2002
Venezuela - The CIA attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government of Venezuela. According to intelligence analyst Wayne Madsen, "the CIA provided Special Operations Group personnel, headed by a lieutenant colonel on loan from the U.S. Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to help organize the coup." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has irritated the U.S. with his 2001 Hydrocarbon Law, which doubles royalties on foreign oil companies and requires a majority government stake in future joint ventures. Soldiers supporting the coup take control of the presidential palace, arrest Chavez and fly him to the Venezuelan island of La Orchil, where he is imprisoned. Businessman Pedro Carmona claims power and, in his first move as president, dissolves the democratically elected National Assembly, the Supreme Court and other key institutions, while arresting Chavez supporters. The U.S. immediately recognizes the Carmona government. However, the coup soon unravels when thousands of anti-coup protesters surround the presidential palace demanding Hugo Chavez's reinstatement. Two days later, Hugo Chavez triumphantly returns to office.

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Fernando Romeo Lucas García

(born July 4, 1924, Chamelco, Guat.—died May 27, 2006, Puerto La Cruz, Venez.) army general who was president of Guatemala from 1978 to 1982.
Marcos Pérez Jiménez

(born April 25, 1914, Michelena, Venezuela—died September 20, 2001, Madrid, Spain) professional soldier and president (1952–58) of Venezuela whose regime was marked by extravagance, corruption, police oppression, and mounting unemployment.
José Antonio Páez

(born June 13, 1790, Curpa, near Acarigua, New Granada [now in Venezuela]—died May 6, 1873, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Venezuelan soldier and politician, a leader in the country's independence movement and its first president.
Antonio José de Sucre

(born Feb. 3, 1795, Cumaná, New Granada [now in Venezuela]—died June 4, 1830, Berruecos, Gran Colombia [now in Colombia]) liberator of Ecuador and Peru, and one of the most respected leaders of the Latin American wars for independence from Spain.

Introduction

(Born July 28, 1954, Sabaneta, Barinas, Venez.) Venezuelan politician who became president of Venezuela in 1999. Chávez styled himself as the leader of the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a socialist political program for much of Latin America, named after Simón Bolívar, the South American independence hero. Although the focus of the revolution has been subject to change depending on Chavez's goals, its key elements include nationalism, a centralized economy, and a strong military actively engaged in public projects. His ideology became known to many as simply chavismo.
Early life

Chávez grew up in Sabaneta, a small town in the southwestern plains of Venezuela. He was the second of six surviving children, all boys. His parents, both schoolteachers, did not have enough money to support all their children, so Hugo and his eldest brother, Adán, were raised in the city of Barinas by their grandmother, Rosa Inés Chávez, who instilled in Hugo a love of history and politics.

As a teenager, Chávez was heavily influenced by José Esteban Ruiz Guevara, a local historian, who introduced him to the teachings of Bolívar and Karl Marx, the German philosopher who was one of the fathers of communism, both of which had a profound impact on Chávez's political philosophy. The presence of the National Liberation Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional; FALN), the communist guerrilla insurgency that began fighting the Venezuelan government in the 1960s, also greatly affected Chávez. The FALN was supported by Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who would later become Chávez's political muse.

In 1971 Chávez entered the Venezuelan Military Academy in Caracas, the national capital, not because he wanted to be a soldier but because he dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player, and the academy had good baseball coaches. Chávez planned to enroll there, excel at baseball, and then drop out. But while he was a skilled left-handed pitcher, he was not good enough to play professionally, so he continued his studies. He was a poor and unruly student, however, and ultimately graduated near the bottom of his class in 1975.

Chávez started his military career as a second lieutenant in the army. His first assignment was to capture the remaining leftist guerrillas. But as he pursued the insurgents, Chávez began to empathize with them, seeing them as peasants fighting for a better life. By 1977 Chávez was ready to leave the army in disgust when he discovered that his brother Adán was secretly working with the insurgents. Chávez arranged to meet Douglas Bravo—head of the Venezuelan Revolution Party (Partido de la Revolución Venezolana; PRV), an underground movement, and a former leader of the FALN. “He inspired me and I realized I wouldn't be leaving the army,” Chávez later said of Bravo. In 1982 Chávez and some fellow military officers secretly formed the Bolivarian Movement 200 to spread the insurgents' revolutionary ideology within the military. Their goal was to take power in a civilian-military coup d'état.

Attainment of power

On Feb. 4, 1992, Chávez and a group of military officers led an attempt to overthrow the government of Pres. Carlos Andrés Pérez. Unfortunately for Chávez, the rebellion quickly collapsed. While the other rebel leaders successfully captured their targeted military bases, Chávez was unable to complete the key part of the operation—the capture of President Pérez. Trapped in the Military History Museum near the presidential palace, Chávez realized that it was useless to keep fighting, and he agreed to surrender on the condition that he be allowed to address his coconspirators on national television. Chávez stood in front of the cameras and told his fellow “comrades” that regrettably—“for now,” he said—their goal of taking power could not be accomplished, and he beseeched them to put down their arms to avoid further bloodshed. Chávez spoke for less than two minutes, but this was essentially the beginning of his life as a politician. Many Venezuelans at that time were frustrated with their elected leaders, and they were inspired by Chávez and praised his bold ideas to reform the country. His address became known as the por ahora (“for now”) speech because many people took that specific phrase as a promise that one day Chávez would return.

Chávez was imprisoned without a court ruling for the attempted coup until 1994, when Pres. Rafael Caldera Rodríguez, bowing to Chávez's growing popularity, dropped the charges against him. Chávez then founded the political party Movement of the Fifth Republic (Movimiento de la Quinta República; MVR), enlisting many former socialist activists and military officers. Viewed as an outsider, Chávez was able to capitalize on widespread discontent with Venezuela's established political parties, and in December 1998 he won the presidential election with 56 percent of the vote.

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