Hugo! by Bart Jones

neighboring Argentina in 1976,
General Jorge Videla overthrew the government of María Estela, the
widow of Juan Perón. Videla imposed a junta that disappeared at least
thirty thousand people. Soldiers drugged some victims, put them on
military airplanes, and threw them from the air into the open sea.
    At the time of the coup againstAllende, Chávez was training in
the mountains. He was horrified. Listening to the radio, he heard Fidel
Castro come on and denounce the putsch. One comment stuck with
him. "We recorded a phrase forever," Chávez recalled. " 'If every worker,
if every laborer, had had a rifle in his hands, the fascist coup in Chile
would not have happened.' Those words marked us so much, they
became a saying, a type of password that only we knew." After that,
when he and some secret allies in the military met, one often would
say, "If every worker, if every laborer . . ." The other would finish the
phrase.
    The military uprisings throughout Latin America in the late 1960s
and early 1970s provided Chávez with a clear distinction between military
men who launched rebellions to liberate their people and those who
launched coups to oppress them. "We military men had the example
of Pinochet, which of course we did not share," Chávez later stated.
"He represented the military men who kill people, who destroy, who
decapitate, while those Peruvian military men spoke differently, spoke
of the people. Even though in the end that experience failed, unfortunately,
perhaps for lack of strategic clarity, at least they spoke and acted
differently."
    Asgraduation day at the military academy approached in July 1975,
Chávez was not thinking about launching a coup in Venezuela. He was
simply restless about what he saw around him — a land rich in oil with
millions of poor people and a corrupt political class in charge. His mind
was filled with the thoughts of Bolívar and other revolutionaries. His
soul was filled with increasing anger at the elites and sympathy for the
underclass. In the academy he was instructed to combat the guerrillas,
but now he was wondering if they were the real enemy.
    "We studiedantiguerrilla tactics, but I was alreadyquestioning
everything," he recalled:
    I think that from the time I left the academy I was oriented toward
a revolutionary movement . . . The Hugo Chávez who entered
there was a kid from the hills, a llanero with aspirations of playing
professional baseball. Four years later, a second-lieutenant came
out who had taken the revolutionary path. Someone who didn't
have obligations to anyone, who didn't belong to any movement,
who was not enrolled in any party, but who knew very well where
I was headed.

4
Testing the Waters
    Hugo Chávez thought he was lucky when he got his first assignment out
of themilitary academy. In July 1975 he had graduated seventh out of a
class of sixty-seven who made it through the rigorous program. Most of
the original class of 375 didn't survive. Now Chávez was going back to
his home state of Barinas. He was named a communications officer at
one of thirteen counterinsurgency units the military established in the
early 1960s — "the violent decade"as it is known in Venezuela. By the
time Chávez arrived in 1975, hardly any guerrillas were left to fight. He
would have plenty of time to dedicate to other endeavors.
    With his first paycheck he splurged and rented a room in a hotel
near the Plaza Venezuela in Barinas. Then he bought a refrigerator, a
new bed, some furniture, a fan, and a big radio for Rosa Inés. When he
showed up at her house, she was thrilled by the gifts, if not by his new
life as a soldier.
    While he was pleased to be home, Chávez was not greeted with
open arms by everyone. He was the first graduate of the Andrés
Bello Plan at the military academy assigned to the Manuel Cedeno
HuntersBattalion in Barinas. Some old-guard officers did not take
kindly to the "college boy" Chávez. He clashed with one captain
who refused to call him lieutenant.