April: The Role of the Media in the 2002 Coup

Published at: 12/04/2024 08:03 PM

“The most interested and absurd legend has been woven about the pain of Colombia, about the mad reaction of a people who expressed their anger at the corpse of the murdered hero. The big news laboratories, not designed to review what is happening in the world but to spice up events according to the convenience of powerful economic interests, are experts in lies of colossal dimensions. They tend to turn patriots into filibusters, transform labor leaders into terrorists, change usuriers into philanthropists, and transmute instigators into humanists.” Taken from the report by Miguel Otero Silva on the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, published in the newspaper El Nacional, on Wednesday , May 5, 1948 .

As happened in Colombia, the media in Venezuela during 2001 unleashed a campaign of discrediting, rumors and defamation against the President of the Republic, Commander Hugo Chávez, State institutions and other officials in high government positions. This paved the way for the military coup. Never in the history of our country has public opinion been so persistently and continuously manipulated and deceived, violating all national legislation relating to freedom of expression and the right to information, including international agreements on the subject signed by the Republic.

In an investigation carried out by several journalists called “The Coup Documents” and published by the Ministry of Popular Power for Culture, they explain that “this campaign, in the weeks before the coup, went from distortion and manipulation of information to open propaganda. The media published anonymous military statements calling for subversion and ignorance of the legitimate Government and its institutions. They didn't care that anonymity and war propaganda were expressly prohibited in the National Constitution. Private television channels used to feature so-called hooded soldiers who read their subversive proclamations on camera; the radio broadcast them and the written press highlighted them in their front pages.”

In this way, the media not only deceived but ended up deceiving themselves. They were aware of the enormous power that was on their side to overthrow President Chávez and to motivate the middle sectors of the population, they ended up believing that the President was “technically fallen”, “out now!” , “resign now!” , “it's leaving now!” , which were the slogans that would make immediate and frustration one and the same thing. But they underestimated the power of the popular masses and that of the constitutionalist Armed Forces, which from that moment on came together in perfect synergy.

During the conspiracy, the media acted in complicity with sectors of the national oligarchy; the old parties that bled and plundered the country for 40 years; new political organizations, some of them under the veil of NGOs and civil society represented by the middle class; the illegal and illegitimate trade union bureaucracy of the Venezuelan Workers' Confederation (CTV), established through fraudulent elections in which 50% of the records disappeared; part of the military high command dismissed today and the largest payroll of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The conspiracy had the political and financial support of the United States and transnational corporations.

Timeline of a message

With the intention of reviewing in detail and being able to analyze step by step how the ground was paved to create anxiety in the Venezuelan people, lawyer Germán Mundaraín Hernández, Ombudsman of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in 2009, presented the behavior of the media of the time, showing opinion articles, news, reports, graphics, editorials, advertisements, reviews, interviews, headlines, photographs, etc., published as a facsimile, in which it was possible to clearly appreciate that network of economic, political and personal interests that in our country were mixed with anti-national interests to divert the democratic course of Venezuela and overthrow a constitutional government.

Since April 2, 2002, the newspaper El Nacional promoted the media campaign with a headline “CTV calls for a strike on Tuesday” , publishing an interview with Carlos Ortega, president of the union union and using an antititle called “labor dispute”, in which reported that the strike would last 24 hours, as explained in the press release.

That same day, the First Justice party also called for an indefinite paralysis, conspiracy against the national government was being orchestrated, they expressed their support for the former president of PDVSA, Guaicaipura Lameda, who had been replaced by an auditing board, and they assured Christian's spokesperson Chirinos, national coordinator of Workers' Justice, who under no circumstances will allow oil company workers to be replaced by people without adequate training or knowledge of managing the industry.

By April 6, the newspaper El Universal would do the same and generated what today could be called “a label” entitled: “War of Attrition”, in reference to an alleged oil crisis that, according to them, accelerated the call for a strike by the CTV, in its edition of that day they entitled: “CTV announces a national strike today” , a headline similar to that of El Nacional, already made four days earlier. That same day, Fedecamaras spoke out in support of the general strike and El Universal called: “Fedecamaras supports advancing the strike”.

Then, on April 7, the newspaper El Universal titled “THE STRIKE GOES” in capital letters on its cover, while on pages 1 and 2 with the same motto: War of Attrition, they wrote “CTV denies the political nature of the strike” and reported that the CTV alleged that the strike was for violation of collective agreements.

The following day, on April 08, the strike began by the trade union organizations, which, in the opinion of the president of the CTV, Carlos Ortega, and the representative of Fedecamaras, Pedro Carmona Estanga, began , “it had been quite a success”, it was extended and El Nacional called: “CTV threatens a 48-hour strike”. Ortega acknowledged that they did not have 100% acceptance by the population, however, the trade unionists were satisfied with the percentage reached, considering it representative. “This people have woken up and reacted, here there will be no government that intimidates and that can intimidate Venezuelans,” said the published text.

In addition, on April 9, to these same calls or headlines, media such as Última Noticias and 2001, which were entitled “Government faces 24-hour national strike”, while other media began to hold President Chávez responsible for it.

In addition to this scenario, on April 10, the newspaper Tal Cual called for “CIVIL REBELLION”, as published on its front page that day, while on the internal pages they dedicated their editorial “THE OTHER HEROES”, referring to the presidents and directors of the television media who joined the Coup, They include several surnames: Cisneros, Granier, Zuloaga, Camero, Petricca, Cuzcó, Ferreres and Bardasano.

On the same day, the newspaper 2001 published a dedication to Pedro Carmona Estanga, with the title “THE FIGURE OF TODAY”, a complete breakdown from his place of birth and date, to each of the positions he had traveled through on his path as a Venezuelan businessman.

On April 11, 2002, the media committed an apology for the crime, a term frequently used in legal language, to justify illegal actions or actions of dubious legality, usually through discourse, trying to make it clear that the action must be taken.

To understand this concept, it is enough to say that this was the headline of El Nacional in a special publication published that same day: “The final battle will be in Miraflores”, while El Universal, for its part, would publish “TOTAL CONFLICT” in capital letters. Both publications referred to the opposition march that had been organized from Parque del Este to Chuao, and whose leaders decided to continue it to the Miraflores Palace and with the achievement of “not a step backwards” they continued on the road to put an end to the government of Commander Hugo Chávez.

Thus began this affront against the Venezuelan people who, as journalist Earle Herrera said, “we must write about silence and against silence. Also against invisibility and against oblivion. Especially in the face of those who, through the imposture and media appropriation of historical truth, adopted the slogan forbidden to forget”.

But as always, the truth emerges and our task is to write recent history, the force of what is written allows us to keep in mind the facts that have been tried to hide and thus unite all our hands, all the voices, all the wills so that this fragment of the history of our country is not lost in the trenches of this ruthless media war that the Bolivarian Revolution has suffered.

AMELYREN BASABE/Mazo News Team