My good friend, George, sent me a great link today about a film-maker who was in Caracas during the failed US-backed coup against Hugo Chavez. He describes how the private business media attempted to influence and manipulate the situation with meticulously planned propaganda. The aim was to legitimize the coup leaders and to delegitimize Chavez. Most members of the elite understand how much of power rests in perception and when you can alter perception you can create ‘legitimacy’. This is exactly what took place in Venezuela last week.
“More shots. We ran for cover like everyone else. We made it to the palace through back streets as the firing continued and as soon as we got in the gate another sniper started aiming at the crowd. We were all thrown to the ground behind a wall and later ran for cover into the building. Three of the snipers were arrested . . . “Chavez was about to explain what was happening in a live television broadcast but the state channel’s signal was cut just as he began to speak.
As Wayne Madsen reported, the US government provided signal jamming capabilities from inside Colombia and off the coast of Venezuela. This is most likely why the signal was cut.
The army generals arrived and went off for a meeting with Chavez. The evening passed in a flash as we waited for news inside the presidential palace. A tearful Environmental Minister, Ms Analisa Osorio, emerged in the early hours of Friday, announcing the end of an era. ‘He’s under arrest,’ she said. Chavez emerged, barely visible with all the bodyguards and junta soldiers jostling both to protect and arrest him. “The atmosphere turned ugly. Radio and television immediately announced the resignation of Chavez and began broadcasting upbeat messages: ‘Venezuela is finally free’ was the banner across all private TV channels.“The government went into hiding. Everyone fled for their lives. The witch-hunt began. We decided not to go home, checking into a hotel instead, for safety . . . “The media kept repeating footage of the swearing-in ceremony of the interim president [Pedro Carmona] which was followed by images of empty streets, everything in perfect tranquillity. We were about to book a ticket to Panama when a well-dressed passer-by told us to get off the streets. ‘The Chavistas are coming’ he said. It was Saturday afternoon. …
“The television continued to broadcast a steady diet of soap operas, saying nothing about the huge mobilisation, which was now making a deafening racket outside. Then came the news that Chavez had been freed and was taking a helicopter to Miraflores. The crowds went wild. The presidential guard made a tunnel from the palace gates to a helicopter pad across the street. The sound of choppers buzzing overhead.
In other Chavez coup news, the US has caved-in to international outrage and has begun to admit more and more details of their support for the coup against Chavez. The US acknowledged that Iran-Contra criminal and convicted propagandist, Otto Reich, was in contact with the leaders of the failed coup attempt. Reich, who is Bush’s secretary of Western Hemisphere Affairs, telephoned the ‘interim’ president, Carmona, to offer advice and words of caution on Friday. Reich, who is rabidly anti-Castro, shared an interest in overthrowing Chavez because of his policy of detente with Cuba. Pentagon spokesman, Victoria Clarke, further admitted that “the chief of the Venezuelan military high command, Gen. Lucas Romero Rincón, met recently with Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, a Pentagon official responsible for Latin America. She did not provide details of the meeting, or say whether intelligence was shared.”
As I said, Reich is a convicted propagandist and he showed his true colors clearly in libelous statements directed toward Chavez:
In the closed door briefing, Mr. Reich said the administration had received reports that “foreign paramilitary forces” — suspected to be Cubans — were involved in the bloody suppression of anti-Chávez demonstrators, in which at least 14 people were killed, a Congressional official said today.
Mr. Reich, who declined to be interviewed today, offered no evidence for his assertion, the official said.
He is clearly trying to poison the well for Chavez. Most of the people killed were actually Chavez supporters. I challenge Reich to produce evidence of this pack of lies. Make no mistake about Otto Reich. He is a snake. Under his watch the US government planted false domestic propaganda in American newspapers often writing fake letters to the editor among other things. Read more about his crimes at the National Security Archive.