A Letter to Opposition Author Brian Nelson

Brian Nelson is an author and professor at John Hopkins University. He recently wrote a book about the 2002 coup d'état in Venezuela, which gave a very one-sided account of the events, and left out some very important pieces of evidence. After hearing him on the radio recently, I decided to write him this letter:

Mr. Nelson,

I listened via web to a radio interview that you did on public radio a couple days ago. I couldn't help but notice that many of the things you said are factually wrong. I don't have time to go into each and every one of them right now, but I thought I should at least point out to you the most obvious one (and perhaps the most important to you) regarding the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela. Since you wrote a book on the topic, it surprises me that you could ignore some of the most basic pieces of evidence surrounding the events.

You said in the interview that the military decided to overthrow the Chavez government after they learned of the civilian deaths in the street. This is false, and even the coup leaders themselves have said as much. The day after the coup, the coup leaders discussed on national television their "plan", and how they had been planning it long before any deaths occurred. You can see parts of that video here.

Not only that, but you also ignore the testimony of Otto Neustadl and Mayela Leon, both journalists which were present when the military generals renounced support for the Chavez government on national television. Both of these journalists have given independent statements which reveal that the military generals were discussing the deaths in the streets hours before they had actually happened. Otto Neustadl even says that they told him the night before that there were going to be deaths at the march on April 11th. Those testimonies can be seen here and here.

An honest look at the available evidence shows that this coup was clearly planned in advance by opposition forces, and it also seems quite probable that the civilian deaths were planned and carried out by opposition forces. There is evidence that indicates members of the Metropolitan Police force, controlled at that time by opposition mayor Alfredo Peña, had infiltrated the La Nacional building and were, in their own words, neutralizing "los talibanes." Those audio recordings can be heard here.

As a scholar and professional, one would think you would be interested in including all relevant evidence about the events that day. However, I notice in your book that you fail to even mention any of the evidence above which contradicts your account. You also fail to mention anything about the media manipulation regarding the shootings on Puente Llaguno, or the overwhelming role of the media in the coup. I would be interested in hearing your explanation as to why you did not address these key pieces of evidence in your book, and why you continue to give a false account of what happened on April 11th, 2002 in your public appearances.

Thank you,

ChronicallyClueless

So, In my mind there are only two possibilities here. Either Mr. Nelson was unaware of these key pieces of evidence that refute his version of events, or he is simply dishonest, just like his friends over at CaracasChronicles. What's your guess? Wanna bet he doesn't respond?

The Opposition's Idea of Free Speech

This is what you get for openly expressing your support for the Chavez government in Venezuela today. Chavez supporters have been violently beaten, and even killed simply because they dare to express their political inclination in public.

Despite all the opposition's pro-democracy slogans and protests about free expression, they have clearly shown their disdain for free expression over and over again. When the opposition briefly took power in 2002, they immediately closed pro-Chavez TV stations, while all opposition media maintained a total media blackout of pro-Chavez demonstrations. And more recently, they have shown their disdain for free speech as they have lent their support to the Honduran coup regime as it shuts down media across the country.

Can you imagine what opposition forces would be capable of doing if they ever got back in power in Venezuela?

Imaginary Repression... The Opposition's favorite game

Those who have followed events in Venezuela the last couple of years might have noticed what has become the Venezuelan opposition's favorite new game. I like to call it "imaginary repression."

The game basically goes like this: when the Chavez government does something that the opposition does not agree with, they use the occasion to act out, like a game of charades, dramatic scenes of state repression. They pretend that they are being repressed by the Chavez government, that all of their rights are being taken away, and many times try to model their charades after popular forms of resistance used in the past in other parts of the world. But their most recent charade, an attempt to imitate the Iranian protest movement, is perhaps the most ridiculous of them all.

To better illustrate how it works, let's take a look at a few examples. As far as I can tell, this whole game of charades began in 2007 surrounding the removal of RCTV from public airwaves. Leading up to this event, the Venezuelan opposition began pretending that the government was "closing down" the TV channel, when in fact everyone knew that RCTV would not be shutdown, and would continue to broadcast its programming by cable and satellite, as it does to this day.

However, this did not deter the opposition's game of charades. Employees of the TV station pretended the channel was going away forever, making an emotional scene to make the innocent viewer feel sorry for them, at times even using fake tears, clearly demonstrating their propensity to manipulate the emotions of the viewers to achieve political goals.

