On Democracy and Orchestrated Overthrows in Venezuela and Ukraine

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Monday, March 17, 2014 by Common Dreams

On Democracy and Orchestrated Overthrows in Venezuela and Ukraine
by Howard Friel

On April 11, 2002, the democratically elected president of Venezuela was overthrown by a group of military officers who installed a prominent Venezuelan businessman as president. The Bush administration announced that day that it supported the coup. Two days later, on April 13, the lead editorial in the New York Times announced that it also supported the coup, claiming that it was a victory for “Venezuelan democracy”:

With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona…. Rightly, [Chávez’s] removal was a purely Venezuelan affair.

Since nearly every state in Latin America, from Mexico to Chile, denounced the coup and criticized the Bush administration for supporting it, the Times’ editorial backing the coup was to the right of every official statement given by every government throughout the Western hemisphere.

The Times’ editorial also accepted the claim made by Venezuelan military plotters and the Bush administration that Chávez had resigned. However, when Chávez returned to power on April 14 — after only three days and following mass protests and a counter-coup to reinstall the elected president — it was clear that Chávez had not resigned, and that the Times’ April 13 editorial, in addition to supporting a military coup, had misreported an important fact pertaining to the status of the elected Venezuelan president.

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/17-0