Pod Insights Throughline El Libertador (Venezuela update) About this episode On January 3rd, the U. S. military apprehended Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the U. S. for trial to face federal drug trafficking and weapons charges. Today, we’re bringing you an episode from our archive: the story of two leaders in Venezuela, separated by nearly two centuries, who shaped the country into what it is today. This episode originally ran in 2019 https://www.npr.org/2019/05/14/723260665/el-libertador and has been updated.
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Transcript 8,089 words · 17 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This message comes from iXL, a learning platform for helping kids build confidence and get up to speed fast. One subscription covers math, science, and reading for all children in a household. Receive 20% off at ixl.com/NPR.
0:20 Speaker 01 En cuanto la heroica y desdichada Venezuela, sus acontecimientos han sido tan rápidos y sus devastaciones tales. With respect to heroic and helpless Venezuela, events there have moved so rapidly and the devastation has been such that it is reduced to frightful desolation and almost absolute indigence. Nevertheless, it was once among the fairest regions that are the pride of America.
0:47 Speaker 02 Simon Bolivar, September 6, 1815.
0:56 Speaker 03 Hey, everyone. It's Ramtin.
0:58 Rund Abdelfatah? Anne Rund. On January 3, the US military seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after a series of strikes on Venezuela's capital that killed at least 80 people. The military brought Maduro to the US for trial on federal drug trafficking and weapons charges.
1:16 Speaker 03 To understand what's happening in Venezuela and the US government's latest escalation, we're bringing you an episode from our archive, the story of two leaders in Venezuela, separated by nearly two centuries, who shaped the country into what it is today.
1:37 Rund Abdelfatah? When this episode was first released back in 2019, Venezuela was facing an economic and humanitarian crisis. That remains true today. And it's gotten so bad, nearly 8 million people have fled Venezuela in recent years to escape extreme poverty. The Justice Department's case alleges that while Venezuela's economy collapsed, Maduro used his power to run a narco-terrorism operation that made him rich. Maduro pleaded not guilty to these charges.
2:09 Speaker 03 The thing is, Venezuela was once the richest country in South America. So the question becomes now, how did such a once prosperous nation end up here?
2:20 Rund Abdelfatah? When we looked into this, it quickly became clear that Venezuela's problems began way before Nicolas Maduro. It goes back to Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez.
2:31 Speaker 05 What happened with Maduro cannot be isolated from what happens under Hugo Chavez.
2:37 Speaker 06 Populist politics, socialism, and his own personality cult with blowtorch rhetoric.
2:43 Speaker 07 He may be gone, but Hugo Chavez is far from forgotten.
2:46 Speaker 03 Chavez created the regime that Maduro has struggled to control since he assumed the presidency in 2013. So to understand Maduro, you have to understand Chavez. But you can always go deeper, right? Like, what motivated Chavez? Well, the answer to that question takes us back to when Venezuela was created, and a man named Simon Bolivar, or, as he's become known across South America, El Libertador.
3:15 Rund Abdelfatah? Their stories, Chavez and Bolivar, and the rise and fall of the Venezuela they ruled over, are strikingly similar and offer a window into the soul of a country that's been in a revolutionary cycle for centuries now.
3:31 Speaker 03 So today, we present a split screen of sorts and travel back and forth through time between Bolivar's almost mythical story and Chavez's use of that powerful story to make his own.
3:56 Speaker 08 Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.
4:01 Speaker 00 This message comes from iXL, a learning platform for helping kids build confidence and get up to speed fast. One subscription covers math, science, and reading for all children in a household. Receive 20% off at ixl.com/npr.
4:17 Speaker 08 This message comes from Live Right, publisher of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, "The Gales of November: A Chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 Shipwreck." "Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book," writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims it's destined to be a classic. "The Gales of November," now in paperback.
4:42 Speaker 00 This message comes from Jerry. Many people are overpaying on car insurance. Why? Switching providers can be a pain. Jerry helps make the process painless. Jerry is the only app that compares rates from over 50 insurers in minutes and helps you switch fast with no spam calls or hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Before you renew your car insurance policy, download the Jerry app or head to jerry.ai/npr.
5:16 Rund Abdelfatah? Part One: Rise of the Phoenix.
5:21 Speaker 02 Some believe that on his deathbed in 1830, Simon Bolivar's final words were,
5:28 Speaker 01 "Damn it. How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?"
5:35 Rund Abdelfatah? In the early hours of July 16, 2010, at the northern edge of the old town of Caracas, Venezuela's capital, Hugo Chavez set out to free Bolivar from what Chavez had in the past called lies.
5:53 Speaker 09 They tell us that Bolivar left government because he was sick with tuberculosis. Lies, lies, a thousand lies.
6:00 Rund Abdelfatah? Chavez suspected foul play and wanted to check for himself whether Bolivar actually died from tuberculosis or something more sinister, like poison. So he decided to exhume the body of Bolivar.
6:14 Speaker 10 And there's a whole lot of theater built around this moment.
6:17 Rund Abdelfatah? Journalist Rory Carroll was there to witness it.
6:20 Speaker 10 I was the Guardian's Latin America correspondent from 2006 until 2012, based in Caracas, Venezuela.
6:30 Speaker 05 And all this being recorded live.
6:32 Rund Abdelfatah? On national television.
6:38 Speaker 05 People were glued to the TV because this had been built up as the moment when the Bolivarian Revolution reconnects with its namesake beyond symbolism. That this is where the two bodies, the political body and the actual body of the revolutionary leader here and the revolutionary leader then are going to connect.
7:05 Rund Abdelfatah? This is Alejandro Velasco. He grew up in Venezuela and is now
7:09 Speaker 05 An associate professor of history at New York University.
