Hugo! (52 page)

Chávez designated two generals, Manuel Rosendo and
Ismael Hurtado
Soucre, to serve as
emissaries to the rebels, now holed up in Fort Tiuna.
He dispatched them to the fort to see what the rebels wanted and to
open negotiations to find a way out — possibly by Chávez resigning or
abandoning his post. Not long after, he also sent General Lucas Rincón
Romero, the top-ranking military officer, to Fort Tiuna to inform him
of what was happening.

On the fifth floor of the army headquarters in Fort Tiuna, even
as the streets of
Caracas were still wet with blood, the coup leaders
were celebrating wildly. They believed their plan to oust Chávez had
worked. They thought he was cornered and on his way out. Nearly the
entire nation was convinced he had blood on his hands, thanks to the
stunning Venevisión footage. High-ranking officers were hugging and
congratulating one another. They downed whiskey and champagne.
They were half delirious, as if it were New Year's Eve. Among the group
was General Enrique Medina Gómez, Venezuela's military attaché in
Washington, DC. He had flown in to Caracas earlier in the day.

Around midnight, a civilian showed up to join the military officers:
Pedro Carmona. As the Fedecámaras head has told the story, the
officers called saying they needed him to form the new
government.
Carmona responded to their call. He left Venevisión and headed over
to Fort Tiuna. It was all part of a spontaneous reaction to the horrifying
events of the afternoon, according to Carmona and the rebels.
The military officers also said they were rebelling because Chávez had
ordered them to implement the Plan Avila, which they now described
as a macabre
scheme to massacre innocent people.

Other evidence suggested that there was little spontaneous about the
day's events at all — that they were part of a carefully planned and orchestrated
rebellion aimed at overthrowing Chávez. One plotter,
Colonel
Julio Rodríguez Salas, went on television a little after 11 P.M. that night
and stunned viewers when he told opposition journalist Ibeyise Pacheco,
"Nine months ago a movement started to organize itself more firmly, a
serious movement, and fortunately it has come to fruition today."

Chávez's ally Jorge Luis García Carneiro, the general who tried unsuccessfully
earlier in the day to implement the Plan Avila, had returned
from Miraflores to Fort Tiuna, and was taken prisoner by the rebels on
the fifth floor after midnight. Some, including Medina, told him their
plot to oust Chávez had been in the works for months, if not longer, and
that they planned to have people killed to justify the coup against him.
"They told me this was planned from years back, because it was the only
way there would be fewer deaths," García Carneiro later told an interviewer.
"They had even planned some deaths as actually occurred. They
had the snipers in the sector where they [the plotters] never passed. They
wanted to kill people on both sides to create confusion . . . That is where
I convinced myself that, in fact, everything was well organized and that
they had planned a massacre on the
Llaguno Bridge to justify the participation
of the armed forces against the president."

It was a version of events the plotters were to vigorously deny, but
when Lucas Rincón showed up at Fort Tiuna after midnight, he heard
similar stories, according to
testimony he later delivered before the
National Assembly. Navy vice admiral Héctor Ramírez, the officer who
made the dramatic taped announcement at 7 P.M., told Rincón he had
been involved in the plot for six months. Ramírez said a junta would be
named and presided over probably by a businessman.

Carmona and other civilians who joined him went to work finishing
off a decree making him the next president. The civilians
included Daniel Romero, a lawyer and former political secretary to
Carlos Andrés Pérez. In reality, Carmona already had a draft of the
detailed document. It was written ahead of time and shown a day earlier
on April 10 by Romero to Chávez critic and leading intellectual Jorge
Olavarria for his comments. Surprised by the contents of the document,
Olavarria told Romero it would violate democratic norms and provoke
an international reaction.

