Top military commanders broke ranks with President Hugo Chavez on Thursday, launching a rebellion hours after a dozen people died and more than 100 were injured in a chaotic clash involving police, protesters and pro-Chavez gunmen outside the presidential palace.
Small tanks arrived later and guarded the palace as caravans of armored vehicles patrolled the streets in the capital of one of South America’s most important democracies. National Guard troops seized government television and took it off the air late Thursday.
“All of the country is under the control of the national armed forces,” National Guard Gen. Luis Alberto Camacho Kairuz said on a private television station. “The government has abandoned its functions.”
Top army commander Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco, in a separate statement, ordered all military commanders to join a rebellion against Chavez. The president’s policies have in recent days prompted an oil strike that grew into a national work stoppage, paralyzing the economy of Venezuela, one of the United States’ major oil suppliers.
“We ask the Venezuelan people’s forgiveness for today’s events,” he said. “Mr. President, I was loyal to the end, but today’s deaths cannot be tolerated.” More than 40 other high-ranking officers joined in the rebellion, including Camacho, vice minister for citizen security.
Throughout the day other high-ranking military officers announced on television that they were rejecting the Chavez government.
Meanwhile, rumors surfaced that Chavez was preparing to leave the country, and news reports said three jets were seen preparing for takeoff at a nearby military air base that usually closes after dark. A Chavez spokeswoman denied reports that Chavez and his family were leaving, saying the president was in meetings at the palace.
But Globovision TV reported that Chavez’s family had been flown out of Caracas.
Earlier Thursday, the streets of downtown Caracas turned into a battleground as police confronted hundreds of thousands of protesters marching to the Miraflores presidential palace with demands that Chavez resign. Twelve were reported dead and as many as 110 were injured.
Gunmen were seen shooting from rooftops, and scuffles broke out among the stick-bearing, rock-throwing marchers as the National Guard lobbed tear-gas canisters. Witnesses said the rooftop snipers belonged to pro-Chavez street groups, and a National Guard official condemned them for firing on civilians.
Much of the street violence was temporarily kept from Venezuelans watching at home after Chavez shut down five private Caracas television stations, alleging the media had incited violence in the streets. The stations transmitted by satellite, however, and some were able to restore local transmission.
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Luis Buonaffina, a 41-year-old advertising executive, spent the night like many other people, glued to the television set and calling all over the city to check on family and friends. “Everyone is safe,” he said. But his family is still reeling from the day’s events.
“There are still many armed Chavez supporters out there,” he said. “We are not safe yet. But anything is better than Chavez. Anything.”
Buonaffina said he was once a Chavez supporter and even voted for him. But, he said, Chavez “ruined the country.”
The deadly protests and military rebellion marked an escalation of events since a national strike began three days ago.
The United States imports an average of 1.4 million barrels of crude oil a day from Venezuela, as well as a quarter-million barrels of refined oil products such as gasoline.
“What is happening at Venezuela is even more important to U.S. consumers than what is happening in Iraq,” said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, a New York-based think tank.
Goldstein was referring to the loss of Iraqi oil exports, suspended by Saddam Hussein on Monday to protest Israel’s incursion into Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.
Only a day earlier, on Wednesday, Venezuela’s government moved to reassure nervous energy markets that oil shipments were being safeguarded despite reports of severe disruptions because of the strike and protests by state oil workers.
Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel even offered a dialogue with government opponents.
But that was all forgotten Thursday. In a two-hour speech televised nationally, Chavez said that his government had shown “extreme tolerance” by allowing the protests but that the media were inciting the opposition.
Chavez always has been controversial, but Thursday marked the first time he unleashed the military to silence his critics.
A former lieutenant colonel who a decade ago plotted to overthrow Venezuela’s government, Chavez has long been involved in a war of words with his opposition, which accuses him of being an autocrat.
“He was giving a war speech,” Ana Julia Jatar, a political analyst speaking on CNN, said of Chavez’s televised address. “He is trying to hide what is going on the streets. He does not want to accept reality that today, tomorrow or next week, he will have to resign.”
On Thursday, the strike by the nation’s million-member Venezuelan Workers Confederation and the nation’s largest business group escalated when protesters demanded Chavez’s ouster. Earlier in the week, the protesters said they were supporting oil workers who have been on strike for three days, angered over Chavez-imposed management changes at the state oil company.
They said that they wanted Chavez to rescind his new appointments. But on Thursday, Greg Rojas, treasurer of the business group Fedecameras, said “there is no accommodation possible.”
Rojas said the opposition had been trying to persuade the armed forces to force Chavez to resign and to establish a “transitional government” that would call new elections.
Internationally, the oil industry slowdown has had far-reaching impact and has seriously disrupted Venezuelan production and exports. For six weeks, the dissident oil company staff has been protesting the management changes made by Chavez.
Chavez has stood by the new board, and last month threatened to use soldiers to take over the company if the oil sector was shut down.
Shippers and traders in Venezuela and the United States have confirmed that shipments have been delayed. Retired Gen. Guaicaipuro Lameda, who recently was ousted by Chavez as head of the state oil company, said early Thursday that “what is going on now is that the people are asking for respect of their democracy, for liberty. Chavez has long been abusing his power, but now the people are turning on him.”
“Chavez is not going to be removed from office easily,” added Goldstein of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. “He is a former soldier. If he smells any sign of weakness in the opposition, then it is over.”