7:11 Rund Abdelfatah? So with the country looking on, the entourage of politicians, soldiers, and scientists arrives at the National Pantheon. Decked out in white lab coats, hairnets, and ventilation masks, they enter a room with a casket in the middle.
7:27 Rund Abdelfatah? A handful of them then step towards the casket and lift up the lid. A Venezuelan flag covers the remains. After neatly folding up the flag, they remove the final layer. And there it is, a skeleton, the skeleton, of Simon Bolivar.
7:48 Speaker 05 Chavez looks into the camera and you could tell that there's a physical reaction of goosebumps, call it, something happening there. And he's giving the live commentary as the workers are digging up the crypt. And then his voice goes into this weird kind of like hush, and aquí estamos, con Bolivar, el espíritu de Bolivar. Feeling the spirit of Bolivar sort of creeping into him. He was hamming it up so much. I mean, it was funny, but it was surreal. It was creepy. The coming of the liberator back into a certain kind of life. Forget the Truman Show, this was the Hugo Chavez Show.
8:39 Speaker 05 But as a Venezuelan, as somebody who grew up in Venezuela and, you know, had Bolivar's stories, field trips to Bolivar's childhood home, going to the sites of Bolivar's battles in Venezuela, I couldn't help but be also moved by that moment.
8:58 Rund Abdelfatah? Sure, it was really good political theater, but scientifically, it was inconclusive. After the cameras were turned off, they packed Bolivar back up, and Chavez excitedly tweeted, yes, tweeted to the world, "My God, my God, I confess, we have cried, we have sworn. This glorious skeleton must be Bolivar, because you can feel his ardor. Rise up, Simon, as it's not time to die." Immediately, I remembered that Bolivar lives.
9:49 Speaker 02 It's 1803, and a young Simon Bolivar stands at his wife's deathbed, looking at her for the last time, the love of his life, Maria Teresa. What happens that day in 1803 would change Bolivar's life in South America forever. But first, let's go back to the beginning, to where his story started.
10:17 Speaker 02 Bolivar grew up in Caracas, in a really wealthy family.
10:20 Speaker 11 One of the richest families in Latin America. It owned tobacco fields, it owned indigo fields.
10:27 Speaker 02 And they also owned slaves. Despite that massive wealth, Bolivar's early years weren't all that easy.
10:33 Speaker 11 His father died when he was very young.
10:37 Speaker 02 His mother died not long after that, so by age nine...
10:41 Speaker 11 He was an orphan.
10:43 Speaker 02 This is Marie Arana. She's written a bunch of books on Latin America, including the biography Bolivar: American Liberator. So Bolivar, now orphaned, was passed around from relative to relative.
10:56 Speaker 11 He was naughty. He didn't like the company of the aristocrats. He'd rather play in the fields with the slaves, and he did. He was basically rootless, really, until one of his uncles said, "Well, OK, let's send you to Madrid so you can get some manners."
11:12 Speaker 02 He goes to Madrid, and it's there that he meets his future wife, Maria Teresa. Like Bolivar,
11:18 Speaker 05 she also came from an aristocratic family. And in the way that these things happened at the time, it wasn't so much that it was prearranged, but that they were part of Creole elite.
11:28 Speaker 02 Creole is a term for people of mixed European and Afro-Caribbean descent. Both Bolivar and Maria Teresa were from the upper class, so they rolled in the same social circles.
11:38 Speaker 05 And they sprung a romance that, by all accounts, was very genuine.
11:43 Speaker 11 They got married.
11:44 Speaker 02 Returned to Venezuela, settled into a life on Bolivar's family plantation, and began the rest of their life together. All in all, they were happy. But less than a year after their wedding,
11:56 Speaker 05 she became ill. Can't remember exactly what.
12:00 Speaker 02 With yellow fever.
12:01 Speaker 05 That's right, yellow fever. But it struck her very rapidly, and so she died very quickly after.
12:08 Speaker 02 Bolivar was left devastated.
12:10 Speaker 05 Oh, absolutely, yeah. He was destroyed.
12:12 Speaker 02 Some historians believe if Maria Teresa had not died, Bolivar might never have gotten involved in the fight for independence. Bolivar himself said,
12:20 Speaker 11 He said, you know, if she hadn't died, he would have been a very successful landowner. He would have, you know, potted around his properties and, you know, had children and had a very, very much the same sort of life that his father and his grandparents and his great-grandparents had had.
12:36 Speaker 02 A relatively quiet life in the country. But having just lost his wife, Bolivar began to search for a new purpose in life.
12:45 Speaker 02 So fast forward a few years. Bolivar is now in Paris, still depressed over the loss of his wife, still searching for a clear path forward, drinking a lot, womanizing. And while there, he witnessed a rebellious fervor taking over France. This was the era of the French Revolution, of Napoleon, of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Meanwhile, the fight for independence was ramping up in Venezuela. At that time, Venezuela and most of South America was still a colony of the Spanish Empire.
13:17 Speaker 05 The coincidence of history and personal tragedy and larger history is significant because this was also right around the time that Francisco de Miranda, who was the principal architect of a vision of liberation for Venezuela, was trying desperately to rile up the criollo elite to declare independence.
13:37 Speaker 02 And keep in mind, Bolivar was from one of the most elite families in Venezuela. Eventually, he decides to team up with Francisco de Miranda. But initially, Bolivar is not all that central to this movement.
13:50 Speaker 05 His initial role was primarily as the scion of a criollo elite family, very much on the sidelines.