Besides the revelations about the plan, García Carneiro was also surprised
by two people he said he saw with the plotters: officers from the US
military mission. They were later identified as
Lieutenant Colonel James
Rogers and
Colonel Ronald McCammon. The Americans still had an
office in Fort Tiuna, although the Venezuelan government had requested
they leave nearly a year ago. It would be like Venezuela maintaining an
office inside the Pentagon. The presence of Rogers and McCammon, along
with reports of American
ships and helicopters off Venezuela's western
coast, were to raise questions about the role of the United States in the
revolt. The United States later said that Rogers and McCammon simply
drove to Fort Tiuna that afternoon to check on reports of troop movements
and were in no way involved in any revolt. The American ships were participating
in routine training exercises, the government said.

The rebels and Chávez launched into a confusing series of negotiations.
Rosendo and Hurtado traveled back and forth between Miraflores
and Fort Tiuna and spoke to Chávez on the phone. The negotiations
were complicated because the rebels were fighting among themselves
over what post each one would get in the new government, and over
what to do with Chávez. Some were willing to let him leave the country
and go into exile. Others wanted him to remain and be put on trial for
the killings that afternoon.

Sometime after midnight Chávez's ministers and top allies huddled
in his office to debate what they should do. They figured they had three
options. They could try to move the seat of the government to Maracay,
where Chávez had the support of Baduel. They could remain in the
palace and resist — fight it out militarily with the rebels when they
attacked. Or Chávez could cede to the rebels' demands and resign.

Chávez's new environmental minister,
Ana Elisa Osorio, and his
higher education minister, Héctor Navarro, among others, favored the
first option. "Let's go to Maracay, we have strength there," Navarro said.
But Chávez didn't think it was feasible. He thought they would be captured
by the rebels as they tried to make their way to Maracay ninety
miles away. They had no tanks to accompany them — the ones he
had ordered to Miraflores were ordered back to Fort Tiuna by General
Efraín Vásquez Velasco.

José Vicente Rangel, Chávez's brother Adán, and others favored
the second option. Rangel had been exiled to Chile during the Pérez
Jiménez dictatorship and was a friend of Salvador Allende. He didn't
want Chávez to become another Allende. He wanted to at least go down
fighting. His son, José Vicente Rangel Avelo, a local mayor, was with
him in the palace. At one point the elder Rangel told him, "Get out of
here, because we are going to die." The son refused. Rangel also called
his wife, Anita, and told her, "I'm giving you the bad news that you're
going to be a widow and without a son."

But there were also thousands of Chavistas outside the palace in the
streets. If fighting broke out, there would be numerous deaths. According
to Rangel's son, Chávez spoke serenely to the group and said, "There
will not be a
bloodbath. I'll never permit innocent people to die."

The only way to avoid such a bloodbath seemed to be to give in to the
rebels' demand that he step down. Chávez told the group he would
consider resigning if the rebels granted four conditions. The first was
respecting the physical safety of his top government officials, his family,
and himself. Second, they had to respect the constitution, allowing him
to resign before the National Assembly and be succeeded in office by
the vice president as the magna carta called for until new elections
were called. Third, he wanted to address the nation live on television.
Finally, he wanted safe passage out of the country for his cabinet, his
bodyguards, his family, and himself. He considered heading to Cuba
and the safety Castro could offer.

After the meeting with his ministers ended, Chávez asked the group
to leave him alone. He needed time to think. As they got up to leave, he
took the revolver off his leg strap and put it on a table. It was one of the
most difficult moments of his life. Dozens of people were dead or injured
after the afternoon's events. Some of his most trusted allies in the military
were betraying him. He was cut off from the media. His presidency
seemed over, drowned in a sea of blood on the streets outside the palace.
As Chávez's allies walked out of his office, some braced for the sound of
a gunshot. They feared Chávez might choose to end the crisis with the
military the same way Allende had in 1973: by killing himself.

Rosendo and Hurtado eventually returned to Miraflores from Fort
Tiuna, and informed Chávez that the rebels had agreed to his four
conditions. They wanted him to step down as quickly as possible. They
needed a signed resignation letter so the revolt would not appear to
be a coup but a voluntary departure performed within "constitutional
norms." They faxed a prepared resignation letter to Miraflores. At one
point three rebel leaders brought the original copy to the palace for
Chávez to sign. As the minutes ticked by, they were losing patience.
With daybreak a few hours away, they started threatening to bomb the
palace if he did not give up. They said the bombs would start falling
in fifteen minutes.

