The reasons the coup failed are indeed far closer to what you mentioned than to the silly romantic notion of a massive group of Chavez supporters taking over the Miraflores palace and forcing the new government out (which in turn is about as ridiculous as the idea some Chavez supporters have of the coup having been carried out by hordes of opposition protesters and such; in reality, it was strictly a military matter from start to finish: part of the military carried out the coup, and another part of the military reversed it).

The problem this theory is that it's simply not how things happened. A three-day strike and halt on production was declared by PDVSA executives and several of its unions against Chavez's various policies regarding the (state-owned yet still supposed to run autonomously) oil company. In response to this, Chavez announced on live national TV the firings of every high-level executive of PDVSA and several other state-owned companies associated to it that also participated in the strike (no big deal, you might think, but it's estimated some 6000 workers were fired in the later months for the sole reason of having taken part in the strike, and many more were later purged after the greater strike of 2002-2003 and when Tascon's list came around). The halt in production was in protest against Chavez and was the cause of the takeover, naturally predating it. Not the other way around.

Lucas Rincon Romero, the highest-ranking general in the history of the modern Venezuelan armed forces (his rank was, in fact, -created- just for him, although I do believe there's another general now with that rank) announces in the first bits of this video* that the high command of the military (the generals in charge of each branch of the military and the minister of defense, IIRC) requested the president's resignation, which, according to him, Chavez accepted. I guess that makes this general a CIA agent or the like, according to your conspiracy theory; why is it, then, that this same general ended up being minister of interior and justice, and is now our ambassador to Portugal?

If you're going to push a conspiracy theory, at least get the right conspiracy. I don't believe in either, but you're simply way off course; sometimes countries do stupid shit without the US being behind it.


* Only one I could find with the whole statement by Lucas Rincon. Ignore the rest of the video if you must.

I would think it's plenty enough to censor stuff (shut down TV channels and radio stations, organize and fund party-associated armed gangs and order them to attack journalists) and act like a dictator (completely politicize every public institution in the country, taking over every power of the state by eliminating all dissent, literally purging thousands of people from public companies and institutions (PDVSA, the entire court system, universities, the central bank...)) to be offended by his policies. There's also the massive amounts of corruption, massive handouts to political allies elsewhere in Latin America (including FARC, of course), incessant warmongering with Colombia (to the point of militarizing the border), economic policy that you wouldn't even laugh at as a joke (7 years and counting of foreign currency exchange restrictions, two year long waiting lists to buy incredibly overpriced cars, monetizing huge amounts of money to fund the military (which has been turned into an arm of the Chavista party)), spiraling urban violence (in 2006 we hit an estimated 160 murders per 100k inhabitants in Caracas!), violent repression of peaceful dissent (watch videos from how just about any opposition march ends!), huge databases of opponents used to purge public institutions of anyone who dares sign a petition for a referendum against Chavez (google for Tascon's list)...

I could literally spend all night typing here. Do ask if you're interested; there's a lot of misinformation going around because Chavez has succeeded in pushing an image of Venezuela being a socialist paradise to left-leaning people all across the world. And it's all bullshit: Chavez has not a bit of socialism in him. His political movement is an authoritarian personalism; it pretends to be nationalism, but the blindly worshipped figure of our nation is whatever Chavez himself whims it to be on any given day/week/month/campaign.

I've spent the better part of this afternoon commenting here and there in this article and I'm exhausted, so I'll be brief, although I'd certainly prefer to reply more extensively.
I don't know anything, to be honest, about the situation regarding press freedoms in Colombia, Pakistan and Mexico. However, it's ridiculous to imply journalism is just fine* and dandy down here.

Furthermore, I'm curious: how, exactly, does a TV station collaborate with a military coup?

* you have to select "Venezuela" in the combo box here to get the listing.

Ever heard of the Ley Habilitante? It's basically special legislative powers given to the president by the legislature. Insta-laws. Dictated, not discussed and voted on. It's been given to Chavez by the 100%* pro-Chavez legislature three times, last I checked. Granted, it's the opposition's own fault for calling for a boycott on the elections that made that legislature. Still damn close to dictatorship, however. They're already (illegally) indefinitely postponing some (largely unimportant) elections, but the real test will be late next year, when the next iteration of legislative elections comes. Stay tuned; it's likely, IMHO, that those elections won't happen. Feel free to place your own bets :) * with the exception of three lawmakers from a formerly pro-Chavez party, Patria Para Todos (PPT), that is now kinda-sorta-anti-Chavez, sometimes, sometimes not.

Hey, I don't support it. I'm glad they got rid of Zelaya; they saved themselves from having to go through what Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and several others are experiencing. Not only that, but they seem to be doing it right; Zelaya's not back yet, and it doesn't look like he'll be back. It remains to be seen whether this move will backfire come the november elections and end up producing some piece of shit politician that's even worse than Zelaya, but I give them plenty of credit for getting as far as they've gotten. I certainly wish our own military coup down here had been as successful as theirs seems to be.

If your question is why the fuck would Obama be supportive of Zelaya, I don't think it can be denied that it's consistent with his general opposition to the US meddling in regime changes and the like. It'd be counterproductive in terms of his wishes to "restore the US's standing in the world" and such. Politics, politics, politics.

It's funny that you refer to the media like that, since the Chavez government has come rather close to exterminating independent media in this country. The RESORTE law is used for blatant censorship, RCTV (the oldest still existing TV network in this country, dating back to the 50s, and only the second private station) was shut down to silence their strong criticism of Chavez and his movement, and just a few weeks ago 34 radio stations were ordered to stop transmitting over some bullshit bureaucratic issue, and this just happened to include CNB, a widely spread radio network that broadcasts the most popular anti-Chavez political commentary radio/TV show (now off the air, of course, but continues on TV), Alo Ciudadano.

I'm well aware of what US foreign policy towards Latin America was like during the cold war. The cold war is over. Granted, there's no telling what conspiracy theorists will claim, but the coup was evidently a military action, and it's funny to note how Lucas Rincon Romero, the highest-ranking general at the time of the coup who spearheaded it and famously announced Chavez's resignation, ended up being minister of interior and justice and is now the Venezuelan ambassador to Portugal. Funny thing, that.

I'm Venezuelan, just in case you were assuming otherwise. It's quite odd, too, that you believe I see no wrong in anything the US does, seeing as I've implied no such thing; in fact, I hate the US's drug war, I hate US support for Israel, I hate the war in Iraq, I hate almost everything the Republican party represents and a lot of what the Democratic party represents, I hate all of the shenanigans of the Bush administration, and so on and on, ad nauseum. This has absolutely nothing, not a thing, to do with the fact that the coup against Chavez was strictly an action by the Venezuelan military as has always been throughout our long history of coups that dates back about as far as our independence.

Sadly, the idea that Venezuelans are beautiful people with good hearts isn't very accurate. It's certainly one of our traits to be jolly and easy-going and such, but corruption is just as fundamental a trait of our culture as our nicer hobbit bits are. You're spot-on on everything else you said, but you really don't want to be surrounded by venezuelans, at least not in positions of power. For precisely the same nice "taking care of each other" bit, we'll steal from those we count as "others" to provide for "ours". Especially if it means stealing from the state: the more people you're robbing, the less personal it feels.

I noticed something funny when I played RA3. I can't find any screenshots of it, though. You know the little picture of a victorious conscript you're shown when you win a soviet mission? The conscript's face is eerily similar to Chavez's. Perhaps someone here can link to a screenshot. :)