13:59 Speaker 02 Basically, he has money, and his presence is good PR for the movement. In 1810, Bolivar's status suddenly changes. He and Miranda stage an uprising against the Spanish, and catching the Spanish off-guard take Caracas. Venezuela formally declares independence in 1811. But then, in 1812, a massive earthquake hits Venezuela, and Spanish priests convince a superstitious population that the earthquake was divine retribution. So the Spanish are able to rally their troops, recapture important ports, and take back control of the country. Amid all this chaos, something unexpected happens.
14:42 Speaker 02 Bolivar, along with a few rebel generals, figure out that Miranda has been trying to broker a deal with the Spanish to end the war, effectively undermining the revolution. Disgusted by this betrayal, Bolivar decides that they should hand Miranda over to the Spanish. And in exchange, the Spanish agreed to let Bolivar go. But he's banished from Venezuela and sent into exile. The revolution has been shut down for the moment. But by singling him out, the Spanish helped manufacture a new image of Bolivar as the natural replacement for Miranda.
15:18 Speaker 11 Here's this tiny man. He weighed all of 120 pounds. He had no chest to speak of. He was spindly.
15:26 Speaker 02 In a sort of accident of history, this guy is now the face of the revolution. But it turns out, Bolivar actually had the traits of a serious leader.
15:36 Speaker 11 He would walk into a room and larger, taller people would be dwarfed, really, by his presence because he was so dynamic, friendly, the sort of warm personality that inspired people.
15:50 Speaker 02 After this first failed revolution, Bolivar is no longer on the sidelines. He's now at the center of the movement. And there, his desire for change will only intensify.
16:12 Speaker 12 February 4, 1992, and normal programming on Venezuelan TV was interrupted by this unfolding story.
16:21 Rund Abdelfatah? It's 1992.
16:23 Speaker 05 A press conference is announced very hastily.
16:25 Rund Abdelfatah? TV crews with microphones get in position. And then?
16:28 Speaker 05 Out comes the president.
16:30 Rund Abdelfatah? Carlos Andres Perez, followed by the Minister of Defense.
16:33 Speaker 05 And then this man, who none of us knew. And the president said, this is Lieutenant Colonel Chavez. He has some words. And then he spoke for two minutes.
16:48 Rund Abdelfatah? Two minutes. Actually, a little less than two minutes. Point is, not a long time. Before I tell you what Chavez said in that speech, let me first explain how he ended up there in roughly two minutes.
17:03 Rund Abdelfatah? So Chavez was born in 1954 in a part of Venezuela called Los Yanos.
17:08 Speaker 10 The equivalent of the US Wild West of these big rolling plains.
17:13 Rund Abdelfatah? One of six kids.
17:14 Speaker 05 They were very, very poor.
17:15 Rund Abdelfatah? Raised mostly by his grandmother, he was mestizo, mixed race, with African and indigenous roots. And by all accounts, a happy outgoing kid with a wild imagination.
17:25 Speaker 10 And by being the legends of headless horsemen, of love stories, of the cowboys, of the plains.
17:32 Rund Abdelfatah? He had dreams of becoming a professional baseball player until reality set in. In his early 20s, Chavez joined the Venezuelan army, one of the fastest ways to move up the social ladder. While there.
17:44 Speaker 13 He got inspired by some leftist Latin American generals who took a more reform approach to their societies in contrast with the right-wing military dictatorships in much of Latin America.
18:03 Rund Abdelfatah? Above all, he was inspired by one guy, Simon Bolivar.
18:07 Speaker 13 I'll talk about that. We want to wait a minute because there's a police siren going by.
18:10 Rund Abdelfatah? By the way, this is Jennifer McCoy. She's a professor of political science at Georgia State University.
18:15 Speaker 13 OK, I'm back. Simon Bolivar is.
18:19 Rund Abdelfatah? Simon Bolivar is a hero to Chavez, someone he saw as a real trailblazer, a champion for the people, who uprooted the political order. For most of the 20th century, which was the backdrop for Chavez's life, the political order of Venezuela was based around one thing: oil.
18:37 Speaker 10 Oil is everything, was and remains in Venezuela is everything because its economy almost hinges entirely on oil.
18:44 Rund Abdelfatah? In the 1920s, Venezuela became a major oil producer. The economy boomed, and eventually, the oil industry was nationalized. Venezuela seemed to be a beacon of stability and prosperity.
18:56 Speaker 05 In a region otherwise ravaged by civil wars and dictatorships.
19:00 Rund Abdelfatah? Through the 50s, 60s, 70s, problem was, most of that wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few at the top. And in the 1980s, oil prices began to drop and the economy began to decline. The gap between rich and poor got bigger, and corruption in the government was rampant. That's when Chavez began to think seriously about staging his own uprising. So he got a bunch of his friends in the military together and formed a group called the Revolutionary Bolivarian Army, determined to lift up the poor by spreading the oil wealth around and championing a sort of deeper democracy. For a few years, they plotted, planned, and by 1992, the pieces were set.
19:44 Rund Abdelfatah? They were going to overthrow the president of Venezuela.
19:49 Speaker 12 An attempted coup was taking place on the streets of Caracas.
19:53 Rund Abdelfatah? Here's how it went down. On the morning of February 4, five military units were dispersed across the country, their mission to take over key government posts: the Defense Ministry, the military airport, the military museum, the presidential palace, and the national TV station, where they planned to broadcast a video
20:13 Speaker 05 on the part of Chavez and other of the leaders of this movement, calling on the population to rise up. I remember, you know, my mother turning on the television.
20:24 Speaker 12 The men in the red berets are rebel paratroopers.
20:28 Speaker 05 And it was those things that you kind of see in movies, like a grainy video of people, you know, in fatigues, speaking about the conditions of significant inequality that existed and that something has to change.
20:42 Rund Abdelfatah? Some of the military units quickly took control of a few large cities in Venezuela. But the unit led by Chavez, the one that was supposed to take over the presidential palace in Caracas and arrest the president?
