Senior Undergrad Student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Kevin Okabe writes: The coup against Allende in Chile on 9/11/73 and Hugo Chavez Frias in Venezuela on 4/11/02 contain many similarities and differences.

• The main similarity is that they were the culmination of a class conflict between the rich and poor in each respective society.
   
• The main difference was the driving force behind them. The Chilean coup was driven mainly by the military, whereas it was mainly the media that drove the Venezuelan coup.

There are other aspects to these coups that need to be addressed and explored ... the first issue was how each respective leader angered the US government; the second was the powerful forces opposing these leaders; the third was the how the coups themselves unfurled; the fourth issue was the aftermath...

Upsetting the US government: Chavez Frias angered the United States government by opposing many facets of its foreign policy. His opposition to Neo-Liberal economic policies upset the United States because practicing this economic model was, and still is, the primary means of gaining foreign investment in Latin America.

Chavez Frias opposed these policies because they cause great hardship for the poor and working classes by reduced social spending, privatization of basic services (such as water), and by forcing increased fees for such services.

Ironically. Chavez Frias’ government maintained payments on IMF loans to a greater extent than any other South American nation. Also, Chavez Frias refused to provide support in any way for 'Plan Colombia' ... the US government’s program for defeating Colombian rebels and drug traffickers. His rationale was that Colombia’s Civil War is an internal matter to be dealt with by Colombia, and foreign nations should not get involved.

The US found this upsetting because Venezuela’s extensive border with Colombia means that Colombian rebels have a safe haven from US and Colombian forces.

One other aspect of Chavez Frias’ policies that upset the US is the "friendly relations" between Chavez Frias and Cuba's Fidel Castro ... a relationship that sees Chavez Frias selling discounted oil to Cuba in exchange for Cuban assistance with education, health and social programs. It was especially upsetting to Otto Reich (a Cuban-American who was Undersecretary of State for Latin America), due to his personal animosity for Fidel Castro. Reich's involvement as a propagandist for the Contras in Reagan’s 'dirty war' in Nicaragua during the 1980s proves nothing, but it indicates a willingness on Reich’s part to use underhanded means to achieve policy goals.

Allende upset the US mainly to his political leanings as a Marxist ... the US found this upsetting since it flew in the face of common belief at the time in Washington that the only way for a Marxist to gain power is through violent revolution.  Allende was at variance with this belief since he was democratically-elected ... and, furthermore, followed his nation's Constitution.  That further upset the United States as Allende’s gaining power and his actions while in power showed US accusations about Marxist movements in the Third World to be nothing more than inflammatory propaganda.

Thus Allende’s government became an embarrassing propaganda defeat that Washington was desperate to erase ... Allende’s nationalization of Chilean industry further upset the US since American-based multinational companies owned many of Chile’s major industries. An example was the seizure of copper mines from Anaconda and Kennecott without compensation, because of ‘excess-profits’ the companies had made. The seizure, and others like it, transformed Chile (in the eyes of Washington) from a propaganda embarrassment to a matter of economic pride by which American property was being seized by an "uncooperative government."

Powerful interests opposing the leaders: As said before, the main weapon used by those opposing Chavez Frias was, and still is, the media. The opposition leaders own the vast majority of media outlets in Venezuela. The only exceptions to this are a state-owned and run television station and a single daily newspaper ... which is not virulently anti-Chavez Frias. This fact has enabled the opposition to disparage Chavez Frias in public ... which in turn leads the international press to repeat many of the accusations.

The main accusation against Chavez Frias is that he is “authoritarian” ... which does have some basis since he replaces government officials who oppose his policies, he refused to recognize the oil worker union leadership due to a questionable election and he consistently forces the opposition media outlets to broadcast many of his political speeches (as he is authorized to do by law).

Despite these heavy-handed actions, Chavez Frias has never once violated the Venezuelan Constitution and, as such, the authoritarian accusations are exaggerated at best.

Also, when Chavez Frias supporters learned of their leader’s ouster by coup through “Bolivarian Circles” -- neighborhood organizations set up by Chavez Frias as a sort of grassroots support base -- they took to the street en masse and the media never showed the pro-Chavez Frias demonstrations since the state television station was shut down at the start of the coup.

This blatantly biased reporting by the commercial media caused the union at Venezuela’s largest daily newspaper to cry out “no more manipulation and confrontation.” In the statement the workers accused the media owners of abusing their position to “propagate disinformation.”

