State Department spokesperson Philip Reeker said, "We wish to express our solidarity with the Venezuelan people and look forward to working with all democratic forces in Venezuela to ensure the full exercise of democratic rights."

During the middle-class pot-banging protests, bosses "strikes," and calls by military officials for Chávez to step down over the past months, the U.S. government tried to keep hidden its role in helping to prepare the coup. But in the aftermath of the events, the lid has been lifted a little on how the destabilization campaign to overthrow Chávez was long planned and born in the USA.

"Senior members of the Bush administration met several times in recent months with leaders of a coalition that ousted the Venezuelan president," the New York Times reported April 15, "and agreed with them that he should be removed from office, administration officials said."

In fact, the assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, Otto Reich, spoke on the phone with Pedro Carmona Estanga, who the Times in an April 17 article described as the "incoming president," the day military officials took Chávez into custody at an army base, the White House admitted April 16. Officials say Reich pleaded with Carmona to not dissolve the National Assembly on the grounds that it would be "a stupid thing to do."

The rulers in Venezuela and their imperialist backers in Washington were aided in their efforts by the officials of the Venezuelan Workers Federation (CTV), who had called out the workers on strikes to bolster the bosses' reactionary drive. According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington "had opened up contact with" CTV chief Carlos Ortega, who visited the United States in February "to meet U.S. lawmakers, State Department officials, and representatives of the AFL-CIO."

Despite their platitudes about democracy and elections, the U.S. rulers had become increasingly annoyed with the Chávez government's refusal to grovel before imperialist dictates. "Legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters," scoffed Fleischer.

Some of the positions taken by Chávez that infuriated the imperialists in the north include his refusal to allow U.S. warplanes to fly over Venezuelan airspace, supposedly to gathering "intelligence on drug operations," and his denunciations of the U.S. bombing raids on Afghanistan.  
 
Laws on oil production
Venezuela provides the United States with about 15 percent of its oil, the third largest supplier behind Saudi Arabia and Canada. As a way to gain more control over the country's patrimony, the Chávez government lowered oil production in order to raise prices and also increased royalty rates on oil production from the foreign-owned oil companies. Laws passed by the government mandated the PDVSA to hold a majority interest in all joint ventures with foreign investors.

The Chávez government has also maintained friendly relations with Havana and has defended Cuba at international gatherings, another source of friction with the U.S. empire. Venezuela has been supplying Cuba with 53,000 barrels of oil a day at reduced prices in exchange for the services of Cuban doctors, paramedics, teachers, workers, and other technicians who volunteered to participate in internationalist missions.

When Chávez was jailed, Carmona, a wealthy part owner of an oil company, ordered oil deliveries to Cuba halted.

The Cuban government, for its part, condemned the coup. Cuban foreign minister Felipe Roque noted at a press conference April 12 that Venezuela's attorney general explained that Chávez "was unjustly arrested, that he had not signed any resignation," and that even if the president and vice president of the country had resigned, "the responsibility for taking control of the country, according to the Constitution, lies with the Speaker of the Venezuelan National Assembly."

The Cuban government called the press conference in Havana as part of an international campaign to defend its embassy personnel in Caracas, who were under attack by a right-wing mob, led by counterrevolutionary Cubans who live in Venezuela. The gangs had cut off electricity and water supplies and some privately owned television stations were issuing calls to storm the embassy. Roque explained that Cuban diplomats "have instructions to not allow any illegal entry into our embassy," and that "if any of that violent mob does get into the embassy...our diplomats will not hesitate to defend our embassy, even if it costs them their lives."

Since the defeat of the coup Washington has launched a slander campaign aided by the bourgeois media against the Cuban volunteers in Venezuela. A New York Times article reported April 17 that Reich claimed the Bush administration "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." Neither Reich nor the Times presented any evidence to support this assertion.
 
 
Related articles:
Workers in Venezuela foil U.S.-backed coup
Behind the U.S.-backed coup  
 
 
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