Opposition protesters began acting out dramatic scenes of "resistance" in the streets of Caracas, attempting to conjure up memories of events like Tiananmen Square in China, pretending that they were being silenced, even though, ironically, all the media (much of it under opposition control) gave their actions very detailed news coverage.

The largely white, middle and upper class opposition engaged in creative on-camera stunts to give the impression of a country under the control of a brutal dictator. In the photo, for example, you can see a lady who has chained herself up, covered her mouth, and is pretending to be repressed as the police attempt to get her out of the street. The lack of police repression forced the opposition groups to engage in violent acts of provocation, hoping to illitic a response from the authorites, but they were largely unsuccessful.

While the RCTV example is perhaps the most famous, opposition groups have since engaged in many other similar acts. Leading up to the 2007 vote for a constitutional reform, opposition students violently attacked pro-Chavez groups at the Central University in Caracas, only to later lead international media to believe they had been attacked by Chavista gunmen (all carefully detailed in the documentary Nuevas Caras). The event gave the false impression that the Chavez government had been involved in the shooting of anti-Chavez protesters.

Protests continued later that year against the 2007 constitutional reform, with the same pattern of imaginary repression, and similar attempts to illicit police repression. The charade continued with violent protests before the 2009 constitutional referendum, in which opposition students were caught with an arsenal of Molotov cocktails, later making the false claim that they were planted by the Chavez government. Another example is opposition mayor Antonio Ledezma's recent hunger strike.

But perhaps the most ridiculous and desperate attempt to give the impression of state repression in Venezuela has been the opposition's recent use of the internet communication tool Twitter.

Twitter became famous as a tool to subvert censorship after disputed electoral results in Iran last June. As protests erupted around the country, state repression was fierce, with hundreds of opposition politicians, activists and journalists jailed and tortured, shots fired on peaceful protestors killing dozens of people, and major media virtually blacked out around the country. Foreign correspondents were arrested, deported, and prevented from taking footage of the protests.

In this context of an almost total media blackout, the Iranian protest movement was forced to turn to other communication tools, such as Twitter, to organize further protests, get the message out to the world, and keep the movement moving foward. Under such total state repression of the protests, alternatives like Twitter actually made sense. In Venezuela, however, the use of Twitter is just another of the opposition's charades; this time in an attempt to emulate the Iranian movement.

In Iran, the use of Twitter was a last resort when protesters had no other means of getting the word out. In Venezuela, it makes no sense at all. The Venezuelan opposition still controls several major television stations, the nation's most well-known newspapers, multiple radio stations and internet news outlets where they have complete freedom to voice their criticisms 24 hours a day, and which obviously give them access to a much wider audience and much more freedom to express criticisms than the 140-character limit of Twitter. In addition, the international media has totally unrestricted access to the country, and its reports continue to be almost entirely critical of the Chavez government.

Twitter, if anything, would reach much less people than the regular avenues available to opposition voices through their very own media outlets. And while the Chavez government has made recent moves against some media outlets, the opposition still controls a relatively large portion of the media spectrum; easily enough to get their message out to most of the country.

So the use of Twitter in Venezuela really doesn't make any sense at all. That is, unless we consider the possibility that the Venezuelan opposition is not really interested in reaching out to Venezuelans, but more interested in creating a false perception of Iranian-style repression in Venezuela. Then it makes perfect sense. In other words, the only conceivable reason that the Venezuelan opposition would be using Twitter, an internet application that limits communication to 140 characters, and which is not very widely used in Venezuela, is because, once again, the Venezuelan opposition is playing their favorite game.

Supporting a Military Coup....In the name of "Democracy"

What a perfect example of the ridiculousness of the Venezuelan opposition. A little over a week ago, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped by the Honduran military and forced out of the country, in what has been condemned almost unanimously as an illegal military coup d'état. The United Nations, the Organization of American States, the European Union, and virtually every nation in the Western Hemisphere condemned the coup and demanded the reinstatement of Zelaya to the presidency.

But, remarkably, the Venezuelan opposition pundits have shown their enthusiastic support for this illegal coup. They hate to be labeled "golpistas", yet they support "golpes" with enthusiastic support, and a total manipulation of the facts. Here are a few examples:

"How can a coup where it seems that the coupsters may get away with it be a bonus for democracy in this continent? Very simple: for the first time perhaps in our troubled history, South of the Rio Grande there is grudging acknowledgment that there are three powers of state which in theory are equal. If anything the Honduras coup would have been worth because it touched to our sacrosanct presidential superiority, a danger that even the US must on occasion be reminded of."

