Caracas Music
Presidential Palace
Dominated by its capital, Caracas, Venezuela has long been the richest, most stable country in an excitable continent. A major oil exporter, a U.S. ally, governed by and for the ruling class. Then along came Hugo Chavez, a paratrooper with a tank.
Night time coup Ten years ago he led a small group of rebels right into the Presidential Palace. As a coup, it was a fiasco, but before he went to gaol, he addressed the Venezuelan people in his red beret.
Chavez in red beret
HUGO CHAVEZ: Comrades, for now we haven't been able to achieve our aims in the capital.
BYRNE: The speech was, even his opponents concede, a public relations triumph.
Bianchi
TONY BIANCHI: His famous phrase "For now I am giving up, I'm calling my people off, I'm telling them to lay down their arms".
BYRNE: Opposition spokesman, Tony Bianchi.
TONY BIANCHI: And that famous "for now" transformed itself into practically a political call to back him and eventually see him into power.
Bernal
FREDDY BERNAL: When he rebelled on February 4, 1992, I thought, I agree with that man and I also wanted to say what that man there is saying.
Interior of Bolivar Museum
BYRNE: Freddy Bernal is a key Chavez lieutenant, Mayor of west Caracas, guardian of one of the government's holy sites the Simon Bolivar Museum.
FREDDY BERNAL: The people were observing from up there and Simon Bolivar then gave his first historical speech.
Images of Bolivar in museum
BYRNE: Bolivar was South America's liberation hero in the 1800s. He is now the inspiration for the Chavez revolution, hence Venezuela's new official title the Bolivarian Republic. And the spirit of revolution is everywhere. Class anthems strike the chorus Tremble Oligarchs.
Military, civilians, even beauty queens and statues are urged to unite behind Chavez and Bolivar.
Unveiling of Bolivar statue
FREDDY BERNAL: In a few years we'll have Olympic marathon athletes. We'll win lots of world championships
Bernal because here everyone marches either in favour of the revolution or against it.
Woman on street
WOMAN: We all dream about, we love him, we feel him. He's enlightened and protected by God.
Arguing man
BYRNE: Venezuela today is so polarised, it's paralysed. The Chavistas carry little blue books their elected President's new constitution and their hearts on their sleeve.
MAN: He's the man who's woken up the Venezuelan people -- he's helped the poor.
Protest crowd
BYRNE: His opponents number in their millions.
TONY BIANCHI: The split is 70/30
BianchiSuper: Tony BianchiOpposition spokesman or 66/33 if you want to call it. Two to one against Chavez, against the Chavez regime. It's a big mass that opposes a government that's definitely not democratic.
BYRNE: If he's not a democrat, what is he?
TONY BIANCHI: Well he's an autocrat.
Residential area of Caracas Music
BYRNE: Venezuela's political mania has infected its economy. Confidence has collapsed, real jobs have vanished. More than half the Venezuelan workforce now trade in the street. Business leaders have turned spoilers, and literally gone on strike. The country sells $36 billion worth of oil a year, yet some 70 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty.
Medina
PABLO MEDINA: His relationship with the poor is just empty rhetoric -- "I love the poor the poor are so unfortunate " But his economic policies create more poverty every day.
Candlelight vigil
BYRNE: Pablo Medina is a senior trade union leader who gave Chavez vital support through the 90s. He's now joined the Opposition and regards his old comrade as a class traitor.
PABLO MEDINA: His relationship with the poor is like a man who inspired great love in a woman,
Medina complimenting her and saying beautiful things, but in bed, he cannot rise to the occasion. That's what he is like with the poor.
Caracas slums Music
BYRNE: Vast scarcely-serviced slums sprawl across the city. And next door like a shining El Dorado, the apartments of the middle class. Twice now this estate has been attacked and looted.
Mirahana
MIRAHANA: We were held hostage for two nights -- two nights of terror -- and then when they got close to the estate people from both sides started shooting.
Mirahana on two-way/security guards
BYRNE: Having lost faith in the police, residents like Mirahana Circovic now resort to their own armed defence plan. They hire private security guards to lock off the estate at the first sign of trouble. Lights, razor wire and hidden within the estate, guns and emergency food and medicine. It is the same story across Caracas.
MIRAHANA: There's so much fear because all of this has generated a lot of hatred, for the first time ever in Venezuela.
Mirahana
BYRNE: What, you really think that's possible in rich Venezuela, in civilised Venezuela that you could have civil war?
