Cipriano Castro in the National Pantheon completes another piece of jigsaw puzzle

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

President Chavez Frias has fulfilled another dream. The remains of Army General and President Cipriano Castro (1899-1902, 1902-1904, 1904-1908) are now in the National Pantheon, along with those of another of his heroes, General Guzman Blanco, whose remains he brought over from France.

Liberal Party opposition at the time had christened Castro “El Cabito” based on the satirical nickname of “Petit Caporal” that the French had bestowed on Luis Philip Napoleon’s attempt to emulate his famous uncle.

General Castro’s claim to fame lies in his victorious military campaign to take power, his humiliation of powerful “factor” bankers by marching them through Caracas, his oratory against the blockade of British and German frigates off Puerto Cabello and la Guaira, and the fight against provincial warlords.

In a cutting editorial, El Nacional makes comparisons between Castro and Chavez Frias, the first being their tongue and capacity to create enemies.

El Nacional says the irony is that the blockade, which started in December 2002 and ended on February 14 1903 ... 67 days to be exact, was by outside forces, whereas in 2003 the blockade was inside Venezuela itself.

The mainstream broadsheet admits that Venezuela’s debts had been contracted before Castro came to power (like Chavez Frias) but what Castro did was to shut out the Europeans and let the USA into Venezuela … for ever.

Incredible as it seems, Castro appointed US Ambassador to Caracas, Herbert Brown as Venezuela’s mediator or plenipotentiary to secure Theodore Roosevelt’s help in lifting the blockade, which the latter gleefully accepted confirming the Monroe Doctrine. Why should El Nacional be against that?

“El Cabito was polemic from day one in power … practically the whole country revolted against him and he was saved by internal conflict among the warlords.” The same has happened to Chavez Frias and the Coordinadora Democratica (CD), according to the editorial.

Defeated banker, Manuel Antonio Matos and his attempt to raise an army against Castro with foreign backing ended Venezuela’s last civil war.

Not so, say some historians. The last civil war was in the 1960s-70s, which El Nacional, the opposition and Chavez Frias conveniently ignore.

The newspaper also fails to point out that both personalities could be judged as bridges. Castro sealed Venezuela’s transformation out of the feudal age into the modern age, while Chavez Frias’ role as a bridge has still to be defined … he could be seen in the future as setting the stage to bring Venezuela into the global economy as a competitive force.

The return of Castro’s remains to the Capitolio must be seen as justice to someone, who was important to Venezuelan history. Ironically, it was Carlos Andres Perez, who brought his “paisano,” Castro’s remains from Puerto Rico to a mausoleum in Capacho (Tachira) in 1975.

• It completes part of Venezuela’s domestic jigsaw puzzle.

The more complex part of the jigsaw puzzle is trickier 1960s-70s civil war. It is tricky because the guerrilla war was against the very Venezuelan army that Chavez Frias believes is the vanguard of a truly Venezuelan Revolution.

It will take more than the Pantheon to solve that painful era in Venezuela’s history ... reconciliation is impossible without tackling and dealing with that traumatic period of Venezuela’s history.