My first life, p.47
My First Life, page 47
It happened gradually. I was pretty much on my own. With some very loyal aides, of course, like Rafael Isea or Nicolás Maduro. And I also had a group of advisers, but in the background. They were not political heavyweights, they didn’t want to be; their ambition was to help create the project. So let’s say that between this leader and the masses, there were no intermediaries: no parties – our organization was just getting off the ground – no intellectuals, nothing. Just Chávez and the people.
You mentioned before that there was debate within the MBR-200 over which path to take, whether or not to take part in the elections.
Yes, there was debate [in 1993 and 1994] and we decided not to. Our analysis of the situation would change in 1997, and then we decided to compete in the presidential elections of 1998. But at that point, 1994, we launched our campaign for ‘active abstention’. A case was brought against me for that: they called it ‘incitement to commit an offence’.
Is the vote compulsory in Venezuela?
It was in those days. I had to go to court twice. I told the lady judge, ‘I’m not calling on people not to vote. I’m calling for a referendum for a Constituent Assembly, a much more democratic process.’ I’ve already told you our slogan: ‘For now … for no one. Constituent Assembly now!’ In the 1994 local elections, abstention was very high, 70 per cent, and in many places as high as 80 per cent. We made the most of it by launching a series of debates around the meaning of abstaining in elections, partisanship in politics, and our alternative proposal for a Constituent Assembly. We tried to spread our ideas via the mass media, but the main newspapers and TV channels were already boycotting us. That made us all the keener to get down to the grass roots: we collected signatures on every corner, organized speaking tours, events, meetings, workshops, committees for the defence of housing, employment and education … We also made great strides on the question of national sovereignty, a subject of great importance for our military faction. And our Strategic Map was slowly being coloured in on an international level. We formed our first foreign alliances.
In 1994 you began to travel abroad. What was your aim? To form those alliances?
We didn’t want to remain isolated internationally. Furthermore, what kind of Bolivarians would we be if we didn’t seek closer ties with the rest of Latin America? In 1994, in Venezuela, I was reluctant to get involved in the political framework of a system that we wanted to bring down. But my group and I were always thinking about how to organize an integrated continental-wide Bolivarian movement. We had in mind starting with nationalist military officers, active and retired, all over Latin America. The other important objective was to study the different constitutional processes, starting with the Colombian.
And listen to this. One day when I was in Yare prison, a Venezuelan general appeared. He had taken a very brave stand as president of the military court that found Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles guilty of the 6 November 1976 bombing of the Cuban airliner. The terrorists subsequently escaped from prison, and the general’s son was killed as an act of revenge.
His name was Elio García Barrios, an honest, highly educated man, a doctor of law, a lawyer, now retired from the Army. He came to Yare prison to see me. We hadn’t met personally before, but I knew who he was. He placed himself at the service of our Bolivarian Command Group. He put on the armband, and declared, ‘I come as a soldier.’ A respected man, known throughout Venezuela, he became friends with my parents and began giving speeches up and down the country in support of our cause.
He came to Yare again and we sat in the yard, under a little tree, to talk. He said, ‘Look, Chávez, they’ve threatened me for doing what I’m doing. In case something happens to me, I’m giving you a list of military officers from various Latin American countries who are members of the Organization of Military Officers for Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, the OMIDELAC.’ And he told me about this group of progressive left-wing military officers. He gave me the list, country by country.
There weren’t any in Argentina, only one old general who was already dead; in Uruguay, Captain Gerónimo Cardoso; in Santiago, Chile, Captain Raúl Vergara, soldier and economist, who had worked in Salvador Allende’s government as adviser – in the Ministry of Finance – to General Alberto Bachelet, father of President Michelle Bachelet. In Colombia, Major Bermúdez Rossi, and so on …
Did this open doors for you in Latin America?
Not really, because I realized these were compañeros from another era. The OMIDELAC didn’t really exist anymore, they didn’t meet … But it was the only information I had, and I was going to use it.
Did you have any problems travelling abroad? You hadn’t lost any of your civil rights?
