caracazo...

...And in the airplane that carried us to Caracas, he concluded, "That was when I faced my first existential crisis...

...It.was actually just a list of options, and he tried nearly all of them...

...He had an immediate friendliness and a home-grown charm that were unmistakably Venezuelan...

...Understood," Chdvez replied...

...Don't let me die, my lieutenant," he said trembling...

...I got out and called to him...

...That night, lying awake in his hammock, Chavez wondered: "What am I doing here...

...It's Hugo who's ringing," they would say...

...At this point, now that the war is virtually over, it makes no sense for anyone to shoot anybody...

...The captain, moved, began to speak of the marvels of Gran Colombia, and the two ended up that night drinking beer from both countries in an Arauca bar...

...Then Colonel Manrique called the troops to attention and said: "I want you to know that what Captain Chbvez said was authorized by me...

...And finally, the tactical second...

...Chavez says he had a high fever at the time because he was suffering from rubella, and when he started his car he saw a soldier running without his helmet, his rifle dragging and his munitions scattering behind him...

...Chivez took a deep breath and nearly shouted, choking on the anguish of that terrible night: "You know, you send soldiers into the street, scared, with a rifle and 500 bullets, and they fire them all...

...I saw that they were sending out the troops and I asked a colonel, 'Where are all those soldiers lg event in going?' Because they were sending out the ones from logistics who are not fe was trained for combat, even less for urban ie popular fighting...

...How could I be a spy...