MIRAHANA: Yes, I think so -- if things keep going in the same way.
Archival: Chavez singing
BYRNE: Hugo Chavez didnt get where he got without charm. He has a real flair for mixing politics with vaudeville. One who knows him intimately is his long time lover and former co-conspirator, Herma Marksman.
Herma
HERMA MARKSMAN: When we worked together he was sane, but not now. I think many of the terrible things -- the killings are tolerated or supported by him.
Byrne looks at photos
BYRNE: Herma shared ten years of her life with Chavez but left him after, she says, the public adulation went to his head.
HERMA MARKSMAN: He is not the Saviour, though deep down he believes he is the Chosen One. He just says he has no past -- Herma that he left that all behind and was born again and those people are now forgotten.
File footage -- riots
BYRNE: In April last year, the plotter was plotted against. Deadly riots culminated in a coup led by a shadowy combination of army and business leaders. The U.S. gave them tacit support but the Chavistas fought back. Within 48 hours, it was over.
File footage attempted coup
The coup marked a turning point in Hugo Chavez' presidency. He knew his enemies now. Once safely back in the palace, he purged the army including some of Venezuela's most senior generals. And then he turned on the private media owners who'd shown their colours by refusing to broadcast the pro-Chavez demonstrations. He took to calling them the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Bernal
FREDDY BERNAL: As Mayor of Caracas, I have to know what they're saying and so I watch the four horsemen of the apocalypse constantly.
TV sets BYRNE: The TV owners, the horsemen, are now threatened with having their broadcast licences revoked. Outriders in print also fear Chavista retribution.
Byrne with Otero
Byrne: Why do you carry it around every, so you can argue with [Referring to little blue book].
MIGUEL OTERO: I do with Chavistas all the time.
BYRNE: The Editor of daily El Nacional, Miguel Otero.
Otero
MIGUEL OTERO: This is a country right now where everybody has a political position.
BYRNE: But you agree you are part of the opposition?
MIGUEL OTERO: Well, he created a system of exclusion, so the people with him are the people that he takes care of. The others are enemies, they are people who want a coup, terrorists, oligarchs and things like that.
MedinaSuper: Pablo MedinaTrade Union Leader
PABLO MEDINA: He is a very complex man who trusts absolutely no one -- not even his own shadow. If he sees his own shadow, he will stamp on it.
Military guards/Press conference
BYRNE: These days, the President is always heavily guarded. He rarely speaks to the press but when he does, like his great friend, Cuba's Fidel Castro, he speaks at length usually of his enemies.
Chavez at press conference
HUGO CHAVEZ: They took Bolivar's picture away because they're terrified of him hes the intellectual force behind our process
BYRNE: This press conference on the anniversary of last year's coup lasted five hours. He allowed six questions -- and note the little blue book.
HUGO CHAVEZ: And to justify with this, not only the deaths but also Chavez's death -- because Chavez had to die.
BianchiSuper: Tony BianchiOpposition Spokesman
TONY BIANCHI: Chavez is trying to instil this kind of very leftist socialist Cuba-style oppression, educating the people, forcing people to develop a Bolivarian education which is truly revolutionary.
Vegetable gardeners in rain Music
BYRNE: And what could be more revolutionary than government sponsored vegetable gardens, growing greens to feed the poor. The idea and the seeds come from Cuba, Venezuela's military provides the muscle. This is their first harvest. There are 23 million Venezuelans.
Pro-Chavez crowd
Having survived a coup and, more recently, a two-month national strike, the man in the red beret has every reason to celebrate. Under heavy international pressure, he has agreed to allow a referendum on his leadership, some time after August, the mid-point of his term. But he is an unpredictable man.
HUGO CHAVEZ: Where are the revolutionary women?
OteroSuper: Miguel OteroEditor, El Nacional
MIGUEL OTERO: He himself has been saying, well, the solution to take me out is a referendum so I dont think he will be able to brake down this road.
Bianchi
TONY BIANCHI: At this moment, I'd give it a 50/50 chance, not because it shouldn't happen, because Chavez will find ways of delaying it and all kinds of gimmicks to try to avoid it.
Rally Music
BYRNE: The opposition coalition is divided and depleted. Chavez reigns supreme. And in this lull between hostilities, sad and strange events are occurring. The church reports an outbreak of weeping virgins, shedding tears of blood. These mystical symbols of distress draw the faithful to pray for their country.
