Twenty years of that

Few people alive in Venezuela twenty years ago will forget November 27th, 1992. That day, we woke up to another coup d’etat attempt, only this one was happening...

Few people alive in Venezuela twenty years ago will forget November 27th, 1992. That day, we woke up to another coup d’etat attempt, only this one was happening right above our rooftops.

Watching this video, I have to wonder – who are these guys? They don’t look like high-ranking chavista officials. Where is the gordito de la franela rosada? Is he a Minister? An Ambassador?

The 27N coup was always seen as the dumpy half-brother of the 4F coup, a living testament to the old cliché that history repeats itself as farce. Perhaps that accounts for the fact that its visible heads play only a small role in the Revolution.

Still, it didn’t seem like small potatoes back then. And while militarily it may have been less severe than the 4F, it sort of sealed the fate of the teetering Pérez administration.

After all, when a President couldn’t prevent a coupster from launching another coup from his jail cell, you pretty much knew the guy had lost complete control.