They participated in the coup against Hugo Chávez 20 years ago: today they say that they would not do again and what they would repeat from that date

On April 11, 2002 Hugo Rafael Chavez Frías was removed from power. If you quit or if you were forced to resign, it's still part of the story to tell. Whether it was the order of the then President to activate Plan Avila or prior planning by the military and civilians to remove it from power, what caused the 11A coup or power vacuum, it is a snippet on which there is no consensus. The truth is that Thursday the 11th triggered a series of events that in a few hours concentrates, until the early hours of April 14, that Chavez lost power, Carmona took him and Chávez returned to the presidential chair. Two rear admirals, key figures of that date, tell what they were wrong about and what they would repeat.

Since that 11A, Venezuela has entered a profound political instability that has been aggravated by the very serious economic crisis, destruction of educational institutions and hospitals, brutal weakening of the currency, occupation of territory by irregular groups, loss of sovereignty with the presence and interference of Russians, Chinese, Iranians, among others.

Daniel Lino José Comisso Urdaneta is a Rear Admiral, graduated from the Venezuelan Naval School in rank 16 of the class “Admiral José Prudencio Padilla” 1975, who on May 20, 2002, when questioned by the Special Political Commission that investigated the events of April 11-14, 2002, said: “In none of the regulations or any other norm of the Constitution establishes as a method or system for achieving the objectives set out, any revolutionary process, much less carrying out any revolution, nor does it establish the formation of any revolutionary state, much less a revolutionary government or for revolution”.

At that session, held in the Federal Legislative Palace, after quoting several articles of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, adopted in 1999, he emphasized: “There is no order that can link or establish an Armed Forces of or for the Revolution, or in the service of any revolutionary project, nor the service of any revolutionary government, let alone compromise the weapons of the Republic in the defense of any revolutionary process or project, since any of these actions would be outright unconstitutional and illegal”.

In conversation with Infobae, Comisso says that “taking into account what we have been able to know, in 20 years, it is not easy to respond concretely and so suddenly”. He assures that, if he were to face these events again, “he would not trust more than he should in several of the politicians and military, who, being in the pre-11 A coordination, betrayed the whole process.”

He adds that he refers to “those who supported the action, but when Shark 1 (Hugo Chávez) resigned, they began to betray the process because, in reality, they never thought that would happen and they also never agreed with Fedecámaras and the CTV (Confederation of Workers of Venezuela) taking the lead role, overshadowing the parties politicians and their leaders. Likewise, I would have been more careful not to allow the Carmona-Ortega binomial to break, which ultimately, in my opinion, weakened what had been or was about to be achieved”.

Comisso is convinced that he would repeat “all the coordination that I did with the few admiral officers and fewer captains of the ship, to ensure that, above all, the Marine Corps and the Naval Police did not comply with the execution of the Avila Plan, which they were ordered to do”.

When asked whether he even imagined, 20 years ago, that the reality of the country would be the one that Venezuela is experiencing today, he says: “I must confess that I do. Always: since 4F, since before the 1998 elections, during my performance in Plan República in Puerto Cabello (Carabobo state), in the Irrito Shark Oath1 (Hugo Chávez), on his first orders to garrison commanders against governors who did not bend to the process, as well as in the orders of shark 1 totally favorable to the actions of both the Colombian guerrillas, as well as the Cuban, Chinese and Russian penetration”.

“I was always certain that Venezuela had fallen into the hands of what we could call true 'antihomeland', without scruples or limits in terms of compliance with constitutional order and respect for institutions, which would lead to total disaster,” says Rear Admiral Comisso Urdaneta.

The curfew

Rear Admiral Carlos Molina Tamayo, who served as head of the Military House during the brief administration of Dr. Pedro Carmona Estanga, tells Infobae that, 20 years after what happened in 2002, he has no regrets. “Even since I appeared asking Chavez to resign on February 18, and then they unfairly removed my uniform, I went on to fight on the side of civil society. All the work we did to get to the March of April 11 (11A) was a job, without a hidden agenda, for Venezuelan democracy; but I do regret not having done other things.”

Among them, he describes that they should have been “stricter to Chávez's resignation, in the sense of making a general curfew throughout Venezuela”, is one of the measures he considers should have been taken. “Coordinate more with the judiciary to leave Chavez detained by civilian courts and not by military courts or in custody in the Military Police.”

Although he doesn't call it a mistake, the Rear Admiral, 20 years after that event, says that today he would not allow “so many people to enter Miraflores until Dr. Carmona's transitional government was consolidated.”

There would be little confidence “in the fact that the dictator Chavez had signed the resignation and Lucas Rincón (Inspector General of the Armed Forces) had said that he resigned; all that in the end was useless, until now, because when we return to democracy all those people have to play it and they will be searched in whatever corner of the planet they are, especially Lucas Rincón and all the henchmen who helped Chávez return after he had resigned.”

“Anyway, I don't regret what I did, because I did it for Venezuelan democracy and civil society, but if there was yes, I would have done more. Probably because of the links with democracy, which we have since we grew up, we don't think of acting in a harsher way, so to speak, as a general curfew.”

Molina Tamayo assures that “I would repeat exactly, with the same precision, my pronouncement against the Hugo Chávez regime for the time being, as well as my struggle for civil society and meetings with different groups, both politicians and sectors of civil society, that we carried out in order to carry out what culminated in the march of April 11th”.

He emphasizes that he was in charge of the massive march of that 11A, “where there was only civil society. There was no politician or any other military man in front of the march; I was just leading the march and taking precautions in case of any danger we encountered. There are people who have thanked me for leading them in this march and taking precautions, but, with that and all, I am very sorry for the 19 deaths of civil society and the several injuries caused by the savage and crimes against humanity of the Hugo Chávez regime.”

“I would also repeat the sacrifice of my career for Venezuelan democracy. On 18/02/2002, when I applied for the resignation of Hugo Chavez, I had been appointed Venezuelan ambassador to Greece, a very comfortable and of course very pleasant post. It was a sacrifice that cost me and it has also cost me exile, the persecution of all the family and friends who have been with me all these years.”

He adds that this has not stopped, that even “the regime's aggression against me, my family and my friends, continues to occur until now”, but he insists that he would repeat the same struggle for Venezuelan democracy. He is convinced that “one day I will be able to return to Venezuela, tell my children and grandchildren that the struggle for Venezuelan democracy paid off”.

“Nobody, no one would imagine that Venezuela would reach the state in which it arrived today,” and he says that, if they asked the world's brightest mathematicians to make the mathematical model of how to destroy Venezuela, as has been done in these 20 years, those mathematicians would fail. “What is happening in Venezuela is beyond science. How could such a rich country with such noble civil society have reached the levels of destruction that we have now; a country without war with 6 million Venezuelans abroad, of which there are many talents who will not return to Venezuela”.

“It was unimaginable what Chávez and Maduro did in the destruction of Venezuela, its democracy and its civil society, because we are even below Cuba in many social factors,” Rear Admiral Molina Tamayo concludes.

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