No, none. That wasn’t a problem.
And you obviously didn’t go abroad in your uniform, did you?
No. In civvies, absolutely. Well, the green or beige liqui-liqui I told you about. And I wore the red beret at public events, but without any military insignia. I was always very respectful of the military.
What country did you visit first?
My first invitation came from Colombia. From Gustavo Petro and José Cuesta, former parliamentarians who used to belong to the M-19 guerrilla group and ran the Simón Rodríguez Foundation. That was in July 1994. I celebrated my fortieth birthday on 28 July in Colombia.
Do you remember any details of that visit?
Perfectly. That group only sent me the ticket, they didn’t have funds for a hotel, nor did I. So they put me up in a great big house belonging to the Jesuits, in Bogotá naturally, headquarters of the Young Workers of Colombia (JTC), an organization linked to the Communist Party. It housed a lot of people, Afro-Colombians from the Pacific Coast, some girls from somewhere or other, groups coming and going. We ate together, slept in bunk beds, took collective showers; it was terribly cold at night. Pretty much like a barracks. We stayed there for three nights.
The government gave me a bodyguard. I remember that, on the second day, that security officer, a lieutenant, said, ‘Commander, I don’t think you should be in this position, you’re a soldier. You’re not safe.’ He sort of felt sorry for me.
Were you able to meet any political figures?
Yes, I asked them to arrange meetings with the three co-presidents of the 1991 Colombian Constituent Assembly. And I met Antonio Navarro Wolff, a former M-19 guerrilla chief; Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, of the Conservative Party; and Horacio Serpa, of the Liberal Party.14
The meeting with Antonio Navarro was at his home. I remember him saying, ‘Comandante, if you manage to install a Constituent Assembly in Venezuela, don’t make the mistakes we made …’ There was a vase of flowers on the table. ‘What we did was tweak it, try to fix it, hide the cracks in the vase, make it look pretty. You must take a hammer and break it.’ Because the M-19 disappeared: the Constituent Assembly swallowed it up.
I met Álvaro Gómez Hurtado in his house as well, in the library. When I sat down, he asked me, ‘How is Venezuela, Commander?’ And before I could speak, he answered his own question: ‘Ah, no, you’ve already been here for two days. To know what’s going on in Venezuela, you need your ear to the radio all the time, things change by the minute.’ He knew very well what was going on here. A right-wing intellectual, he died riddled by bullets in Bogotá.
As for Horacio Serpa, he was campaign manager for Ernesto Samper, who shortly afterwards won the elections [7 August 1994], beating César Gaviria. Serpa became interior minister a few weeks later. He received me in Samper’s campaign headquarters.
Did you meet any military officers?
Yes, I met some retired officers. A colonel, Guillermo Lora Ramírez, who had been discharged from the Army for blowing the whistle on some corrupt generals in La Guajira. I also met several Navy men, and others from the Army. They brought me a book called The Formation of the Moral Movement in the new Colombia, and said, ‘Commander, there’s a lot of admiration for you and your Movement here. We are Bolivarians, not Santanderists.15 We’re in touch with soldiers on active service.’
That group of soldiers invited me to swear an oath on the Campo de Boyacá, where the Battle of Boyacá took place.16 We drove out there. It made me miss the plane home to Caracas, because an accident on the road back caused a huge traffic jam. I’d wanted to be home that night, it was my birthday and my children were waiting for me. But I was forced to stay. I spent my birthday in that JTC house, with guitars, beers and a cake, among the youngsters and lefties. And at breakfast I met Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas [1930–1994], general secretary of the Colombian Communist Party, whom they nicknamed ‘the last Mohican in Colombia’, the last great communist leader. A few days later, [9 August 1994] he was killed in the street in Bogotá.
Did you give any lectures?
