Bush aides met plotters before
Chavez coup
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
17 April 2002
Suspicions are growing that the US may have had, if not a direct
hand in, at least prior knowledge of the abortive coup last week
against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.
The New York Times said yesterday that senior Bush
administration officials met leaders of the business and military
behind the coup several times, and agreed that the controversial
and populist Mr Chavez should be removed from power.
The coup lasted barely 24 hours before the ousted President was
restored to office, although Washington had already publicly
welcomed his overthrow. Even now, the Bush administration has not
acknowledged a coup took place. The most charitable comment
from senior Bush aides was that Mr Chavez had better take to heart
the lessons of the past few days, or face another overthrow attempt.
The official line here is that the coup leaders were told Washington
sympathised with the ends but the means had to be constitutional.
The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said: "Our message
has been consistent. The political situation in Venezuela is one for
the Venezuelans to resolve peacefully, democratically and
constitutionally. We explicitly told opposition leaders the US would
not support a coup."
However, "benign neglect" may be closer to the truth. A senior
defence official said: "We were not discouraging people. We were
not saying, 'No, don't you dare'."
The US would love to see the back of Mr Chavez, who is about as
popular with the Bush administration as the Chilean president,
Salvador Allende, was with the Nixon administration when he was
ousted in a CIA-backed coup in 1973.
Mr Chavez has established good relations with Saddam Hussein
and Fidel Castro, and has expressed sympathy for the Marxist Farc
guerrillas in neighbouring Colombia, target of a US-backed military
campaign. He is also an avowed radical at the head of a country
that is one of the biggest oil suppliers to the highly
import-dependent US.
The Venezuelan President, anxious to restore a veneer of stability,
has played down suggestions that Washington was involved. Asked
if the US might have been involved in the coup, he said: "The root is
here."
But his officials are investigating reports that a US-registered private
plane was ready to fly him into exile from La Orchila, a Caribbean
island retreat for the presidency, where Mr Chavez was being held. .
But the affair has made the US look stupid. Washington, even as it
trumpets support for democracy and human rights, stands accused
of conniving at the overthrow of a democratically elected leader in its
own hemispheric backyard.
Doubly embarrassing, the US was almost alone in not denouncing
the coup. Several other governments, led by Mexico, condemned it
and refused to recognise an interim government installed by the
military.
The fear now is that other restless generals in Central and South
America may interpret the Bush administration's response to the
Venezuelan crisis as a tacit green light for other coups to get rid of
troublesome civilian leaders.
Nice FOOL move Bushkie....I guess that's a green light here too for someone that didn't even get the popular vote?!
The ENTIRE OAS voted against recognition, and Bushkie and the boyz already give him that in the first 3 hours!
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