From President to reporter

Laura Mercedes Giráldez, Granma, August 8, 2024 — 

Fidel’s infallible advice allowed Chávez to pull himself together and prevent the 2002 coup in Venezuela from coming to fruition

 “Do not immolate yourself (…) Do not resign! Do not resign!” One must have a clear and accurate vision to, in the midst of a coup d’état, give this advice to a man who was willing to sacrifice himself for his people.

In the early morning of April 12, 2002, Fidel Castro was able to contact -after hours of unsuccessful attempts- Hugo Chávez, who was barricaded in the Miraflores Palace, in the face of the deal between Pedro Carmona Estanga and Washington, who intended to take constitutional power by force of arms.

Chávez represented that “bad example” that the ultra-right and the empire attack in the region. The Bolivarian Revolution meant a radical change in Latin America, and its link with Cuba terrified them.

They were right. Fidel’s constant support and infallible advice in those fateful hours allowed them to pull themselves together and prevent the formula they had tried against Allende from coming to fruition in Venezuela.

During that conversation, at 12:38 a.m., the Presidents exchanged about the forces Chavez had on his side: “200 to 300 very exhausted men,” he explained.

“Don’t immolate yourself,” he told me. “Save your people and save yourself as best you can, this does not end here.” And at the end he said to me: “Your people are waiting for you here, I am waiting for you here. Save yourself, save yourself. I am waiting for you here,” he recalled a year later, before the international press.

The Commander-in-Chief was certain that it was an “unnecessary battle” at that moment, hence they evaluated the three alternatives that Chávez had: “to entrench himself in Miraflores and resist until death; to leave the Palace and try to meet with the people to unleash a national resistance, with very little chance of success in those circumstances; or to leave the country without resigning or resigning to resume the struggle with real and quick prospects of success. We suggested the third option,” he told Ignacio Ramonet, for his book One Hundred Hours with Fidel.

“We talked about other issues: the way in which I thought he should provisionally leave the country, communicate with a military officer who really had authority in the coup ranks, and tell him of his willingness to leave the country, but not to resign. From Cuba we would try to mobilize the Diplomatic Corps in our country and in Venezuela, we would send two planes with our Foreign Minister and a group of diplomats to pick him up. He thought about it for a few seconds, and finally accepted my proposal. Everything would now depend on the enemy military chief.”

Indeed, Fidel knew that at that moment they could only act using diplomacy. His strategy was to summon the ambassadors accredited in Havana in the middle of the night, to propose that they accompany the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Caracas, to rescue Chavez, the constitutional president of Venezuela, alive.

“I have references, not because he told me so, but because he spent two days without sleeping, without sleeping, calling presidents, calling people,” narrated El Arañero de Sabaneta.
“I did not harbor the least doubt that Chavez, in a very short time, would be back on the shoulders of the people and the troops. Now, he had to be preserved from death (…), the military chief of the coup rejected the formula, also informing him that he would be submitted to court martial.”

From Miraflores, Chávez was transferred to several places: Fuerte Tiuna, Turiamo …. in this journey, already a prisoner, they lost communication.

The State TV station VTV had been taken off the air and rumors began to spread that the President had resigned. The leader of the Cuban Revolution was aware that this was false information. Furthermore, he was clear as to the importance of letting the Venezuelan people and the international community know that Chávez was still alive.

He knew that the private media were a fundamental axis in the coup strategy, since by selling the idea of the President’s resignation, they would talk about retaking the constitutional thread.

Let us remember that, in February 1957, the interview of The New York Times reporter, Herbert Matthews, to the Commander-in-Chief, who was in the Sierra Maestra, was essential to disprove the plot that the Batista dictatorship had woven around the supposed death or flight of Fidel, thus leaving the revolutionary struggle adrift.

The neo-republican censorship of that time had left the guerrillas in the dark, just as the national and international press, on the side of the aggressors, turned the facts in their favor.
Thus, headlines such as: It’s over, Chávez surrenders, Chávez resigned, Chao Hugo, began to circulate, with the undeniable purpose of misinforming the people and relocating the opinion in favor of Carmona inside and outside the courtyard.

In view of this situation, and in the midst of the harassment of the Bolivarian leader’s family, on the 12th, María Gabriela Chávez Colmenares -his daughter- managed to give an interview via telephone to Cuban Television, which would dismantle the information siege of the coup.

“Call Fidel,” Chávez had told her. And he “attended to María and had her speak to the world,” the Venezuelan Head of Government later recalled. “With the help and cooperation of Fidel Castro, that good friend and comrade, the world heard a different version to the media coverage that was coming out to the world from here, part of the conspiracy plan.”

From then on, the aggressive attack would sink like the Titanic, in parts. It had collided with the iceberg that broke the media censorship. With this, Venezuela and the rest of the world had two certainties. In the first place: Chávez was alive, on the side of his people and without resignation. And, therefore, the credibility of the media that played the game of Carmona and the empire had substantially fallen.

“First, a greeting to all the Cuban people. Two hours ago we managed to communicate with my father, he called us on the phone and told us to please inform the whole world that he has never resigned, that he has never signed a Presidential Decree to dismiss Vice-President Diosdado Cabello, much less has he resigned. They simply went to the military, they arrested him and took him to Fort Tiuna, to the General Command of the Army, and at this moment he is detained in the regiment of the Military Police in Fort Tiuna; they have him completely incommunicado, they only allowed him to talk to us, his children. He asked us to look for lawyers, to talk to friends, family members, to demand the respect of his rights and so that we can see him because, in fact, he did not know when we would be able to talk to him again.”

The enlightening message would be a well-delivered blow, since it was not only heard in Cuba, but was also delivered to the cable agencies and television stations accredited in the country.

From now on, the communication between the Cuban Head of State and Chavez’s family would be constant, as well as the declarations in the press of the largest of the Antilles. The Island became the bearer of the truth that the war -also in the media- wanted to hide at all costs.

Fidel had telephone contact with the Bolivarian leader’s parents; as well as with General Lucas Rincón, Inspector General of the Armed Forces; the Mayor of Sabaneta – where Chávez was born-; General Raúl Isaías Baduel, head of the Paratroopers Brigade, and Major General Julio García Montoya, permanent secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

“I had become a sort of press reporter receiving and transmitting news and public messages, with the simple use of a cell phone and a tape recorder in Randy’s (Alonso) hands. I was a witness of the formidable counter-coup of the people and the Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela.”