With his back against the wall, Chávez called
Rincón at Fort
Tiuna a little before 3 A.M. He told the general he was accepting the
rebels' demand that he step down. He had no choice. Half an hour
later, Rincón went on national television and dropped a bombshell.
Most of the country was glued to their television sets or listening to
radios; no one really knew what was going on. Rincón seemed to end
the confusion. In a grammatically twisted statement, he said, "The
military leadership abhors today's events. In light of these events, it was
requested of the president that he resign his post, which he accepted."
He also announced that the high
command was resigning.

It sounded to most people like Chávez had quit and left what opponents
quickly called a
vacio de poder
— a power vacuum. Middle-class
residents celebrated, leaning out the windows of their high-rises to
cheer and shout. People stopped their cars on highways and got out to
yell their jubilation. Television networks started playing Rincón's message
every twenty minutes for the next thirty-six hours. The news went
around the world that Chávez had resigned.

But according to Chávez's account, it wasn't that simple, as he told
interviewer
Marta Harnecker. For one thing, he was forced to resign
with a gun pointed at his head.

I had authorized General Rincón, who had been with me the
whole evening and night, to go to Fort Tiuna to find out what
those people really wanted. In the middle of these events he called
me and said: "President, they're demanding your resignation and
they're putting pressure on me to resign as well. But I've said that
I'll follow whatever decision you make." Then I told him: "Look,
Lucas, Rosendo and Hurtado have arrived and they've told me
that they accept the conditions that I am demanding for my resignation.
Tell them that yes, I will resign." I gave him the green
light. He leaves saying what I told him. What he said was: "The
President has accepted the demand for his resignation and so
have I. My position is at the disposition of the high command."
Therefore, I'm completely sure that he said what I had told him
by phone.

What happened ten, twenty minutes later? He declares my
resignation and leaves, but a few minutes later we receive word
that they no longer accept the four conditions. I was almost certain
that they were not going to accept; it was a way to stall for
time. Next they demanded that I go there as a prisoner. If I refused
they threatened to attack the palace . . . And that was the end — I
left as a prisoner.

Outside Chávez's office, his ministers had not seen him for nearly two
hours. They wanted to know what was going on. They were confused
by Rincón's announcement. They started banging on the door to be let
in. A guard finally opened it. Chávez was sitting in a chair when they
walked in. He seemed serene. He explained the situation. He said he
wasn't going to resign. He was going to surrender himself as a "president
prisoner." He had no choice. The rebels were going to start bombing at
any moment. He followed the advice of José Vicente Rangel, who urged
him not to sign any
resignation letter. "Don't sign so it's a coup, Hugo,"
he said.

Osorio, the environmental minister, came out of the president's
office to inform the crowd what was happening. "Politically, it's clear
this is a coup," she said. "It's not that the president resigned. He didn't
resign. He's being taken a prisoner because it's a coup." Then, her voice
rising and tears welling in her eyes, she said, "Let the world know: It's
a coup!" The crowd started clapping and yelling in defiant defense of
Chávez. "It's a coup!" Osorio shouted. "It's a coup against the people,
against the people of Venezuela who love him!" She wiped a tear that
was running down her cheek. The crowd broke into shouts of "Hugo!
Hugo! Hugo!" People clapped their hands above their heads. Others
pumped their fists in the air.

Inside his office, Chávez prepared to say good-bye to his ministers.
Hurtado told them to hurry. The rebels were threatening to commence
the bombing. The president embraced each one of his ministers.
They wanted to go with him, to protect him. They believed it would be
harder for the rebels to kill fifteen ministers than to eliminate Chávez
by himself, blaming it on a suicide or an airplane accident. But the
rebels refused. "I gave [Jorge] Giordani and [Héctor] Navarro hugs
and I said goodbye to my dispatch, saying, 'The strategic window has
closed.' They did not respond. I thought I was going to die. That ominous
feeling crossed my mind for a few moments. I said goodbye to
everyone who was with me there in the palace."