The Controversy Over "chavez: Inside The Coup"

[Chris Knipp]

JustaFied: I'm glad you're following events in Venezuela: I'm sure a lot of us are now. This film and this discussion are incredibly relevant in the wake of the orchestrated coup in Haiti.

The opposition routinely makes the sweeping claim that the Chavez film is "all lies." The filmmakers have spoken about their use of footage by other sources and said that those sources are reliable -- they comment in that interview from the Movie Chicks that I cited earlier (http://www.themoviechicks.com/mar20...evolution.html ). The footage of the coup made in the presidential palace was made by the Irish filmmakers themselves and is the most stunning element in the film.

The Venezuelan opposition is well represented in the US outside of government. Venezuela is the US's #4 oil supplier, so Texas, including Houston, is a natural locus of support for the relatively corporate-friendly Chavez opposition. An article by Bill Berkowitz (http://www.workingforchange.com/arti...m?ItemID=16547)cites evidence of a possible major US source of aid to the Venezuelan opposition (the leader of this group was interviewed on Democracy Now yesterday).

Berkowitz's article also refers to a recent op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle that calls Chavez a "madman" and even compares him to Bin Laden. Chavez's opponents claim he's crazy (as we see in the film) -- an unstable dictatorial megalomaniac. Not so, says his long-time psychiatrist, the distinguished Dr. Chirinos. http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/st.../chirinos.html (You have to look for both pro- and anti-Chavez sites for information; the US and British media such as the BBC can't be considered neutral, but the PBS site has links to sites on both sides: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/st...la/links.html..)

The US has never liked Chavez -- and stopped liking Aristide. They dropped him, as they have dropped so many -- Exhibit A being Donald Rumsfeld's chumminess with Saddam Hussein in the Eighties. Though Chavez may have lost some of his approval rating, he's still the popularly elected leader of Venezuela as Aristide was the popularly elected leader of Haiti. In both cases the opposition is a US-supported pro-corporate minority. The Bush administration is supporting the referendum; but this is interference in itself because the referendum must follow constitutional procedures to be justifiable, and these may not have been followed.

The Chavez film shows that Chavez is open to an opposition. He is in a difficult position, though, since his enemies are doing all they can to end his presidency before his term is out by any means necessary. The situation is increasingly explosive since the Chavez government has rejected the referendum stating that there are not enough valid signatures.

Let us not be so naive as to think that the US is not behind the scenes trying to engineer Chavez's removal as they did Aristide's, but this will be well concealed and vehemently denied.