Bombsite
Then there are the bombs that keep going off in Caracas, three so far this year. Destroyed this time was the very building where the government was talking with international negotiators about resolving Venezuela's crisis.
Woman on street
WOMAN: A huge explosion huge at twenty to three.
BYRNE: Did you know this was where the peace talks were going on?
WOMAN: Yes. I live over there on the left. It's impossible to know who did it. If we dont know who did the Spanish or Colombian Embassy bombings, how are we going to know who did this? Forget it.
Passport queue
BYRNE: And each morning, this is what you see outside the embassies. The passport queue.
Woman in queue
WOMAN: Because of the country's problems because the government has left us without opportunities I lost my job.
Young man in queue
YOUNG MAN: I'm here to get my Portuguese passport. Things are so bad here, I want to leave and try my luck in England.
Passport queue
BYRNE: They are the sons and daughters of Europe's postwar immigrants who flock to Venezuela as the land of opportunity.
Ferdinando carries chair Ferdinando's grandfather and father left Portugal 40 years ago to start a carpentry business. The three generations shared this workshop.
Ferdinando in workshop
FERDINANDO: Yes, it did turn out to be the land of opportunity that he wished it to be -- for himself and his family. Things started to go downhill four years ago. They've become much worse.
BYRNE: Ferdinando now works alone. His father, mother, sisters, grandmother everyone in his family photo except him and his children has left. Ferdinando wants to stay, but business is down 70 percent and he fears worse to come.
Ferdinando
FERDINANDO: This is not a revolution. Ordinary people aren't getting anything out of it. The only people benefiting from it are him and the people around him. I think we could have a civil war. If things keep going as they are, it could happen.
Brass band
Heroic Ecological Brigades of Liberatador
BYRNE: Meanwhile, outside City Hall, the revolution continues. These are the Heroic Ecological Brigades of Liberatador. They are informed of progress at the latest international solidarity meeting. A very beautiful event, says the Mayor. Bolivar presides. In Venezuela, it's politics as usual.
VENEZUELA REVOLUTION Reporter: Jennifer Byrne
Camera: Geoffrey Lye
Sound: Kate Graham
Editor: Garth Thomas
Producer: Vivien Altman
Presidential Palace
Dominated by its capital, Caracas, Venezuela has long been the richest, most stable country in an excitable continent. A major oil exporter, a U.S. ally, governed by and for the ruling class. Then along came Hugo Chavez, a paratrooper with a tank.
Night time coup Ten years ago he led a small group of rebels right into the Presidential Palace. As a coup, it was a fiasco, but before he went to gaol, he addressed the Venezuelan people in his red beret.
Chavez in red beret
HUGO CHAVEZ: Comrades, for now we haven't been able to achieve our aims in the capital.
BYRNE: The speech was, even his opponents concede, a public relations triumph.
Bianchi
TONY BIANCHI: His famous phrase "For now I am giving up, I'm calling my people off, I'm telling them to lay down their arms".
BYRNE: Opposition spokesman, Tony Bianchi.
TONY BIANCHI: And that famous "for now" transformed itself into practically a political call to back him and eventually see him into power.
Bernal
FREDDY BERNAL: When he rebelled on February 4, 1992, I thought, I agree with that man and I also wanted to say what that man there is saying.
Interior of Bolivar Museum
BYRNE: Freddy Bernal is a key Chavez lieutenant, Mayor of west Caracas, guardian of one of the government's holy sites the Simon Bolivar Museum.
FREDDY BERNAL: The people were observing from up there and Simon Bolivar then gave his first historical speech.
Images of Bolivar in museum
BYRNE: Bolivar was South America's liberation hero in the 1800s. He is now the inspiration for the Chavez revolution, hence Venezuela's new official title the Bolivarian Republic. And the spirit of revolution is everywhere. Class anthems strike the chorus Tremble Oligarchs.
Military, civilians, even beauty queens and statues are urged to unite behind Chavez and Bolivar.
Unveiling of Bolivar statue
FREDDY BERNAL: In a few years we'll have Olympic marathon athletes. We'll win lots of world championships
Bernal because here everyone marches either in favour of the revolution or against it.
Woman on street
WOMAN: We all dream about, we love him, we feel him. He's enlightened and protected by God.
Arguing man
BYRNE: Venezuela today is so polarised, it's paralysed. The Chavistas carry little blue books their elected President's new constitution and their hearts on their sleeve.
