Another Failed Coup in Venezuela?
MARCH 6, 2019
The Venezuelan opposition and its backers in Washington may have underestimated the Chavista grassroots.
BY GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER
Venezuelan opposition leader and declared acting president by the National Assembly Juan Guaidó meets foreign allies including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (R) in a meeting of Lima Group on February 25, 2019 in Bogota, Colombia. (Photo by Luis Ramirez/Vizzor Image/Getty Images)
If you repeat your own lies enoughso goes the apocryphal Goebbels quoteyou start to believe them yourself. For two decades, the Venezuelan opposition and its supporters in Washington have smeared Hugo Chávez and now his successor, Nicolás Maduro, as despotic strongmen kept in power solely through military force and paltry payouts to the poor. So its no surprise that they are once again underestimating both Chavismo and the resilience of its supporters today.
Underestimating the People
Weve seen this all before: On April 11 of 2002, the Venezuelan oppositionaccording to the most credible accountsunleashed snipers on its own supporters and used the ensuing deaths to justify a coup against Hugo Chávez. But the opposition dramatically overplayed its hand and underestimated the Chavista grassroots, who it routinely smeared as the blind followers of a populist strongman. When coup leaders abolished all branches of government and scrapped the constitution, hundreds of thousands of poor Venezuelans poured into the streets demanding, and eventually forcing, Chávezs return to power.
Much has changed since 2002. A perfect storm of Chávezs death, collapsing global oil prices, a mismanaged system of currency controls, ferocious aggression from the opposition andmore recentlyU.S. sanctions, has thrown the Venezuelan economy into a tailspin. Many of the impressive accomplishments of the Bolivarian Revolutionin health care, education and poverty reductionhave quickly evaporated, producing frustration, confusion and desperation among even Chavismos most hardline supporters.
So when opposition backbencher Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president of Venezuela on January 23, he and his co-conspirators thought the military would quickly fragment before eventually falling in line behind the self-proclaimed president. Things didnt work that way: Aside from a handful of soldiers and the U.S. military attaché, the Venezuelan armed forces remained solidly behind Nicolás Maduro. And despite large demonstrations both for and against the government, there have been no signs of sustained, mass resistance in the streets in favor of the coup either.
Why? In part because the frustration many poor Venezuelans feel today is just that: frustration. They are fed up with the economic crisis, and many place at least a share of the blame on Maduro. But as in the past, most dont see frustration as justifying undemocratic regime change, much less foreign interventionwhich the majority of Venezuelans oppose. Whats more, wanting the economy to improve has not led many to identify with opposition parties that still represent the most elite sectors of Venezuelan society and have offered no credible solutions to the economic crisis.
More:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/21785/venezuela-guaido-maduro-lima-group-pence-trump-coup-chavista-opposition