A top secret CIA brief, written five days before the coup, proves the most incriminating. “It says the coup will take place in the first weeks of April, violence will be provoked in an opposition rally and the President will be taken prisoner”, states lawyer, Eva Golinger. “This is what happened.” Golinger has spent the last three years investigating the coup, tracing the money trail from Washington to key organisations involved. “It wasn’t just that they were giving them money. They quadrupled the funding from 2001 to 2002.” Other declassified documents show the US Embassy praising the coup leader as “the right man at the right time for Venezuela”. Remarkably, although the coup failed, Washington has stepped up its funding for the opposition. As Golinger states: “It’s as if they said ‘We didn’t give you guys enough. We’ve got to give you more because you failed.’” But ironically, America’s support for the opposition seems to have only strengthened Chavez’s hold on power.

SBS