CIA Coup a One-Day Wonder? Chavez Set to Return in Triumph Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [We hope Hugo Chavez (the "fiery populist" - cliche alert!) returns to office, and that the courage of his Venezuelan supporters is not betrayed by any weakness on his part from here on in. There is no way to play nice with the CIA or the DIA or the NSA or any of the USA's alphabet soup of Murder, Inc. agencies. We hope President Chavez cleans house very thoroughly indeed, and that he sweeps the place completely clean of vermin, especially those with US passports. Next time, it won't be quite so easy or so bloodless. The monster to the north is humiliated now, and even more dangerous. -- NY Transfer] Sun Apr 14, 1:43 AM ET (via Yahoo) Venezuela's Chavez Looks Set to Return in Triumph By Jason Webb CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Fiery Venezuelan populist Hugo Chavez seemed set for an improbable but triumphant return to power on Sunday after a government set up following Friday's military coup collapsed in the face of a rebellion by loyalist troops and massive protests. Chavez was expected to fly back to the mainland from the Caribbean island of La Orchila where he had been imprisoned after the smoothly executed coup that briefly installed mild-mannered businessman Pedro Carmona as leader of the world's fourth-largest oil-exporting country. "We guarantee that the president of the republic, Hugo Chavez Frias, will soon assume his functions as constitutional president," said Diosdado Cabello, who was Chavez's deputy until Friday but was sworn in as temporary president late on Saturday to cover the gap until his boss's return. Carmona, seeing power slip away from his inexperienced grasp amid military rebellions and street protests, had quit hours earlier. "A few minutes ago, we were informed that (Chavez) is in the hands of armed forces troops who are backing the re-establishment of our institutions and in a short while he will be with us," Cabello told reporters at the Miraflores presidential palace. Tens of thousands of angry Chavez supporters took to the streets of Venezuela's chaotic tropical capital on Saturday to demand the return of a leader they said had stood up for the poor. In a day of chaos in which it was seldom clear who was running the country, they clashed with police -- at least one person was killed -- and stormed anti-Chavez television stations. CHAVEZ'S CAREER SEEMED OVER Loyalist troops took control of the Miraflores palace and waved their berets and weapons in salute as massive crowds cheered them on. Chavez's career had seemed to be finished early on Friday, when the heads of the armed forces announced he had agreed to resign at their request following the deaths of at least 11 unarmed anti-government protesters. The demonstrators -- among hundreds of thousands who marched to call for Chavez's resignation on Thursday -- were killed by gunmen in civilian dress. The protest had been sparked by a strike called by powerful state oil company employees, who objected to Chavez's decision to fire their board of directors. Carmona's interim government blamed Chavez for the deaths, said it was dismissing Congress and the Supreme Court and would hold elections within a year. The United States, which disliked Chavez for his friendship with Cuban President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) and fretted about his populist leadership, was clearly pleased to see the back of him. U.S. officials said they considered there had been no coup. The military officers behind Chavez's overthrow said they merely had done their duty by protecting unarmed civilians. Chavez, the 47-year-old son of poor teachers, first came to national prominence when, as a young paratroop officer, he led troops in a failed coup attempt in 1992. After his release from prison he launched a legal political career that swept him to power in a landslide election victory in 1998. Often opting to continue to wear his paratrooper colonel's red beret, Chavez delighted the poor but infuriated the rich and the powerful news media with his rambling, often folksy speeches that denounced the wealthy elite. As he amassed more power, his critics said he was leading Venezuela down the road toward a Cuban-style authoritarian government. His failure to cut levels of corruption or poverty also eroded much of his support in his power base among the poor, and his approval rating had fallen to about 30 percent by the time of the last opinion poll. TROOPS LOYAL TO CHAVEZ While many of the top generals turned against him on Thursday and Friday, his supporters had what seemed to be the last laugh and boasted that most of the troops remained loyal. As more and more television stations had their signals hijacked by Chavez loyalists on Saturday, the ousted president's followers told the cameras that most of the country's military units had come out in support of their man. At the end of what should have been his first full day in power, Carmona resigned after closed-door negotiations with top brass at the Fuerte Tiuna military base. A few hours earlier, he had made a statement from military headquarters saying that Chavez would shortly be leaving the country. But the game was up for the interim government. Chavez backers displayed a handwritten faxed message, which they said was signed by Chavez, that denied he had resigned from the presidency as had been reported by military officers on Friday. "I, Hugo Chavez Frias, a Venezuelan and the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela have not renounced the legitimate power that the people gave me," the message read. Cabello said he would soon be handing over power to Chavez once again. "We hope he is in good shape," he said, adding there would be no reprisals for the turbulent events of the past few days but that those who had taken part in the coup would suffer the full weight of the law. * source - Bill Blum Hugo Chavez: A Servant Not Knowing his Place by William Blum How do we know that the CIA was behind the coup that overthrew Hugo Chavez? Same way we know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. That's what it's always done and there's no reason to think that tomorrow morning will be any different. Consider Chavez's crimes: Branding the US attacks on Afghanistan as "fighting terrorism with terrorism", he demanded an end to "the slaughter of innocents"; holding up photographs of children killed in the American bombing attacks, he said their deaths had "no justification, just as the attacks in New York did not, either." In response, the Bush administration temporarily withdrew its ambassador. Being very friendly with Fidel Castro and selling oil to Cuba at discount rates. His defense minister asking the permanent US military mission in Venezuela to vacate its offices in the military headquarters in Caracas, saying its presence was an anachronism from the cold war. Not cooperating to Washington's satisfaction with the US war against the Colombian guerrillas. Denying Venezuelan airspace to US counter-drug flights. Refusing to provide US intelligence agencies with information on Venezuela's large Arab community. Questioning the sanctity of globalization. Promoting a regional free-trade bloc and united Latin American petroleum operations as a way to break free from US economic dominance. Visiting Sadaam Hussein in Iraq and Moammar Gaddafy in Libya. And more in the same vein which the Washington aristocracy is unaccustomed to encountering from the servant class. The United States has endeavored to topple numerous governments for a whole lot less. The Washington Post reported from Venezuela on April 13: "Members of the country's diverse opposition had been visiting the U.S. Embassy here in recent weeks, hoping to enlist U.S. help in toppling Chavez. The visitors included active and retired members of the military, media leaders and opposition politicians. "The opposition has been coming in with an assortment of 'what ifs'," said a U.S. official familiar with the effort. "What if this happened? What if that happened? What if you held it up and looked at it sideways? To every scenario we say no. We know what a coup looks like, and we won't support it." Right. They won't support a coup. So what happens when a coup occurs which they want to support? Simple. They don't call it a coup. They call it a "change of government" and say that Chavez was ousted "as a result of the message of the Venezuelan people." Veritable grass-roots democracy it was. Opposition legislators were also brought to Washington in recent months, including at least one delegation sponsored by the International Republican Institute, an integral part of the National Endowment for Democracy, long used by the CIA for covert operations abroad. Overthrowing a man such as Hugo Chavez, guilty of such transgressions, was a duty so "natural" for the CIA that the only reason it might not have been intimately involved in the operation would be that the Agency had been secretly disbanded. * William Blum is the author of "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" and "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" Portions of the books can be read (with a link to Killing Hope) at: http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-04.14.02-03:08:59-11359