Fidel Castro publishes the conversation he held with
Hugo Chávez hours after the defeat of the 2002 coup
From: Joaquín Bustelo <jbustelo@gmail.com>
Fri, 28 Mar 2014 23:10:46 -0400

Granma, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, published on Friday a separate supplement with an article by Fidel Castro <http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2014-03-28/eres-o-no-eres-fotos>  consisting mostly of the complete transcript of the conversation between Fidel and Hugo Chavez, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in the early morning hours of April 14, 2002, shortly after Chavez's triumphant return to Miraflores Palace in Caracas, sealing the defeat of a U.S.-backed coup that had temporarily deposed Chávez.

I am not aware of an English translation but undoubtedly one will be published shortly.

The article presents the initial assessment of both revolutionaries on the events of the previous days, a detailed account by Chávez of his own experiences and thinking during the crisis, and similar comments by Fidel, although not as detailed.

Of great interest is Chávez's opinion and orders to loyal military units to /not/ engage in military actions or offensive operations and Fidel's agreement with this position, including his recommending it to loyalist officers who consulted the Cuban leader while Chávez was incommunicado. It was a subordination of military considerations to political ones even though what had happened was a military coup. It was an expression of confidence by both men in the grass-roots strength of the revolution.

And to confirm it, Chavez recounts several incidents where he was able to win over the enlisted soldiers he came into contact with.

There is also a fair bit of discussion of an offer to Chávez that he would be flown to safety in Cuba if he agreed to resign, an offer that was personally vouched for by the cardinal who was head of the Catholic Church in Venezuela. To buy time, Chavez pretended to be interested, but insisting that to consider it he needed to be allowed to verify that officials of his government had been released by talking to them. He was eventually allowed to do that, confirming what he had already concluded from the body language indecisive behavior of the delegation from the coup-installed government, that things were going badly for them.

In fact, the coup was already falling apart, with loyalist members of the armed forces arresting some of the usurpers and dispersing others, and what was happening was that military and security forces as well as government officials that had been confused or even hoodwinked by the claims that Chavez had resigned were slowly coming to understand what had really happened. Thus Chavez's intuition that he needed to buy time by holding open a possibility that he might reach an accommodation with those the coup plotters sent to negotiate with him proved right.

An interesting side issue is where the coup plotters were going to send Chavez if he did agree to resign. It was not Cuba, of course: there hadn't even been any feelers put out to the Cuban government, and if Chavez was forced into exile, Cuba was the best possible place from which to organize the resistance.

The plane that was to have taken Chavez showed up unannounced at the military base where he was being held. It seemed just one more private plane, but its registration (tail) number indicated it was from the United States (U.S. aircraft tail numbers all begin with the letter "N"), from which Chavez and Fidel concluded that he would have been flown to the United States.

As to why the coup plotters did not simply continue to insist that Chávez had resigned and flown him out of the country anyways (as the Honduran military did at with President Zelaya at the outset of their coup in 2009), by then (the third and last day of the coup attempt) it was too late.

A soldier had been able to sneak out and fax to the revolution's supporters a hand-written, signed statement by Chavez saying he had not resigned and was being held prisoner, which then was given to the international press. The Venezuelan media was entirely under the control of the coup plotters and not allowed to broadcast the news, so it was mostly spread via the relatively few subscribers to international cable news channels and listeners of the Radio Caracol network from neighboring Colombia.

Thus although the presidential palace had been taken by early afternoon, it was not until the evening that most people found out the elected government had been restored, when the government TV station went back on the air. And it wasn't until after midnight that Chávez arrived at the Presidential Palace by helicopter.

To get the most out of the transcript I would suggest that people become familiar with the events, if they are not already, by watching the documentary, "The Revolution Will not be Televised <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un10pwvKEcM>," available on YouTube.

But most interesting to me was the deep bond of personal friendship and trust between the two men that is evident in the conversation.

The language is extremely informal. Both Chávez and Fidel eschew the formal "usted" (you) and corresponding verb forms, talking to each other in what in Spanish is called "tuteo," using the verb forms corresponding to the pronoun "tu." In most Latin American countries, "tu" is reserved for addressing members of an immediate family, especially children, and those considered socially inferior. Use of "tu" outside those settings is considered "mala educación," literally "bad education" which encompasses misbehavior ranging from boorishness (among elites) to uppityness (among the great unwashed). However, in parts of the Caribbean, and especially Cuba, the use of "tu" is viewed as acceptable between friends and even acquaintances outside settings like workplaces, classrooms and so on.

Chávez goes further, frequently using the archetypical Cuban street slang "chico," (literally "little one" or "kid") roughly equivalent to the use of "dude" in English. He also uses earthy expressions that normally would be considered unprintable, such as "coño" --roughly equivalent to "damn!" but less acceptable as it is a vulgar work for vagina and "no jodas," which means "don't fuck around."

It is an extraordinary document, and Fidel's decision to publish it now undoubtedly flowed from political considerations.

In my view, it is meant to remind people that whatever challenges the imperialist-backed opposition is presenting to the Bolivarian Revolution right now, in the past the revolution faced even greater dangers, and defeated those challenges by political methods, not military action or repression. I think it is an expression of sympathy with the course followed by Chavez's successors, who have not violently repressed counterrevolutionary disruptions, but instead sought to isolate the extreme right wing of the opposition by establishing a national dialogue and reacting in a measured way to the right-wing provocations.

Joaquín