Venezuela’s Military Stays Above the Fray

Gen. Raul Baduel is a picture of calm.

The commander of Venezuela’s most powerful military force sits behind a large dark wood desk surrounded by Virgin Mary statues and Buddhist prayer strips. The smell of patchouli fills the air. Gregorian chant music floats ethereally.

Today’s military, he said at a base here, is different from the one that launched a coup against President Hugo Chavez eight months ago.

“What prevails now is a strict attachment to the constitution and the law,” said Baduel, the army commander responsible for returning Chavez to power two days after he was ousted April 11. “Our democracy has been strengthened.”

After 19 days of a nationwide strike that has hobbled oil production and curtailed food and gas supplies -- and that sent hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets Friday -- there are no indications that the Venezuelan military is ready to rise up again and overthrow the president.

Instead, Chavez has managed to consolidate power over the nation’s armed forces, ensuring his grip on power in a region where the military is often the ultimate authority.

The military has largely stayed out of the protest, except for the national guard, which has broken up demonstrations with tear gas and has sent troops to guard gas stations and oil production facilities.

Since the strike began, only five military officers have left their posts to join more than 120 others who are waging a protest at a tony plaza in an upscale eastern section of the capital, Caracas.

Both the defense minister and the commander of the armed forces have broadcast statements nationwide declaring that the armed forces support a peaceful solution to the country’s political crisis.

The armed forces’ commander, army Gen. Julio Garcia, went a step further, condemning striking oil workers from the state petroleum company, Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA.

“There are now in operation acts against the constitution, democracy and the order of the state,” he said earlier this week. “Acts that, in the specific case of PDVSA, constitute sabotage against the principal source of Venezuelan wealth.”

That is not to say that there aren’t still some segments of Venezuela’s opposition pushing the military to rise up against Chavez. The opposition, which includes businesses, unions and rival politicians, has maintained that it seeks a constitutional solution through Chavez’s resignation and new presidential elections early next year.

Baduel, who commands nearly a fifth of Venezuela’s 45,000-member army, the largest and most powerful branch of the country’s armed forces, said he has received dozens of phone calls since the strike began.

He said even members of the opposition Democratic Coordinating Committee, a sprawling group of politicians and nonprofits that has declared itself in search of an electoral solution to the crisis, have tried to make contact with him.

He declined to provide names, but he said some callers have made it clear that they want him to help boot Chavez from office.

“I have received calls, even propositions from a very high level, propositions of an economic nature that reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, seeking, to put it elegantly, that I influence the president so that the president understands that he has to resolve this situation with his resignation,” Baduel told several visiting U.S. reporters in an interview.

Baduel acknowledged that there are some in the military who continue to wish for Chavez’s downfall. But he downplayed their importance.

“I can’t deny that there could be individuals that still have adverse positions and tendencies apart from their constitutional duties,” he said. “But that’s what it is. It’s individuals.”

The military’s strong backing has allowed Chavez some peace of mind as he confronts the latest challenge to his rule.

The combative leader said in an interview with reporters this week that he has no “big worries” about the military but that he tries to maintain constant contact throughout the ranks to counter what he considers a media campaign against him.

“I have to keep sending messages to clear things up,” he said.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who led a failed coup himself in 1992, has spent his time since April placing his supporters in key positions throughout the armed forces, using officers’ behavior during the overthrow as a test of loyalty to decide whom to expel and whom to promote.

Baduel, a close Chavez friend for nearly three decades, is a perfect example.

A fan of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” who dabbles in Taoist philosophy, he is committed to Chavez’s vision of a leftist revolution designed to help the 80% of this nation’s 24 million people who live in poverty. He even leads a committee made up of local government officials to improve public health, build infrastructure and provide training to those who want to start small businesses.

In April, Baduel was commander of the 42nd Army Paratrooper Brigade, the unit from which Chavez launched his 1992 coup attempt, based here in Maracay, a temperate city in a valley southwest of Caracas.

When top generals announced Chavez’s overthrow, Baduel rose up against the interim government and sent three helicopters to rescue the president from military custody on an island off Venezuela’s coast. Rather than fight, the government collapsed, and Chavez returned to power 48 hours after the coup began.

In the ensuing months, Chavez promoted many of the high-ranking officers who joined the ad hoc command staff that Baduel created to lead loyal forces during the coup. Baduel became a general commanding the army’s 4th Armored Division.

Chavez’s attempt to strengthen his grip on the armed forces has also benefited from a sort of self-purging.

Some of the more than 120 officers in Plaza Altamira took part in the April coup. They have announced themselves in rebellion against Chavez and have declared the square in eastern Caracas “liberated territory.”

Even one of Baduel’s cousins, an army colonel, has joined the group of dissident military officers, some of whom have been dismissed from service.

Today, the square is a hotbed of protest activity. People camp in tents scattered around the plaza, which has grown fragrant after two months of protests without consistent garbage service. There is a stage with an enormous digital clock that counts the hours of occupation.

Some officers sleep in a basement beneath the square. Others sleep in some of the private condos that surround the plaza.

They have vowed to resist any attempt by Chavez supporters -- known as Bolivarian Circles -- to clear the square, although they have said they would not resist a military takeover.

The group is also armed. When a gunman shot three protesters in the square Dec. 6, several dissident officers ran around in the aftermath with their service-issued pistols in hand.

The officers have said they want a peaceful solution to the crisis. But they also say the military must rise up if Chavez drives the country into chaos.

“The armed forces must say, ‘President, if you plan to use us to go against the majority of Venezuelans to reestablish order, we will not recognize you,’ ” said national guard Gen. Carlos Martinez, the second officer to turn against Chavez during the coup in April. “I would like [the armed forces] to be preventive to stop the loss of innocent lives.”