The lead of local media in the foreign countries makes the majority of international stories in the US media and due to the opposition’s control of the media in Venezuela much of the US reports from Venezuela sound like opposition propaganda with the New York Times repeating such accusations as authoritarian without qualifying the statements. The Times repeated the opposition mantra that the coup "overthrew a dictator" and it ignored the massive outpour of support for Chavez Frias, until it brought him back to power and the NYT was forced to recognize the masses.

The Venezuelan media was not the only ally the opposition had in Venezuela ... the support of the US government was also highly likely. Reports in the British newspaper 'The Guardian' imply that the US Navy assisted the coup. Also, open criticism of Chavez Frias by men like George Tenet (head of the CIA) and Colin Powell indicate that the US government would not be unhappy to see Chavez Frias ousted.

The single strongest piece of evidence indicating US involvement was the immediate US recognition of coup leader Pedro Carmona Estanga as President of Venezuela despite the fact that most Latin American leaders did not recognize the Carmona government.

This incident also shows hypocrisy on the part of Washington D.C. because they justified the overthrow of Chavez Frias saying he had ordered soldiers to fire on protestors, while recently in Bolivia they justified Sanchez de Lozada’s killing of protestors saying a democracy has the right to defend itself.

Allende also faced such opposition, but instead of the media, Allende’s opposition came in the form of the owners of nationalized industries, multinational companies and the military ... all of which had ties with the CIA.

Pepsi Co. had ties to the coup in that the president of Pepsi, Donald Kendall, arranged a meeting between a Chilean newspaper publisher and Nixon administration officials (according to a US Senate investigation) ... the newspaper publisher operated bottling plants for Pepsi in Chile, thus Pepsi stood to lose a significant investment in Chile if Allende nationalized those plants.

ITT (International Telegraph & Telephone) vice president, William Merrian, sent a memo to Nixon detailing sectors of Chilean society capable of opposing Allende, noting actions the US government and companies could take to destabilize Chile, and what to do with the arms that Chile had ordered.  ITT, which operated telephones in Chile, had made many donations to Allende’s opposition in the years before the coup ... this level of cooperation by such companies with the US government in Chilean affairs could explain the extreme financial instability in the Chilean economy after Allende took power.

The role of the CIA in bringing about the Chile coup cannot be overstated since they funded plotters and strikers, equipped assassins, and coordinated the effort to destabilize the Chilean government. During elections prior to Allende’s victory, the CIA gave in excess of US$40 million to his opponents to ensure he never became Chile’s leader.

Eventually this effort to keep Allende out, by the democratic process, failed and other means were used to establish a "friendly" Chilean government ... CIA director, Richard Helms made notes at a meeting with Kissinger that described the efforts to "save Chile" ... $10 million dollars were made available for the effort, ignoring risks involved and that they were to "make the economy scream." The note demonstrates the resolve on the part of the Nixon administration to oust Allende.

Destabilizing Chile was not the only course of action the CIA took; they also provided arms for the purpose of kidnapping General Rene Schineder, who supported the Constitutional election process. The CIA also gained the support of the Chilean military by informing Chilean military officers that American military aid would be cut off if Allende were elected. The CIA's action that had the greatest impact on the coup was the funding of the trucker’s strike ... virtually paralyzed the country, it was a decisive factor in bringing about the September 11, 1973 coup.

The coups and after: Although the plotting for the Venezuelan coup began months, if not years, before its execution, the actions began on April 9 (2002) when the largest Venezuelan union, the Confederation of Venezuela Workers (CTV) began a general strike that was to last for two days in conjunction with the employer’s association, Fedecamaras.

Then, on the 11th, the strikers were encouraged by the CTV and Fedecamaras' Pedro Carmona to march on the Presidential offices at Miraflores Palace ... as the strikers were marching on the Palace they encountered a pro-Chavez Frias demonstration and soon afterwards gunfire erupted and about fifteen people are killed.

The commercial Venezuelan media -- and soon afterwards the US media -- immediately blamed Chavez Frias for the deaths, saying he had ordered soldiers to fire into the crowd. However, according to an eyewitness, Gregory Wilpert (a former Fulbright scholar), the media never stated that the majority of those killed were pro-Chavez Frias demonstrators and that those most likely responsible for the shootings were Bandera Roja (BR), an extremist opposition party.

Using the shootings as an excuse, a group of military officers took Chavez Frias into custody at gunpoint at 4L00 a.m. April 12.  Soon after, Carmona announced he would head a transitional government and dissolved the Legislature and the Supreme Court ... then, on Saturday 13, the “poor came down from the hills” again, to support their leader according to a report in Pagina 12 (a Buenos Aires daily).