20:53 Speaker 05 That coup was a military fiasco. He failed. And eventually, they surrendered.
21:01 Rund Abdelfatah? OK, bizarre twist here. So Chavez, who failed in his mission, is then chosen by the president to make a speech on national television, mainly because he was the rebel leader who happened to be at the presidential palace. Right place, right time.
21:16 Speaker 05 He is one of at least six or seven other people who could have taken up that role of prominent leadership. And it falls on Chavez because he is given airtime to tell all the other troops, who had actually been successful in their own tactical missions, to lay down their weapons.
21:37 Rund Abdelfatah? This was supposed to be his punishment, to go on TV and wave a white flag, admit defeat, for two minutes.
21:49 Speaker 05 I take responsibility for the failure of this project.
21:56 Speaker 05 And then he also said this is a Bolivarian movement.
21:59 Speaker 13 We were fighting for democracy. We haven't achieved it right now, but it's just over.
22:05 Speaker 05 Por ahora.
22:06 Speaker 13 Por ahora, for the moment.
22:09 Speaker 05 Which created the expectation that this was not the end, this was the beginning.
22:18 Speaker 14 When this outsider emerged, first trying to stage a coup, which failed, but then publicly recognizing that that failure was his own and accepting responsibility, that was something new for most Venezuelans.
22:35 Rund Abdelfatah? This is Raúl Gallegos. He was a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in Caracas from 2004 to 2009.
22:41 Speaker 14 So he became a star.
22:43 Speaker 13 That was his 30 seconds of fame. That's when he burst onto the world stage.
22:48 Speaker 05 And that was all that it took to completely alter the narrative of Venezuelan history.
22:56 Rund Abdelfatah? After giving the speech, Javas was escorted to jail, which only added to his newfound stardom.
23:02 Speaker 05 And so in failure, he nevertheless became the leader because of this circumstance.
23:10 Rund Abdelfatah? Another accident of history.
23:12 Speaker 05 If somebody else had been, you know, given that airtime, maybe they would have been the ones to lead this movement. And to a large extent, that had also happened with Bolivian, right? In both cases, it was out of failure and circumstance that propelled their image as something larger. And then they kind of rode that image into bigger and better things.
23:34 Rund Abdelfatah? Well, not always better, but without a doubt, much bigger things were just around the corner for both of them.
24:01 Speaker 00 Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from iXL, a learning platform for helping kids build confidence and get up to speed fast. One subscription covers math, science, and reading for all children in a household. Receive 20% off at ixl.com/NPR.
24:21 Speaker 08 This message comes from Live Right, publisher of John U. Bacon's New York Times bestseller, The Gales of November, a chronicle of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald's 1975 shipwreck. "Never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful book," writes John J. Miller of The Wall Street Journal, while author Hampton Sides proclaims it's destined to be a classic. The Gales of November, now in paperback.
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25:20 Rund Abdelfatah? Part Two: The Iron Hand.
25:23 Speaker 02 So last we heard of Bolivar. He'd just been sent into exile after a failed attempt at Venezuelan independence. And it was during that time that Bolivar's revolutionary vision really took shape.
25:35 Speaker 05 Most people at the time, you know, they never got beyond like 50 miles or radius, and he just traveled everywhere, certainly by necessity, but also, you know, by choice.
25:46 Speaker 02 Bolivar spent a lot of time outside of Venezuela, organizing new rebellions, failing, and reflecting on what went wrong in that first rebellion, the one that came so close to succeeding. Those reflections led Bolivar to devise a whole new approach. First, if he wanted to build up an army, all types of people needed to be brought into the revolutionary fold, not just as Miranda had thought, the elite, the criollos.
26:12 Speaker 05 Criollos aren't going to be the ones who are charging into battle. People who are going to be charging into battle are mestizos, mixed-race peoples who can imagine themselves in a better place in an independent system. It's slaves for whom he subsequently promises liberty.
26:31 Speaker 02 Second, Bolivar decided that he would have to wage a different kind of war to stand a chance against the powerful Spanish army.
26:39 Speaker 11 He was one of the original guerrilla fighters because he was all about surprise and all about numbers. So even though you were naked in a loincloth with nothing but a stick, if you had enough of those people, you could run over a battalion of Spanish with better armor.
26:59 Speaker 02 And third, Bolivar rethought his mission altogether.
27:02 Speaker 05 This can't be a struggle to liberate Venezuela. This has to be a much larger continental struggle.
27:08 Speaker 02 He imagined a South America under one flag that would be democratic and inclusive of all the diverse people that lived in it. This wasn't just an effort to take power. It was supposed to bring a different kind of government, one not just ruled by the elite. He called this new vision of a united South America
27:26 Speaker 05 Gran Colombia.
27:28 Speaker 02 Great Colombia.
27:36 Speaker 05 Which would bring together a federation of independent republics, nevertheless united as one.
27:50 Speaker 02 More and more people across South America began joining his cause. And with this army, Bolivar began challenging Spanish troops in Venezuela and neighboring Colombia. But it wouldn't be an easy path to independence.
28:03 Speaker 11 The Spanish were a force, unbelievable force, very, very violent and very organized military structure.
28:12 Speaker 02 But then, in 1819, Bolivar's army marched towards Colombia. And Bolivar knew if they followed a typical route, the Spanish would defeat them again. So instead, he decided to take a less predictable, but ridiculously dangerous route through the Andes Mountains.
28:30 Speaker 05 It's cold, it's rocky, it's mountainous. Horses don't easily pass through there. It's uncharted terrain.
28:37 Speaker 02 Hoping that the element of surprise would carry them to victory.