MAN: He's the man who's woken up the Venezuelan people -- he's helped the poor.
Protest crowd
BYRNE: His opponents number in their millions.
TONY BIANCHI: The split is 70/30
BianchiSuper: Tony BianchiOpposition spokesman or 66/33 if you want to call it. Two to one against Chavez, against the Chavez regime. It's a big mass that opposes a government that's definitely not democratic.
BYRNE: If he's not a democrat, what is he?
TONY BIANCHI: Well he's an autocrat.
Residential area of Caracas Music
BYRNE: Venezuela's political mania has infected its economy. Confidence has collapsed, real jobs have vanished. More than half the Venezuelan workforce now trade in the street. Business leaders have turned spoilers, and literally gone on strike. The country sells $36 billion worth of oil a year, yet some 70 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty.
Medina
PABLO MEDINA: His relationship with the poor is just empty rhetoric -- "I love the poor the poor are so unfortunate " But his economic policies create more poverty every day.
Candlelight vigil
BYRNE: Pablo Medina is a senior trade union leader who gave Chavez vital support through the 90s. He's now joined the Opposition and regards his old comrade as a class traitor.
PABLO MEDINA: His relationship with the poor is like a man who inspired great love in a woman,
Medina complimenting her and saying beautiful things, but in bed, he cannot rise to the occasion. That's what he is like with the poor.
Caracas slums Music
BYRNE: Vast scarcely-serviced slums sprawl across the city. And next door like a shining El Dorado, the apartments of the middle class. Twice now this estate has been attacked and looted.
Mirahana
MIRAHANA: We were held hostage for two nights -- two nights of terror -- and then when they got close to the estate people from both sides started shooting.
Mirahana on two-way/security guards
BYRNE: Having lost faith in the police, residents like Mirahana Circovic now resort to their own armed defence plan. They hire private security guards to lock off the estate at the first sign of trouble. Lights, razor wire and hidden within the estate, guns and emergency food and medicine. It is the same story across Caracas.
MIRAHANA: There's so much fear because all of this has generated a lot of hatred, for the first time ever in Venezuela.
Mirahana
BYRNE: What, you really think that's possible in rich Venezuela, in civilised Venezuela that you could have civil war?
MIRAHANA: Yes, I think so -- if things keep going in the same way.
Archival: Chavez singing
BYRNE: Hugo Chavez didnt get where he got without charm. He has a real flair for mixing politics with vaudeville. One who knows him intimately is his long time lover and former co-conspirator, Herma Marksman.
Herma
HERMA MARKSMAN: When we worked together he was sane, but not now. I think many of the terrible things -- the killings are tolerated or supported by him.
Byrne looks at photos
BYRNE: Herma shared ten years of her life with Chavez but left him after, she says, the public adulation went to his head.
HERMA MARKSMAN: He is not the Saviour, though deep down he believes he is the Chosen One. He just says he has no past -- Herma that he left that all behind and was born again and those people are now forgotten.
File footage -- riots
BYRNE: In April last year, the plotter was plotted against. Deadly riots culminated in a coup led by a shadowy combination of army and business leaders. The U.S. gave them tacit support but the Chavistas fought back. Within 48 hours, it was over.
File footage attempted coup
The coup marked a turning point in Hugo Chavez' presidency. He knew his enemies now. Once safely back in the palace, he purged the army including some of Venezuela's most senior generals. And then he turned on the private media owners who'd shown their colours by refusing to broadcast the pro-Chavez demonstrations. He took to calling them the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Bernal
FREDDY BERNAL: As Mayor of Caracas, I have to know what they're saying and so I watch the four horsemen of the apocalypse constantly.
TV sets BYRNE: The TV owners, the horsemen, are now threatened with having their broadcast licences revoked. Outriders in print also fear Chavista retribution.
Byrne with Otero
Byrne: Why do you carry it around every, so you can argue with [Referring to little blue book].
MIGUEL OTERO: I do with Chavistas all the time.
BYRNE: The Editor of daily El Nacional, Miguel Otero.
Otero
MIGUEL OTERO: This is a country right now where everybody has a political position.
BYRNE: But you agree you are part of the opposition?
MIGUEL OTERO: Well, he created a system of exclusion, so the people with him are the people that he takes care of. The others are enemies, they are people who want a coup, terrorists, oligarchs and things like that.
