In my research on the Cuba-Venezuela Nexus I read about a remarkable photograph taken when Fidel Castro arrived at the Teresa Carreño theater to participate in the festivities celebrating the inauguration of the second (non consecutive) term of Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP), on February 2, 1989.
CAP thought highly of Fidel Castro, actually meeting with him secretly multiple times during his first tenure (1974-1979) which was, not coincidentally, the age of massive expropriations in Venezuela. CAP invited the bitter dictator to the inauguration for his second term (1989-1993).
Bitter because he had an almost lifelong compulsive lust to use Venezuela’s riches to fund his Napoleonic dream of ruling over all of Latin America. A Spanish empire redivivus of sorts, only with lots more executions. He never lost that dream and when President Rómulo Betancourt spurned him he became inflamed with anger and took reckless actions to topple the elected president.
Fast forward to February 2, 1989, when the photo below was taken.
We cannot read another person’s mind. But in looking at this photo, you can! You can, because we now know what was going on in his mind at that moment.
CAP had naively given Castro carte blanche to enter the country with hundreds of “advisors”, by-passing immigration. This was unprecedented … and ominous. CAP also gave the Cubans full use of the Eurobuilding Hotel, then in final phases of construction, in Caracas. During Castro’s visit no Venezuelan was allowed in the sprawling premises, only Cubans, including food and cleaning services.
It was during that infiltration that Nicolás Maduro returned to Venezuela camouflaged as a Cuban adviser. And, just as ominously, scores of fully equipped sharpshooters entered also. Upon departure, Venezuelan emigration officials reported to CAP that the number of Cubans and equipage departing was significantly less than what had entered.
The president waved aside their concerns. Later, after the 9-day Caracazo (February 27 – March 8, 1989) which by some estimates killed over 1,000 Venezuelans, the usual suspects reported this rioting as “spontaneous” reactions to CAP’s economic policies. There was nothing “spontaneous” about it. The playbook was a reboot of the April 9, 1948 Bogotazo whose aftermath is what Castro wanted for Venezuela. He eventually got what he wanted.
What was the context of the much ballyhooed discontent supposedly suffocating Venezuelans in the 70s and 80s which led to a massive popular uprising which brought a Communist, Hugo Chávez, to power, never to be relinquished?
Between 1973 and 1982, when conspiracies, mostly within Venezuela’s left-wing military leadership, had sworn to do away with “democracy”, Venezuela “was a country whose economy had grown 50% in a decade … and found herself among the 20 top economies in the planet and in the top 10 with the best quality of life. Unemployment was 3.2% and poverty had fallen from 14.4% in 1976 to 9.5% in 1979 … the index of absolute privation was .53%, the lowest percentage of the entire American continent along with Canada and 90% of Europe.” (Source: Thays Peñalver)
Democracy in Venezuela was not ended because of poverty or privation which has been argued or asserted since the late 1980s. She eschewed her democratic institutions according to the designs of leftwing ideologues mostly ensconced in the Venezuela military.
Nor was Venezuela hopelessly in hock to American companies and interests. CAP was ardently anti-US and his policies left no room for doubt. His administration nationalized the oil and iron ore industries, and greatly regulated the American companies operating in the country. Unprecedented actions, all, which, produced an initial period of economic euforia, like a drug rush. But then the piper had to be paid and that was the situation in 1989, when CAP threw a vast party for his second inauguration, with Castro as a guest of honor.
It is difficult for most of us to appreciate the chaos and havoc faced by the citizens of Caracas during those nine days in late February and early March of 1989.
In addition to his own plane, Castro had arrived accompanied by two Soviet transport planes, later known to have been packed with munitions, weaponry of war, and other arms and grenades with “great powers of destruction”. All this was waved in with not so much as a by-your-leave. And when he departed, only a fraction of the equipage returned with him.
The Venezuelan authorities, not briefed about the unaccounted personnel and equipage brought by Castro. assumed that the disturbances which began in late February were merely local unrest. As police and national guard personnel approached the areas of riots, they fell under unremitting, unrelenting fire. By some estimates as much as 200 sharpshooters ensconced in the roofs of the city’s buildings fired and killed at will — both unarmed civilians as well as police and national guard. Areas of Caracas were virtual war zones as attested by European journalists such as José Comas, who had reported on the wars in Kosovo and Serbia. He described his coverage as, “The Caracas war front”.
To this day we still lack an authoritative accounting of the death and bloodletting of those nine days. The attacks were so severe and the crossfire so violent that the original intent — the overthrow of CAP, Castro’s good friend –was abandoned and the backup plan was implemented. Now the Caracazo was affirmed to have been the result of heavy handed suppression ordered by CAP himself and executed by the Venezuelan authorities.
Fidel Castro called CAP to express his support and solidarity and to denounce the scum who wished to overthrow him. American newspapers dutifully reported the crocodile tear expressions of the bitter butcher.
A mere three years later, CAP was impeached and removed from office. A few years after that, Hugo Chávez, who had been involved in three coup attempts was elected president and, though dead, his administration continues to this day, under Castro’s hand-picked successor to Chávez, Nicolás Maduro.
One important note: during last coup attempt in 1993, President Pérez, swearing he would not commit suicide like Allende, acted with great courage and audacity, fully armed and fighting his way out of La Casona to Miraflores where he was shortly surrounded once again, forcing him to fight his way out a second time that night. CAP was too much of an ideologue in his enmity of all things US and, worse, he was naive and foolish in his embrace of a rattlesnake like Castro. But when the chips were down, he acted valiantly. We are not cardboard creatures.
Fidel Castro arrives at the Teresa Carreño Theater to celebrate Carlos Andres Perez’s second inauguration on February 2, 1989. He had arrived in Venezuela accompanied by two Soviet Transport planes with war materiel which was allowed into Venezuela without being searched. Most stayed in Venezuela after Castro’s departure and was deployed in the Caracazo of February 27 – March 8, 1989. Surely all this was on his thoughts as he saw the realization of his decades-long dream close at hand.