28:40 Speaker 11 When these armies traveled, and we need to remember this, it wasn't just soldiers. They traveled with their women because the women were cooking for the men right on the battlefield. They were bringing their children. So you would have these great, long trains and caravans of people going into war, which were like whole populations.
29:02 Speaker 02 For weeks, this caravan of soldiers, women, and children trudged through the mountains. Some people got sick, others died. But eventually, the army arrived in Boyaca, a town in central Colombia, about 90 miles from the capital, Bogota.
29:18 Speaker 05 They come upon a battalion of Spaniards who did not think that Bolivar's army, again comprised of these people, would take that route.
29:29 Speaker 02 And Bolivar's army won their first major victory.
29:33 Speaker 05 Bolivar needed a victory at that time to be able to turn the tide and to gain some momentum.
29:39 Speaker 02 And the Spanish finally began to look beatable, no longer an invincible force. And within a couple of years, Gran Colombia was declared a reality as Bolivar set his sights on liberating the rest of Spanish South America. And Bolivar became the first president of Gran Colombia.
30:17 Rund Abdelfatah? Just seven years after Chavez attempted to overthrow the president of Venezuela, he was being sworn in himself.
30:31 Rund Abdelfatah? I'm sure you're wondering how this could have happened. I mean, this is the same guy who tried to undermine democracy not that long ago by staging a coup. Well, his evolution from coup stager to candidate really began while he was in jail. During that time, Venezuela was facing some serious problems.
30:58 Speaker 05 The party system that had been held up as solid and strong had now collapsed. Then, after that, you know, you had a tremendous banking crisis. Several banks failed when that basically wiped out savings that people had had.
31:13 Speaker 13 But mainly, oil prices were dropping. The poverty rate increased from about 25% to about 65% in the course of the 1990s. So it was really a difficult decade for them.
31:30 Speaker 05 Nothing like what we're seeing today, for sure, but at the time, it was significant enough to create the sense that Venezuela can't continue in the way that it's going. And so, not that Chavez had been prophetic, right?
31:42 Rund Abdelfatah? But Chavez seemed to have predicted this economic and political turmoil in that two-minute speech he gave after the coup. And many Venezuelans remembered it, which-
31:52 Speaker 05 Yeah, allowed Chavez's aura to grow.
31:54 Rund Abdelfatah? Even while he was in jail. So much so that-
31:57 Speaker 05 That this new president that was elected in 1993, one of his first acts was to pardon Chavez. So Chavez was freed after two years in jail.
32:07 Rund Abdelfatah? But once out of jail, Chavez didn't embrace the spotlight right away.
32:11 Speaker 05 He, you know, tactically, kind of retreated from the public eye.
32:16 Rund Abdelfatah? Chavez knew that a lot of Venezuelans were still skeptical of his motives, even if they liked his ideas.
32:22 Speaker 05 Do we really trust this guy? Does he actually mean what he says? He comes from the military, after all.
32:27 Rund Abdelfatah? So Chavez decided to leave Venezuela for a while, a sort of self-imposed exile. He traveled all around Latin America-
32:35 Speaker 13 Going to other countries, meeting other leaders.
32:37 Rund Abdelfatah? This is Jennifer McCoy again.
32:38 Speaker 13 And in fact, that's when he met Fidel Castro. That began a lifelong friendship with Fidel Castro, whom he later used to consider almost like a father.
32:52 Rund Abdelfatah? While on these travels, Chavez was taking in new ideas, looking at what was happening in Venezuela.
32:58 Speaker 05 And began to kind of create a vision for what a political project would look like.
33:02 Speaker 13 He talked about a new constitution. He talked about a new form of democracy. He talked about an economy that would benefit, you know, bringing back the oil wealth.
33:14 Speaker 10 And that this would be like a great magical trick, that he would just turn the oil wealth into a better life for everybody.
33:23 Rund Abdelfatah? So for the next couple of years, Chavez campaigned on that grand vision. And he appealed especially to the lower and middle classes for support. By 1998, on the eve of the election, the country had two very different options for president. Chavez's opponent, Enrique Salas Romer.
33:42 Speaker 05 This older, you know, white man, you know, clear European descent from this elite background.
33:49 Rund Abdelfatah? Or Chavez.
33:50 Speaker 05 You know, darker, huge, working-class person who had actually, you know, had the gall to follow through on his critiques of government and gone to jail for it after taking responsibility for a failed coup. The differences could not be starker between status quo or radical change.
34:12 Speaker 13 Ugo Chavez's message just galvanized them. So they were ready for change, and he won with 56% of the vote.
34:21 Speaker 05 And that sort of began the Chavez era.
34:39 Speaker 02 After Bolivar was named president of Gran Colombia, he and his army set out fighting battle after battle across South America, losing some, but winning many. First liberating Colombia, then Venezuela. Moves down to Ecuador, liberates Ecuador. Peru was up next.
34:59 Speaker 11 And that was the end. I mean, that was the cutting of the throat of the Spanish colonies at that point.
35:06 Speaker 02 Bolivar was appointed dictator of Peru, and went on to liberate Panama, and even has a country named after him, Bolivia. So now, the Spanish were gone. South America was free from colonial rule. And Bolivar was victorious. He was looking out on a massive, diverse army of followers, with the world seemingly at his feet. And even though the continent was scarred by years of fighting, it was a hopeful moment. Gran Colombia could now be fully realized, in theory.
35:39 Speaker 11 The vision that he had going into the revolution was not the reality that he had coming out.
35:45 Speaker 05 So, yes, his moment of triumph happens, but it's very short-lived.
35:51 Speaker 11 He was all about the rights of man, liberty, number one, equality, very close thereupon. But then, when he actually got into the reality of that hierarchy that Spain had built so carefully, and had kept this little crust on top, it was a mess.