-- Daniel of Venezuela News and Views blog

"Sunday's coup in Honduras has been portrayed as a throwback to the bad old days when Latin American armies got drafted in as the ultimate umpires of political conflict. But in arresting president Manuel Zelaya in his pajamas and putting him on the first plane out of the country, Honduras's generals were acting out of fear of a genuine and growing threat to Latin Democracy: the looming prospect of unchecked, hyper-empowered executive power held for life by a single, charismatic individual."
-- Francisco Toro of CaracasChoronicles blog

"The Honduran constitution clearly states that Zelaya ousted himself from the presidency the very moment he proposed to reform the article of the constitution. The military carried out an arrest warrant dictaed by the supreme court. The unconstitutional act the military committed was to take the arrested ex-president out of the country (i.e., paraphrasing, the constitution states that no citizen shall be forced-handed to another nation). Legally, the moment of the arrest was not unconstitutional, and was not an ousting. The moment the ex-president is handed over to another nation was unconstitutional, but still not an ousting. Naming the head of congress president was the constitutionally correct act following Zelaya's self-ousting."

--"torres" at CaracasChronicles blog

Now, let's deconstruct this mountain of nonsense with verifiable facts and evidence. The Venezuelan opposition pundits have made it sound like President Zelaya had committed some serious abuses, or had walked all over the Honduran constitution, which justified his ousting by the military. All of this is false, of course, as we will see.

What was the horrible act that Zelaya committed that created the political crisis than resulted in his overthrow? Well, Zelaya's crime was that he wanted to hold a national vote to consult the Honduran population about their constitution. Pretty horrible huh? And, even worse, the results of the national vote wouldn't even be binding, and would have no effect on the constitution no matter what the result. Zelaya simply wanted to guage public opinion, following a 2006 law, to see if the Honduran people were interested in having a constitutional assembly to re-write the national constitution. The question to be asked was the following:

"Do you agree to the installation of a fourth ballot [box] during the November 2009 general election to decide whether to convene a National Constitutional Assembly to approve a new political constitution?"

In other words, Zelaya's poll would only ask the Honduran people if they wanted to vote in November about having a constitutional assembly. It didn't even ask if they supported a constitutional assembly or not. It simply asked if they wanted to vote on it.

This man must be stopped! How dare he ask the Honduran people to decide if they want to vote about their own constitution?!?!? Well, as the opposition pundits argue, Zelaya was going to change the constitution without approval of Congress and the Honduran Supreme Court had already ruled the vote illegal, yet he continued forward with it anyway, disrespecting Honduran institutions.

But, as usual, the fact say otherwise. Zelaya was not going to change the constitution in any way (as you can clearly see from the question being asked above), not to mention the fact that the referendum was non-binding, so no matter what the result, no action could be taken.

As for the Supreme Court ruling, well, they only said a binding vote was illegal. They never made a ruling on a non-binding vote. And how can the Supreme Court rule on something that has no effect on Honduran law or the Honduran constitution anyway? The answer is, they can't. Not only that, but this kind of referendum is allowed for by Honduran law, so the Supreme Court decision was illegal, and unconstitutional. (not to mention undemocratic as it would prevent consulting the people)

But, the Ven oppos claim, Zelaya was trying to change the constitution to remove term limits so that he could be reelected and magically become "president for life"!!! Again, as anyone with eyes can see, that is not what the referendum (posted above) was about. It had nothing to do with term limits, and would not change a single letter of the Honduran constitution. So where do the oppos get this stuff??? Simple. They make it up.

So, as can be clearly seen, Zelaya broke no laws, did not go against the constitution, and did not abuse his power in any way. He was acting within Honduran law to consult the people, and the Honduran Congress and Honduran Supreme court were deathly afraid that real democracy (one where the people's will is actually carried out) might take over Honduras. As we all know, this would be terrifying for our chronically clueless friends among the Venezuelan opposition, so support for a military coup, "in the name of democracy", is the position they are holding on to.

Welcome to Chronically Clueless

Let's face it. The Venezuelan opposition is clueless. From continuous fraud claims, to failed coup attempts, to continually losing elections, to faking their own repression (sometimes even with fake tears), these guys have a knack for getting everything wrong. But what is most surprising, and fascinating to me, is their utter obliviousness and unenlightened view of the political process currently underway in Venezuela and throughout Latin America.

This blog is dedicated to them. Inspired by their most well-known English blog, Caracas Chronicles, I have built this site to analyze, make fun of, and thoroughly enjoy the Chronically Clueless viewpoints of the Venezuelan opposition. Enjoy!