The demonstrators were kept informed of the situation not by the media, but by the Bolivarian Circles, which included local community journalists (i.e. unpaid) to retake the state television station and to surround Miraflores Palace. Paratroopers from Chavez Frias’ old unit occupied the palace basement and Carmona found himself surrounded by a pro-Chavez Frias crowd, and with troops loyal to Chavez Frias in the basement there was nowhere for Carmona to go. Soon afterwards he resigned and Chavez Frias returned to power because of the combined efforts of loyal military troops and the masses that came out to support their leader.

Despite the failure of the coup, the opposition continued to clamor for Chavez Frias’ ouster. Then, with the backing of the Bush administration, the opposition demanded an immediate referendum on Chavez Frias’ rule.

This would be unconstitutional since the Venezuelan Constitution provides for a revocatory referendum half-way through a President’s term. In order be legally ousted, Chavez Frias would have to lose the referendum by more votes than he won in the election that brought him to power.

• That means more than 56% of the Venezuelan electorate would have to vote against Chavez Frias for him to be ousted.

Considering that more than half of Venezuela’s population is poor, that would be nearly impossible. Therefore, the opposition tried to force Chavez Frias’ resignation by shutting down Venezuela’s state oil company with a lock out in December 2002. The effort failed because Chavez Frias replaced most of the company’s executives -- as was his right.

Several months later, after $ billions in damage to the industry had been done, oil once again flowed from Venezuela.  Chavez Frias still has an opposition, but they have been weakened by their numerous defeats, and Chavez Frias remains popular among the poor in Venezuela.

Allende the coup and its aftermath ended badly for the Chilean people.

On 9/11/1973, the coup began a 9:00 a.m. when Allende’s military aides informed him of the attack that would begin on the Presidential Palace in moments. At 11:30 a.m., Pinochet asked Allende to surrender ... to which Allende replied "I do not make deals with traitors, and you General Pinochet, are a traitor.” At 11:56 a.m. the air attack began on the Palace and shortly after ground forces began to advance on the Palace itself. At 1:10 p.m. the final attack was launched on the palace. At 2:00 p.m. soldiers made their way into the palace and ten minutes later Allende was killed fighting the coup. Thus a democratically-elected government was overthrown and replaced with a military junta.

The aftermath of the coup was a bloody affair, with the intention of exterminating the ‘motors of Marxism’ with Operation Pincers consisting of wiping out Allende’s political base.  It consisted of arresting and summarily executing 20,000 socialist activists without trial or any type of legal process. The second part was the arrest and imprisonment of 3,000 well-known Marxist leaders who were spared because the junta feared being called dictators by the rest of the world ... but the grass roots organizers were so obscure that no one would care about them.

After securing their power through the purge, the junta proceeded to criminalize opposition to their government. Thus the Chilean people lived under a dictatorship imposed upon them by Chilean business elites and powerful American interests for almost twenty more years despite the resistance of much of the Chilean populace.

Conclusion: These coups demonstrate how the elites strike back against socialist leaders who threaten the elites ability to plunder their country’s resources. In both of these cases the elites would never have been able to carry out these coups without the overt and covert support of the United States and the corporate interests based within the United States.

• The Chilean coup succeeded because of the economic havoc wreaked by the Chilean elites, multinational corporations with interests in Chile, and the US government.

Also, the pace of Allende’s economic transition greatly contributed to the economic instability in Chile at the time ... that economic havoc convinced the Chilean military leadership that a coup was necessary to rescue Chile from Allende.

The Venezuelan coup failed because the tactics used by the plotters relied so heavily upon the commercial media ... as the commercial press constantly shouted Chavez Frias has resigned, independent journalists with the assistance of the “Bolivarian Circles” spread news of the coup among the poor, Chavez Frias’ political base.

As the masses showed their support for Chavez Frias, they trapped the replacement junta in Miraflores Palace with Chavez Frias’ old paratrooper battalion. Thus the masses prevented Chavez Frias’ ouster and possible murder by demonstrating for their leader and against the coup.

In Chile we see a successful action by the elites in that country to eliminate a leader that threatened the status quo. Whereas, in Venezuela, the people took to the streets to prevent the elites from taking the political gains the poor had made in the previous four years.

Kevin Okabe (22) is a Senior Undergrad Student at the University of. California at Santa Barbara.  He lives in Palos Verdes Est., California.  You may email him at: keystonekabes@umail.ucsb.edu

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