36:11 Speaker 02 It turns out, while Bolivar was busy liberating all those countries, that little crust on top, the criollo elite, the group he himself was a part of, had grown more and more angry with him, not only in Venezuela, but throughout South America, resentful of what the independence movement had become, and concerned about what their positions would be in this new order. Plus, Bolivar faced another challenge. He had brought together all these different people, former slaves, cowboys from the plains, indigenous people. And now he had to figure out how to get them all to follow the same rules.
36:46 Speaker 11 He would ride from town to town, from city to city, setting up institutions, establishing universities once the revolution was over. And what would happen is, the moment he rode away, things would fall apart. So he became more and more convinced that the only way you were going to be able to rule these unruly people was to really have a strong iron hand.
37:06 Speaker 02 Cracks were forming in Bolivar's dream of a democratic, pan-South American state. And he decided the only way to achieve his ultimate goal, to make sure things got done the way he envisioned, was to consolidate power in his own hands.
37:21 Speaker 05 Famously, Bolivar said, "If nature stands against us, we will defeat her as well." Destiny is in our hands against any force, real, imagined, or ethereal.
37:40 Rund Abdelfatah? Day one of Hugo Chavez's presidency.
37:43 Speaker 13 He had like 85% popularity. He had business owners supporting him all the way down to the poor. So it was quite widespread.
37:53 Rund Abdelfatah? Again, Jennifer McCoy.
37:55 Speaker 13 And I think that was largely because people could make what they wanted to out of his promises.
38:01 Rund Abdelfatah? With all this public support, Chavez hit the ground running. He went all in on his Bolivar fandom.
38:07 Speaker 13 He cultivated himself as a 21st century Simone Bolivar.
38:11 Rund Abdelfatah? He even renamed the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. And...
38:16 Speaker 05 He started changing the rules of the game. The most immediate one was to get rid of the old constitution.
38:22 Speaker 13 The new constitution was really a mix of progressive, human rights, and at the same time, giving more power to the president. It extended the term to six years.
38:36 Speaker 05 Eliminated the bicameral congress and created a national assembly.
38:41 Rund Abdelfatah? People didn't pay too much attention to the new constitution. But then Chavez started talking about oil.
38:48 Speaker 05 Talked about that the nation's resources would be the primary source of revenue and wealth for the nation to rebuild itself.
38:56 Rund Abdelfatah? And people did take notice. For Chavez, oil was the key to establishing Bolivar's vision for Venezuela. But the more he talked about redistributing the oil wealth and shaking up the oil industry, the more enemies he made.
39:09 Speaker 05 That was the primary and initial battle that Venezuelan society split on in the early years of the Chavez era.
39:24 Speaker 05 What is the oil industry? Who does it serve? And how is it going to be controlled?
39:31 Rund Abdelfatah? Pretty soon, the widespread support Chavez started out with began to fade. Sure, he still had support among the lower class, but the upper class, the people who profited off of the old system, were nervous about what this new setup would mean for them. Chavez continued to consolidate more and more power, especially over the country's oil. And in April of 2002, he faced a dramatic coup attempt. Violence broke out, the military tried to get rid of him, and another guy was installed as president. But then Chavez supporters took to the streets, and within two days, Chavez was back in power.
40:10 Speaker 13 When he comes back, though, he is very shaken by this because he didn't know what was going to happen to him. He didn't know if he was going to be killed or put in jail the rest of his life, or what was going to happen.
40:23 Rund Abdelfatah? Despite that fear, Chavez didn't try to win over the people who had just attempted to get rid of him, the opposition, or even to extend an olive branch.
40:32 Speaker 05 Quite the opposite. Now it was a sense of, OK, it's on.
40:38 Rund Abdelfatah? Over the course of the next few years, Chavez would seek to consolidate more and more power. From now on, like Bolivar, he would rule with a strong iron hand.
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42:36 Speaker 02 Part Three, Alo Presidente.
42:45 Rund Abdelfatah? It's August 2007, Sunday, and Hugo Chavez is getting ready to host his weekly talk show, Alo Presidente.
42:55 Rund Abdelfatah? And I should say, this show was a defining feature of Chavez's presidency. He would get on TV every Sunday, and it was like this variety show. He'd talk, interview people, sing songs. There were dancers sometimes. It was kind of weird. And he could go on for hours. His guest this week, journalist Rory Carroll.
43:17 Speaker 10 He was actually on a beach way out in the sticks.
43:19 Rund Abdelfatah? On a really hot day.
43:20 Speaker 10 He had his desk plonked in the sand.
43:23 Rund Abdelfatah? And as the show opens,
43:26 Rund Abdelfatah? Chavez invites Rory to ask him anything.
43:28 Speaker 10 And so I asked him, why was he preparing to have a referendum to get rid of limits on presidential terms, which would basically open the door to him being potentially rooting for life? You know, this course is on live television, and his eyes narrowed in a rather theatrical way. And then he turned to the audience, said, "Did you hear that? Did you hear what he said?"
43:53 Rund Abdelfatah? Then Chavez goes on a tirade.
43:56 Speaker 10 A tirade about me being an embodiment of European colonialism, of European hypocrisy. And he tied this to, first, you know, the sins committed by Columbus, and then the Spaniards, and then the British and the Royal Navy. And I'm sitting there sweating because it's a hot day and I'm having Chavez pouring a bucket of rhetorical excrement over my head and turning me into rhetorical football. And, you know, it went on and on.
44:25 Rund Abdelfatah? Hour one turns into two, then three, four, five.
44:29 Speaker 10 Hour six, I think he came back to my question. And he did, then he did actually answer it with, by using a metaphor. He said that the revolution was an unfinished work of art, and he was the artist. And he could not, in good conscience, hand the brush over to another artist that he needed to finish it.