I was invited to the Javeriana University and gave a talk. I remember a young man standing up and saying, ‘You can’t be a career soldier.’ I replied, ‘Of course I am, I studied at a Military School.’ So he said, ‘No one in the Colombian military would say what you just did.’ I replied: ‘I’m sure some would, you just don’t know it.’ I was convinced that was true. Because before our 4 February 1992 rebellion, the left-wing movements in Venezuela used to say the same thing, ‘All the military are sold out to the oligarchy.’ Yet we were taking action, albeit clandestinely. How could patriots among the Colombian military go round openly declaring their solidarity with the people? ‘There must be some,’ I told the young man. ‘It’s impossible for there not to be.’
I spoke at another college as well. We held an informal workshop with hundreds of lecturers, academics and artists, chaired by Gustavo Petro, a brilliant intellectual, much admired in Colombia. He was very young then.
Were you in touch with the media?
I was invited to the newspaper El Tiempo.17 I remember going into that majestic building with one of the sons of the Santos family, owners of the newspaper. He said, ‘Commander, presidents are made here.’ ‘Or unmade,’ I remarked. All the big cheeses were there to meet me.
I also went on television. I did an interview on RCN where I faced five top media experts chaired by a well-known Colombian journalist, Juan Gossaín. They asked me question after question about Venezuela and current affairs.
Did you visit the place where Gaitán was killed?18
Yes, we went there, it was very emotional, it’s such a busy street. We laid flowers. We also went to what had been Gaitán’s residence and the garden where he is buried. He was buried standing up.
Standing up?
Yes. Didn’t you know? Gaitán is buried upright. There’s a rosebush on his grave. I met his daughter Gloria Gaitán there. There were a lot of people wearing red berets. I also visited Quinta Bolívar, where the Liberator lived with Manuelita Sáenz when he was in Bogotá. When word got around that I was there, hundreds of locals turned up spontaneously.
That trip made a big impact, it was very important. The red light was beginning to shine in Colombia … So much so that they were already planning how to extinguish that flame. The following month they accused me of being with the Colombian guerrillas.
Meanwhile, you visited other countries, starting with Panama, if I’m not mistaken.
Yes, my visit to Panama began on 15 September of that same year, 1994. Conditions [for change] existed there too. When I arrived, the press went straight on the attack: ‘Chávez has arrived and is mounting a coup against El Toro Balladares.’19 I’d been invited by some military officers, and I found the memory of Omar Torrijos more alive than ever.
But hadn’t the Defence Forces been dismantled after the US invasion in 1989?
Yes, they were former military officers but big followers of Torrijos. I visited Colonel Delgado who was under house arrest for an attempted uprising. He was Torrijos’s cousin, a wealthy guy, with an extremely luxurious house. Things went much better for me in Panama than in other countries; my visit generated a whole host of contacts. I went on radio and television, did press conferences and visited the Casa Azul, where so much happened.20 The hotel where I was staying was invaded by young army officers, Torrijos followers. They came because I’d said, controversially, in a television interview, ‘Panama must one day get its Defence Force back.’ That statement spread like wildfire. Former captains, lieutenants, etc., all descended on my hotel, I found about forty of them in the lobby. It was packed! I greeted all of them, and made a note of all their names.
They too gave me a bodyguard: ‘We’ve designated Lieutenant Martirio Herrera as your security chief.’ Martirio slept in the corridor, outside my hotel room. I kept saying, ‘Come on in, kid, use this sofa.’ But he said, ‘No sir, my mission is to guard you; I’ll sleep here.’
What selfless devotion!
I had very emotional experiences in Panama. I remember, on that same television programme, the interview was very polemical. They were two interviewers, one attacked me very strongly, and the other’s attack wasn’t so bad [laughter]. That’s where I talked about the Battalion 2000 …
Battalion 2000?
