Five Hours with Chavez: "You have to have power in order to change it"

[magbana]

From Machetera's Blog. Machetera has translated a fascinating article about Chavez meeting with members of the
In Defense of Humanity" network.. Below is an excerpt about the 2002 coup, but the article covers a wide range of topics.

You have to have power in order to change it
April 14, 2008 · No Comments

What would it be like to have a President who's capable of sitting down and talking for five hours with anyone? Inquiring U.S. citizens would like to know.

"Chávez recalled that, when he exited prison following the 1992 insurrection, he was shunned by the media which had been given instructions not to interview him. "We formed small groups, street by street, town by town. The network of networks should be like the fire that spreads or the sun that rises and intensifies the light," he said. "We need people armed with ideas, with creativity, and also with rifles," he added, "because when the changes come for real, through a Constitution, they must be defended. Even though the changes are made in a peaceful manner, the oligarchy will take up arms."

Five Hours with Chávez

The Venezuelan president's meeting with members of the "In Defense of Humanity" network

Pascual Serrano - Rebelión & www.pascualserrano.net - April 14, 2008

Translation: Machetera

This past April 12th, some hundred intellectuals and artists met with Venezuela's president during the international conference convened by the network of networks, "In Defense of Humanity" under the theme "Armed With Ideas."

Over five hours, during which intellectuals posed a variety of questions, Hugo Chávez, in military dress following his participation in a military parade, spoke of the coup d'etat six years prior, the situation in Colombia, in Venezuela of course, their political principles and many other subjects.

He began in an intimate tone, recalling certain unknown details from the hours between April 11 and 12, 2002, when Chávez and his government were held by putschists. Among them, the words of his then Defense Minister, José Vicente Rangel, who also accompanied him at the conference: "Tonight, here, I sacrifice myself," "The Palace must be defended with our lives." To which Chávez responded: "I don't think it will end here." "For me, if it ends here, I've lived a full life; I'm ready to sacrifice myself," said the Minister. Rangel telephoned his son to say, "Pepe, I already told Anita (his wife) that if this day should come, she would end up a widow." The Venezuelan president emphasized the dilemma that the soldiers and cadets holding them then faced: "It was one of those moments in which one had to prove whether it was worth it to live," and the cadets refused to obey the orders of the putschists. Chávez recalled that it was then that Fidel Castro's telephone call came through; technically unexplainable, because "the telephone lines had been telepathically cut using the latest generation U.S. technology, because an armed fleet was already in Venezuelan waters." Communication was achieved thanks to "Cuba's invisible satellite," he said ironically. Fidel told him, "Chávez you are not to die today, do not sacrifice yourself." "And so, he strengthened the idea that I came to elaborate," added the Venezuelan president. "I saw that they had come to kill me and I remembered el Che when he told his torturers to look at him, that they were only going to kill a man. Then other soldiers came out, also in the darkness, and I told them that if they were going to kill this man, they'd have to kill us all, and in those seconds my life was decided. Meanwhile, the people came out and mobilized themselves and communicated saying 'take care of this man, for the people are already in the street.' Two priests were even witnesses to the fact that I had refused to sign a resignation. However, all the television stations came out with the news about the resignation document that I'd never signed. And when the people took to the streets, they broadcast animated cartoons, as though nothing was happening."

http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/you-have-to-have-power-in-order-to-change-it/

http://snipurl.com/24fae

[Judi Lynn]

1. This is really good, magbana. I hope the countries are going to be able to repel Bush's scheme for

the "autonomous" movement among the elite of Sucre. This is the first time I ever heard someone already organized these assholes to the degree they've gotten themselves their own little green t-shirties, just like the Ukraine, with its childish orange crap.

I guess the next step is that we'll see one of the Sucre tyrants suddenly come down with another of those dandy cases of food poisoning which will then clear right up after the turmoil created when he claims he has been poisoned by the indigenous people and ensuing war gives them the ammunition they need to pull away from Bolivia, taking the oil resources with them.



BEFORE ELECTION! (Looked the way Fidel Castro would have
looked, had he smoked one of the cigars the CIA fixed for him!

(If you ever want to see what happened to the Ukrainian guy whose face blew up when he was the "victim of an attempted assassination," get a good look at this, a photo from last year!



None the worse for wear, eh? Badda bing! Good as new.

It appears his tragic situation got him where he wanted to go, didn't it?)

No one should forget that a lot of those criminals are living on land Hugo Banzer gave them when he drove the ingigenous people who had been there for centuries OFF THEIR OWN LAND and imported white South Africans and Rhodesians in the 1960's or 1970's in his attempt to create a "white Bolivia." That land actually does NOT belong to them. It was given to them by someone who didn't have the right to take it from the generations of owners who were NOT compensated.