44:53 Rund Abdelfatah? After eight hours, the show finally comes to an end. And backstage, Chavez goes up to Rory.
45:00 Speaker 10 He was very friendly. I mean, he came up and we shook hands. And his tone to me was like, hey, don't, you know, don't sweat the, you know, the fact that I turned you into an imperialist villain for a while. You know, it's a show.
45:12 Rund Abdelfatah? That was Chavez in a nutshell. A showman, a visionary, and a salesman. Someone who could put a bow on a broken down car and convince you to buy it. By this time, 2007, Chavez had managed to consolidate power in almost every sector of society. The military, the government, and oil.
45:31 Speaker 05 The price per barrel of oil when Ouchai was elected in 1998 was $8. At the height of his presidency, the price per barrel of oil was $150.
45:44 Speaker 13 He was so fortunate to be in office during this incredible.
45:50 Speaker 13 Oil boom.
45:51 Rund Abdelfatah? Chavez invested a lot of that oil money in social programs for the poor.
45:56 Speaker 14 He decided that the best way to help people was to create these social programs that were parallel to the established government institutions.
46:06 Speaker 13 Parallel institutions that he could have more control over and kind of squeezing and starving the others that were more independent.
46:15 Rund Abdelfatah? So Chavez was spending a ton of money, but not actually strengthening any of the existing infrastructure in Venezuela. Instead, he funneled all of it into these parallel institutions that spanned everything from media to NGOs, universities, healthcare. So there was basically two of everything. It was this mix of socialism and rampant consumerism. Point is, thanks to the oil boom, from 2005 to 2012, Venezuela was in a golden age. People had more to eat, more money in their pockets, better healthcare. Meanwhile, Chavez became more and more drawn to a Pan American vision. Like Bolivar, he started to see the end game as a united South America.
46:57 Rund Abdelfatah? He reached out to leaders throughout the region, openly criticized the United States, who he saw as an obstacle because of its tendency to meddle, and stopped internal production in Venezuela, instead importing products from other countries in Latin America to boost their economies. That decision was-
47:15 Speaker 05 An ideological one that derives directly from this Bolivarian vision, but also a, an economic one that's based on the idea that only united can we forge ahead as, as an independent Latin America.
47:29 Rund Abdelfatah? And every week when Chavez went on TV and hosted his talk show, he pushed that vision, bringing people on like Rory Carroll, a foreigner, to use as a sort of stand-in for the world order that he hoped to overturn. Plus, he made it seem like the money would never run out, like Venezuela would continue to be in this golden age forever.
47:49 Speaker 14 The problem was that he probably underestimated how quickly corruption and mismanagement can destroy wealth and leave you worse than you were originally.
48:05 Rund Abdelfatah? So even as Chavez projected this confident image, the reality was way more complicated. He still faced a lot of opposition, and all that money he was spending was really starting to add up. The bubble was bound to burst sometime.
48:20 Speaker 10 And that really, in a sense, was the story of Chavez's rule, that he was a brilliant communicator, a master strategist, and a terrible manager.
48:30 Speaker 13 They weren't saving for the rainy day. And when the rainy day hit, they were in very bad shape.
48:48 Speaker 01 You have been witness to my efforts to establish freedom where tyranny previously reigned. I have worked without the thought of personal gain, sacrificing my fortune and even my peace of mind. I have been the victim of persecutors who have driven me to the very threshold of my grave.
49:04 Speaker 02 After facing years of opposition and stalled progress, Bolivar's vision of a united South America was fading. The cost of the revolution had been really high.
49:15 Speaker 11 All of this blood had been spilled, all of this incredible sacrifice. Whole cities wiped off the map.
49:21 Speaker 02 But it turned out, picking up the pieces of that revolution was just as hard.
49:27 Speaker 02 Towards the end of his life, Bolivar contracted tuberculosis.
49:30 Speaker 11 Not only he's getting sicker, but there are whole forces that are against him.
49:35 Speaker 02 Angry about the extremely centralized government Bolivar has put in place, which consolidated all the power in his hands alone, Bolivar was on thin ice across South America, especially in Colombia. And finally, the ice broke.
49:49 Speaker 11 He then is literally run out of Bogota and exiled from Colombia because they've had enough of Bolivar. They don't want him anymore. They want their little pockets of turf. He has no friends, and he's penniless. He's a pauper at this point. He's given over all of his wealth.
50:08 Speaker 02 On December 10, 1830, Bolivar gave his final speech in Santa Marta, Colombia. From there, he planned to take a ship to an island and live out the rest of his life in exile.
50:19 Speaker 01 My final wishes are for the happiness of the country. If my death contributes to the cessation of factions and the consolidation of the Union, I will step peacefully into the grave.
50:30 Speaker 02 One week later, on December 17th, 1830, Bolivar died, unceremoniously and alone.
50:39 Speaker 11 No bells are rung particularly, nobody makes any eulogies.
50:45 Speaker 05 Soon after Bolivar's death in 1830 in Colombia, actually, his name was banned.
50:53 Speaker 02 Bolivar was remembered as a disgraced leader, a revolutionary turned tyrant. He left much of South America in disarray, with no clear plan for who would follow in his footsteps to lead all those countries he'd ruled over.
51:08 Speaker 11 Then, everything changes. Because everyone at that point begins to think, "Oh, by God, the revolution would not have been won, except for this man, and he started this revolution." The engagement with the Bolivar legacy begins at that point.
51:25 Speaker 05 So he became basically all things to all people.
51:29 Speaker 02 Leader after leader across South America, but especially in Venezuela invoked Bolivar, using his legacy as a political tool.
