Who organized a coup d'etat against Venezuela's constitutional government?

<a href=www.vheadline.com>venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 By: Kira Marquez Perez

VHeadline.com commentarist Kira Marquez Perez writes: Before Mr. Coronel published his open letter to me, we had exchanged a couple of e-mails in which we had discussed my comments on his editorial from April 28.

Since Mr. Coronel has decided now to share the subject with all of you, I would also like to do the same. Here are some of my answers to him:

As I have mentioned in many of my commentaries in VHeadline.com before, I believe that every democracy needs a good opposition to keep it working. Actually, I think it is very good that Mr. Coronel expresses his opinions against Mr. Chavez' government (which he does quite often) and I respect his position, too. I know he believes in what he writes.

I particularly support the existence of a sane opposition in Venezuela (and I would like to emphasize the word SANE) … this opposition should be only against the government and not against the whole country; and here I come to my point: Mr. Coronel's editorial (contrary to most of his commentaries, with which I sometimes do not agree, but which I always find interesting) was clearly against Venezuela.

Mr. Coronel knows very well that PDVSA is the main source of income for our country. It is absolutely all right that Mr. Coronel criticizes PDVSA if he wants (I've done it myself several times). It is also all right that he criticizes Mr. Ali Rodriguez if he doesn't like him. It is ok if he says that Mr. Rodriguez used to be a terrorist. And . if there is evidence of that (and Mr. Coronel says there is), then, of course, he can say it ... and he even has my support for his criticism, since I support clean and authentic journalism (which is quite hard to find).

However, I believe Mr. Coronel is damaging our country when he asks foreign companies not to invest or work in Venezuela ... and that's what I mean when I talk about “being fanatic” with his comments. It is absolutely all right if Mr. Coronel doesn't like Chavez … but is that a good reason enough to push away potential investors and to wish that nobody even thinks of coming to Venezuela to invest his money as long as Chavez is here?

As Mr. Coronel pointed out himself in his editorial, Mr. Chavez will someday leave the Presidency (it may be in a couple of months but it may also be in several years. Nobody knows). That fact is that even after Mr. Chavez is gone, Venezuela will remain. Venezuela ú- and not Chavez -- is going to suffer the consequences of all this. That's why I believe that when Mr. Coronel tells potential investors to not come to our country, he's attacking Venezuela and not Chavez.

You can't be prepared and willing to destroy the whole country just to get rid of one person … and he knows that Venezuela's economic isolation will only contribute to destroy the country and definitely not  improve it.

As I mentioned in my e-mail to Mr. Coronel, I didn't like our corrupt ex-President Carlos Andres Perez at all (and I'm sure you've realized that already if you read any of my other commentaries). However, I certainly would have never even thought of asking foreign investors at that time not to come to Venezuela or not to do business with Mr. Perez just because I didn't like him. That would have done nothing against him ... it would have affected only me and the rest of the Venezuelans!

I had never thought of asking the USA to invade our country to get rid of Mr. Perez … Actually, although I didn't like Mr. Perez (who was so corrupt that he totally ruined our country), I never agreed with the 1992 coups against him, because I respect democracy above all.  So … I just believe we should know the limits and consequences of our words.

Now I would like to comment on some remarks made by Mr. Coronel in his open letter:

• First of all, Mr. Coronel made a very good point. He stated that the world is also made of decent and idealistic persons. I agree with him and I have never doubted about his decency or his idealism. Probably Mr. Coronel didn't see the following sentence in my writing: “In this particular, I must say that I was shocked to read Mr. Coronel's latest editorial” … which means:

First: that I was not connecting Mr. Coronel to the previous paragraphs but only to one particular point of my editorial i.e. to the fact that he was attacking Venezuela as a means of attacking Chavez; and

Second: that I was shocked to read such a commentary coming from a person like him (who knows very well what the effects of his words can be). However, it seems that Mr. Coronel felt the need to magnify and interpret my words in another way to make the story sound more interesting.

