Rumours of civil war spread in Venezuela
By Andy Webb-Vidal
Published: June 19 2002 20:20 | Last Updated: June 19 2002 20:20
If the enemies of President Hugo Chávez make another attempt to overthrow him, José and his family will be ready for the worst: looting, lawlessness and armed raids on his cosy middle-class home by pillaging pro-Chávez militias.
"Everyone here fears a violent exit; the military will be fighting among themselves, there will be no public order. But we will be ready to defend ourselves from the Chávista hordes," says José, as he ticks through a list of food rations and handgun catalogues.
But José is no coup plotter, just an average middle-class Caracas resident preparing for what he and the neighbours in his apartment block's newly formed self-defence unit in the leafy suburb of Sebucán see as inevitable: Venezuela's impending descent into civil war.
Two months after the civilian-turned-military rebellion that ousted and then, 48 hours later, reinstalled populist President Chávez, fear and loathing drapes the city.
"Venezuela is in a state of national paranoia," says Edmundo Chirinos, the country's top psychiatrist, among whose occasional visitors is Mr Chávez.
"At one extreme the poorest groups see Chávez as a messiah who will resolve their life-long problems, but by an even greater measure Chávez has generated a visceral hatred in others," said Mr Chirinos. "Each group feels persecuted by the other: the rich by the poor and vice-versa."
Lukewarm efforts at national reconciliation with opposition groups have all but foundered as the government refused to meet the leaders of unions and business groups, which sense a regime weakened and poised to implode under the strains of ungovernability and looming economic collapse.
Finance ministry officials are scheduled to go to London next week to tap capital markets for funds to help plug a government expenditure shortfall in the order of $3.5bn.
Since the April 11 coup Mr Chávez has partially toned down the streetwise and engaging populist rhetoric that ruffled the sensitivities of the elite, shelved imposing pan-network national broadcasts and introduced a market-friendly economic cabinet.
But the measures are not enough for the traditional and disparate opposition parties, who have united under the single policy of identifying Mr Chávez and his so-called Bolivarian revolution as the root of all evil and his removal from office the only solution.
Long forgotten is the package of 49 controversial but largely unexecuted economic and land reform laws decreed by Mr Chávez last year that ignited concerns and inflamed tensions with business leaders.
Social unrest is again simmering. The Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, the main umbrella union, is again planning a national stoppage and the Fedecamaras business chamber is contemplating a collective "tax strike" in support, a scenario similar to that of April's civilian rebellion.
According to Teodoro Petkoff, a former economic planning minister and leading political commentator, Mr Chávez has staged the extraordinary feat of implementing a "virtual revolution whose sole achievement has been to foster a counter-revolution".
Some sectors of the opposition are attempting to find legal "solutions" to the crisis, such as impeachment on the grounds of misappropriation of public funds or a constitutional amendment that would allow for a referendum in the months ahead.
But even the most optimistic analysts say they see little, if any, chance of a solution that does not end in violence. Despite political manoeuvrings by Luis Miquilena, his former interior minister who is perceived to hold an influence on judges in the supreme court, Mr Chávez retains a tight grip on the attorney-general's office.
"Political solutions are only possible when they are the fruit of an agreement," says Mr Petkoff. "Each side uses the concept of a political solution to club the other."
Several opposition leaders and even political analysts have in recent days openly called for a coup to remove Mr Chávez as the only way forward to "restore order".
Plotting goes on between military officers and civilians, with the names of at least three civilian figures being shuffled as candidates to head an interim transition government. Tensions within the armed forces are running high, with rumours of tank and aircraft movements and an imminent second rebellion circulating as a matter of course on Fridays and Saturdays, favourite days for toppling Latin American governments.
Irrational fear or well- informed justification, Mr Chávez and his loyalist military generals seem as concerned as José and his neighbours by the prospect of a fresh coup attempt, installing anti-aircraft missiles close to the Miraflores presidential palace.
"Calls for a military coup as the solution for a civil society is madness," says Mr Chirinos. "This is a country that has become psychotic and hysterical."
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