It was an elite battalion. I said, ‘I’m a Battalion 2000 soldier.’ To be honest, it was only symbolically true. A Panamanian compañero who graduated from the Military Academy in Caracas, Antonio Gómez Ortega – I think I told you about him – had invited me to Panama in 1988 and I visited after I came back from Guatemala, before the gringo invasion. I stayed at his house. I remember we talked a great deal, we visited several barracks, and I got to know a lot of officers and signed up as an honorary member of the Battalion 2000. You could tell that conflict with the US was imminent, the atmosphere was supercharged. And a year later came the invasion of 20 December 1989. I’ll never forget it. ‘Operation Just Cause’ they called it … How dare they … I was a prisoner in Maturín on that day, because a few days earlier they’d pulled me out of Caracas – I told you – accused of wanting to kill President Pérez. On a prison television I watched the bombing, the invasion …
Did you remind Panamanians of those events?
Yes, I talked about all that. I proclaimed myself a soldier of the Battalion 2000. And I confessed that when the gringos invaded Panama, that night I cried like a baby in my cell … They bombed the neighbourhood of Chorrillo. We went to see it. Three thousand people died there! It was the first time they’d used those stealth bombers [F-117A Nighthawks]. I spoke out forcefully against the gringos, against the invasion.
Early in 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) appeared in Chiapas, Mexico. Did you have any contact with that movement? Any relationship with Subcomandante Marcos?
No, never. It’s a rather strange movement. Although I’ve read some very original texts by Subcomandante Marcos, and also the book of interviews he did with you, I’ve never really understood that movement, to be honest.21 Well, we’ve never had any contact. No, from Panama, we went almost straight to Argentina where I arrived on 20 September.
How did that happen? Who invited you?
Through a retired Venezuelan army colonel, Luis Alfonso Dávila García, who later became our foreign minister. His sister was married to an Argentine businessman who had lived in Caracas for many years, and was probably following my progress. He knew businessmen in Argentina and they were the ones who invited me. I was surprised. ‘What use is this?’ I wondered. But, anyway, we were looking for entry points and accepted. So we went to stay in Buenos Aires. And the local press, again, received us with violent attacks. The headlines said: ‘The Venezuelan carapintada has landed’ [laughter]. We spent two days there. Argentina was asleep, the Argentine people were in cold storage. You couldn’t detect a glimmer of protest in that society. Those were the days of Carlos Menem.22
Do you go with Norberto Ceresole on that trip?23
No, in fact that’s when I met Ceresole. It wasn’t him who invited us. I met him through some retired military men, who had been carapintadas but had moved away from that group. They were on the progressive wing of the carapintadas, the right-wing movement linked to Lyndon LaRouche. Ceresole was a very able man … An historian, author of I don’t know how many books on security and defence. He conceived a plan for Latin American integration via the Orinoco, the Amazon and the River Plate. I was fond of Ceresole. But he was never an adviser of mine, let alone a mentor. He held some very outlandish views, some of which I share, others I don’t, and others are beyond the pale.
He also had some blatantly anti-Semitic ideas.
Absolutely. I’m telling you, totally unacceptable. I have never shared them.
But given your relationship with Ceresole, some people have tried to accuse you of anti-Semitism as well.
A repugnant accusation. I’ve been accused of everything, absolutely everything! But that is one of the most sickening. It’s been made several times. There have been various campaigns against me on that score. But let me tell you that I have very good relations with the Jewish community in Venezuela and its representatives in the CAIV [Confederation of Venezuelan Jewish Associations]. It’s a patriotic and supportive community, an integral part of this cultural, religious and ethnic melting pot that makes up the Venezuelan nation. On various occasions, it has come out to refute these mendacious campaigns.24 And I thank them for that.
I take this opportunity to repeat that I have the greatest respect for the Jewish people, one of the most unjustly discriminated against in history. The genocide the Nazis carried out between 1939 and 1945 is totally horrific. That desire to destroy European Jews, the extermination camps … Auschwitz … certain concepts of political reason died there. Anti-Semitism is an unacceptable, repugnant crime. No discussion. I’ve always maintained that.
How did you and Ceresole part company?
Well, besides the above disagreement, he started saying that Chávez was his ‘creation’. Such vanity … That put a coolness between us. He left Venezuela and returned to Buenos Aires even before I took office for the first time, in February 1999. I think he went to Spain after that, he lived in Madrid for a while, and died.