-Mr. Coronel says that millions of Venezuelans oppose Chavez at the expense of their tranquility and financial stability. To this I can only say that he's right in the issue that many people have been used by some others (like Cisneros or Poleo) who are definitely only protecting their own interests. For people like Cisneros, getting rid of Chavez at any cost is really an investment, and that's why they still haven't given up in spite of so many defeats. The fact that the amount of people that attend the opposition rallies has diminished dramatically in the last months ... and that in spite of the shows, music, bailoterapias-aerobic dancing), TV-starts, camping and all other activities the organizers have invented to attract attendants ... is a very clear evidence that the people are tired of being used. They believe they have been fooled by their pseudo-leaders and they're tired of it.

• Mr. Coronel talks about facts. I have always included facts in my critics against our “radical opposition”. Mr. Coronel did the same in his criticism of Mr. Ali Rodriguez (which is fair). However, it seems to me that Mr. Coronel wants to minimize the terrorist and sabotage attacks of the “radical opposition” in PDVSA and in many other areas of Venezuela's economical and social life. I hope I am wrong about that. I wouldn't dare to say that all accidents and oil spills are exclusively a result of sabotage, but many of them certainly were ... and it was not a coincidence that valves and pipe-lines in the Maracaibo Lake had been purposely damaged and that a helicopter from Globovision was there exactly at the right time and that right moment to film it all.

• Mr. Coronel also claims in his letter that the opposition is not damaging the image and the economical stability of our country abroad. Once again we seem to disagree in this point. I ask:

1. Who organized a coup d'etat against Venezuela's constitutional government and additionally exported edited, manipulated and twisted videos of the events of April 11 to other countries?
2. Who tried to stop and block all economic and social activities in the country for two months (including PDVSA, as well as schools, universities, banks, etc) and drove us to the price and exchange controls that Mr. Coronel so strongly criticizes?
3. Who went almost every week to Washington to ventilate internal affairs (telling only their twisted version of the events)? At this point I must say that before and during the war in Iraq there were peace demonstrations all over the world. The radical opposition in Venezuela demonstrated in front of the US Embassy as well … but ... there was one big difference: they were not demonstrating against the war in Iraq but because the USA had still not intervened in Venezuela. Can you believe that?

• Is that sane? Does that show love for their country? Definitely not. And … do you know who organized this demonstration? Gente del Petroleo (the “brilliant” managers of PDVSA).

4. Who invented that we are living in a dictatorship with no freedom of expression, while the opposition owns all the private media and presents a 24-hour anti-Chavez programming? That is a barefaced lie… and you know it, too, Mr. Coronel.
5. Who is responsible for the 80% poverty in Venezuela? Are you going to tell us now that this is new?

I could also go on and on…but I think it is not necessary.

• Mr. Coronel asks for a rapid return of PDVSA to a non-political management. What does he mean? Who is he talking about? Is he talking about Guaicaipuro Lameda? Is he talking about Juan Fernandez? Has Mr. Coronel forgotten that these “non-political” managers that he's talking about went to a very political strike just a few months ago?. They were not asking for improved salaries or for better working conditions. They were asking for the resignation of the President and they didn't care to take the country to such a chaotic situation.

Their political strike affected not only Chavez but also me and you, Mr. Coronel.

To conclude, I would like to say that I love Venezuela, too, and that I therefore oppose any attacks against her. Your points of view concerning Chavez or Rodriguez are valid and I respect them, but I will always respond when I feel the attacks are directed to us (Venezuelans) and that was the case in your editorial from April 28.

With my very best wishes, Kira Marquez Perez.

Kira Marquez Perez was born in Merida where she studied chemistry at the Universidad de los Andes (ULA) with a scholarship from PDVSA as a reward for outstanding participation in the Chemistry Olympics.  She obtained her Diploma (Licenciatura) in 1997 and entered the oil industry the same year,  working in process engineering and quality improvement. Kira has participated in many seminars and congresses all over the world and has won several national and international prizes.  She currently lives in Germany, where she is doing a PhD in Electrochemistry at the Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf ... before that, she lived and studied in England and the USA and speaks several languages fluently.