MedinaSuper: Pablo MedinaTrade Union Leader
PABLO MEDINA: He is a very complex man who trusts absolutely no one -- not even his own shadow. If he sees his own shadow, he will stamp on it.
Military guards/Press conference
BYRNE: These days, the President is always heavily guarded. He rarely speaks to the press but when he does, like his great friend, Cuba's Fidel Castro, he speaks at length usually of his enemies.
Chavez at press conference
HUGO CHAVEZ: They took Bolivar's picture away because they're terrified of him hes the intellectual force behind our process
BYRNE: This press conference on the anniversary of last year's coup lasted five hours. He allowed six questions -- and note the little blue book.
HUGO CHAVEZ: And to justify with this, not only the deaths but also Chavez's death -- because Chavez had to die.
BianchiSuper: Tony BianchiOpposition Spokesman
TONY BIANCHI: Chavez is trying to instil this kind of very leftist socialist Cuba-style oppression, educating the people, forcing people to develop a Bolivarian education which is truly revolutionary.
Vegetable gardeners in rain Music
BYRNE: And what could be more revolutionary than government sponsored vegetable gardens, growing greens to feed the poor. The idea and the seeds come from Cuba, Venezuela's military provides the muscle. This is their first harvest. There are 23 million Venezuelans.
Pro-Chavez crowd
Having survived a coup and, more recently, a two-month national strike, the man in the red beret has every reason to celebrate. Under heavy international pressure, he has agreed to allow a referendum on his leadership, some time after August, the mid-point of his term. But he is an unpredictable man.
HUGO CHAVEZ: Where are the revolutionary women?
OteroSuper: Miguel OteroEditor, El Nacional
MIGUEL OTERO: He himself has been saying, well, the solution to take me out is a referendum so I dont think he will be able to brake down this road.
Bianchi
TONY BIANCHI: At this moment, I'd give it a 50/50 chance, not because it shouldn't happen, because Chavez will find ways of delaying it and all kinds of gimmicks to try to avoid it.
Rally Music
BYRNE: The opposition coalition is divided and depleted. Chavez reigns supreme. And in this lull between hostilities, sad and strange events are occurring. The church reports an outbreak of weeping virgins, shedding tears of blood. These mystical symbols of distress draw the faithful to pray for their country.
Bombsite
Then there are the bombs that keep going off in Caracas, three so far this year. Destroyed this time was the very building where the government was talking with international negotiators about resolving Venezuela's crisis.
Woman on street
WOMAN: A huge explosion huge at twenty to three.
BYRNE: Did you know this was where the peace talks were going on?
WOMAN: Yes. I live over there on the left. It's impossible to know who did it. If we dont know who did the Spanish or Colombian Embassy bombings, how are we going to know who did this? Forget it.
Passport queue
BYRNE: And each morning, this is what you see outside the embassies. The passport queue.
Woman in queue
WOMAN: Because of the country's problems because the government has left us without opportunities I lost my job.
Young man in queue
YOUNG MAN: I'm here to get my Portuguese passport. Things are so bad here, I want to leave and try my luck in England.
Passport queue
BYRNE: They are the sons and daughters of Europe's postwar immigrants who flock to Venezuela as the land of opportunity.
Ferdinando carries chair Ferdinando's grandfather and father left Portugal 40 years ago to start a carpentry business. The three generations shared this workshop.
Ferdinando in workshop
FERDINANDO: Yes, it did turn out to be the land of opportunity that he wished it to be -- for himself and his family. Things started to go downhill four years ago. They've become much worse.
BYRNE: Ferdinando now works alone. His father, mother, sisters, grandmother everyone in his family photo except him and his children has left. Ferdinando wants to stay, but business is down 70 percent and he fears worse to come.
Ferdinando
FERDINANDO: This is not a revolution. Ordinary people aren't getting anything out of it. The only people benefiting from it are him and the people around him. I think we could have a civil war. If things keep going as they are, it could happen.
Brass band
Heroic Ecological Brigades of Liberatador
BYRNE: Meanwhile, outside City Hall, the revolution continues. These are the Heroic Ecological Brigades of Liberatador. They are informed of progress at the latest international solidarity meeting. A very beautiful event, says the Mayor. Bolivar presides. In Venezuela, it's politics as usual.
VENEZUELA REVOLUTION Reporter: Jennifer Byrne
Camera: Geoffrey Lye
Sound: Kate Graham
Editor: Garth Thomas
Producer: Vivien Altman