Title: Objetivo: Miraflores. Retratos de un país herido
Photographer(s): Various photographers
Writer(s): Nathalie Alvaray
Designer(s): Carmen V. Riera
Publisher(s): Cadena Capriles, Caracas, Venezuela
Year: 2002
Print run:
Language(s): Spanish
Pages: 95
Size: 21 x 28 cm
Binding: Softcover
Edition:
Print: Grabados Nacionales, Caracas, Venezuela
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Venezuela, 2002
ISBN:
The report covers the events that shook the streets and barracks of Caracas and other cities between 11 and 14 April 2002,
On 11 April, Pedro Francisco Carmona Estanga proclaimed himself head of state in a coup d'état ("El Carmonazo") staged by the parliamentary right and a handful of generals who wanted to remove President-elect Hugo Chávez from office. Live nationally on unified networks, General Lucas Rincón announced that President Chavez had been taken from the presidential palace in Miraflores during the night and taken to a safe place. Over the next two long days the police killed over two hundred Chavista demonstrators. What no one could - nor wanted to - imagine was that the same evening the whole country rose up against the coup. Against Carmona and the industrialists, against the complicit or imposed silence of the media, against the United States, six million Venezuelans took to the streets. They defy the police bullets, they want to see Chavez. Above all, they want to know what is happening to their country and their Revolution. The next day, 13 April, encouraged by the example of the civilians, some loyalist sectors of the army and the National Guard take the initiative. Chavez (who in the meantime had come under increasing pressure to resign and leave the country) was freed from his prison and taken back to Miraflores; the next day he took up his post again. In just three days, the coup collapsed upon itself.