51:37 Speaker 05 I think Chavez understood very well that Bolivar could be deployed very malleably, because that was ultimately the legacy of Bolivar for Venezuelan politics. To be this catch-all figure that could stand for many things simultaneously. You can go from Bolivar the nationalist to, once we have a lot of oil money and can project more broadly, Bolivar the Pan-American. We can go from Bolivar the participatory Democrat to Bolivar the, no, there's one leader here, and the leader is me.
52:22 Speaker 07 Whether it's tickling babies or slamming opponents, there are few politicians in the world who can match Hugo Chavez. For the past 14 years, the Venezuelan president has been arguably the most charismatic and controversial leader in the world. But this may be his last campaign.
52:40 Rund Abdelfatah? In 2012, Chavez was on the campaign trail, running for a third term in office. His work of art was not yet complete. At one of his final rallies...
52:50 Speaker 05 Upwards of a million and a half, 2 million people descend on Caracas. And the great question is, is Chavez going to show up?
53:01 Rund Abdelfatah? That's because Chavez had been really sick.
53:04 Speaker 13 He's diagnosed with cancer in 2011.
53:08 Rund Abdelfatah? The crowd waited. And suddenly...
53:11 Speaker 05 Chavez just kind of materializes, just at the time that a torrential downpour comes across Caracas. And so Chavez just walks up to the stage and just takes the rain in, just no umbrella, right? Just as like everybody is getting soaked. And he starts to like dance and to pretend that he's like Muhammad Ali, like throwing some jabs here and there. It's just like this almost ineffable moment of a man that was otherwise in his, seemed to be in like his deathbed, suddenly doing this act where he's not only showing or performing this vitality, but once again saying,
53:55 Speaker 05 "I am one of you."
53:58 Rund Abdelfatah? Chavez went on to win reelection in October of 2012. But by December of that year, his health had gotten really bad. So he decided to hold a press conference, tells the country he's leaving for Cuba to get treatment...
54:13 Speaker 05 The prognosis is not good.
54:15 Rund Abdelfatah? And says if he doesn't return...
54:16 Speaker 05 I tell all of you to follow Nicolas.
54:20 Rund Abdelfatah? Nicolas Maduro.
54:27 Speaker 13 Maduro was in the Chavez government, you know, throughout, first as a deputy, eventually he became foreign minister, then vice president. So he, you know, he had a variety of roles and was always present.
54:42 Rund Abdelfatah? Still, Maduro was no Chavez, and the idea of anyone other than Chavez leading the country seemed almost beyond comprehension for a lot of Venezuelans.
54:52 Speaker 10 Among his hardcore supporters and also amongst the hardcore opposition, they just couldn't accept almost that he could die. He was such a huge figure in Venezuela. He was a colossus. He sucked up all the oxygen and done so for, I don't know, two decades.
55:09 Speaker 05 It was this sense of, no, what are you talking about? No, you're gonna come back. It's gonna be okay. How could we imagine, you know, a future Chavez and without Chavez at the helm?
55:22 Rund Abdelfatah? But a few months later...
55:27 Speaker 15 The provocative and unpredictable strong man of Venezuela has died.
55:32 Rund Abdelfatah? Chavez died.
55:33 Speaker 15 The streets are filled with mourners.
55:35 Speaker 06 Now, the crowds are stretched over a mile across the Venezuelan capital of Caracas as the country says its final farewell to the man...
55:41 Speaker 16 President Hugo Chavez leaves behind a divided nation and a country in the grip of a deepening political crisis.
55:47 Rund Abdelfatah? The Venezuela Chavez left behind was about to enter a really dark time, and his economic policies of the previous decade or so were to blame.
55:57 Speaker 13 Mismanagement opened up the door to a huge amount of corruption and also hurt the private sector, mainly, you know, the oil sector. He destroyed institutions but did not do a good job at recreating institutions. And this is what, you know, people often say about revolutionaries.
56:19 Speaker 13 You have a disruptive leader coming in. They can destroy things in the name of change. But the same leader is not the one who can necessarily rebuild.
56:31 Rund Abdelfatah? He also left behind an almost mythical legacy, making it hard for anyone to follow in his footsteps. And when we look at what's happening in Venezuela today, we can see the shadow of Chavez looming, just as Bolivar's has loomed over the country for centuries.
56:48 Speaker 05 One of the great paradoxes that are parallel to Bolivar is that there is no succession. No one can fill Bolivar's shoes, just as no one can fill Chavez's shoes. In the common parlance of Venezuela's popular lingo, Chavez es un portaaviones. He's an aircraft carrier. He carries everything within it. And so what happens when the aircraft carriers are longer there? All those planes collapse to the ocean. And so he's understood by both foes and friends alike as irreplaceable.
57:38 Speaker 02 That's it for this week's show. I'm Ramtin Arablouei.
57:41 Rund Abdelfatah? I'm Randa Abdel Fattah, and you've been listening to Throughline from NPR.
57:45 Speaker 02 This episode was made by me.
57:47 Rund Abdelfatah? And me.
57:48 Speaker 02 And Jamie York. Jordana Hoekman. Lawrence Wu.
57:52 Rund Abdelfatah? Grace, my thing this summer. Nigeria, eatin'. Original music was produced by Ramtin and his band, Drop Electric.
57:58 Speaker 02 Thanks also to Anya Grunman.
58:00 Rund Abdelfatah? Bryn Winterbottom.
58:01 Speaker 02 DeeDee Skanky.
58:02 Rund Abdelfatah? And Federico Guerre for being the voice of Simon Bolivar.
58:05 Speaker 02 If you liked the episode, please write us at [email protected] .
58:10 Rund Abdelfatah? Thanks for listening.
58:32 Speaker 00 Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.
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