By Ana Mallen

Laymen rarely catch a glimpse of the wars waged by political elites. In ordinary politics, ordinary citizens become aware of proceedings behind closed doors through broad general statements that convey the results of months of wrangling between influential interest groups, political organizations, and socioeconomic interests. If information on the workings of ordinary political life is scant, information on extraordinary political events is normally accessible only through the pen of the historian. It takes years for historians to explain revolutions, coup d'etats, and civil wars.

The Revolution will not be Televised offers the spectator a unique look into raw politics. The documentary chronicles the coup d'etat against Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez Frias and the countercoup that restored his presidency 48 hours later. It takes its public to the inner sanctum of the coup, and from the presidential palace, it highlights the events that take place in “real time.”

But does it adequately portray the Venezuelan conflict? Critics of the film have cried foul play. They rightfully assert the documentary simplifies the sociopolitical conflict that has divided Venezuelan society. Mimicking the crisis it attempts to explain, the film has fallen prey to the polarization that pervades the country. It lauds President Chavez and maligns the opposition, painting a black and white picture of a conflict characterized by many shades of gray. But it does not distort the facts. The Revolution will not be Televised accurately chronicles the actions taken by decisive powerholders to seize the reins of the country on April 11, 2002 and the events that followed, culminating in Chavez's reinstatement three days later. It is a visual account of how the usual suspects (political elites, economic interests, and the United States) attempted to undermine a regime hostile to their interests.

On April 11, alongside Venezuela's middle-class, political and economic elites convene a march to demand the president's resignation. During the protest, anti-Chavez groups decide to march on the presidential palace where pro-Chavez groups had gathered to manifest their support for the president. As the groups meet, violence erupts, and snipers kill protesters on both sides. The private media portrays the shootings as the actions of overzealous Chavez supporters. National television stations falsify images to give international credence to the opposition's claim that Chavez massacred peaceful opposition protestors.

Early the next morning, with the government's legitimacy in question, the military high command removes Chavez from power, falsely claiming the president resigned. Chavez is forcefully removed from the presidential palace and held incommunicado while an interim government is convened by the country's political and economic elite, some of whom had been in contact with Bush Administration officials in the weeks leading up to the coup. The head of the nation's most powerful business group, Pedro Carmona Estanga, assumes the presidency. He proceeds to dissolve all public powers and calls for presidential elections to take place in 2003. By this time, though, the Attorney General announces that Chavez did not resign.

News of Chavez's removal prompts his supporters to take to the streets on the 13th and demand the military reinstate the popular leader. Venezuela's armed forces are faced with the decision: repress Chavez's sympathizers or restore him to power. The military is divided, with much of the rank-and-file supporting Chavez. A pro-Chavez faction, the Palace Guard, ends up ousting the new interim government and retakes control of the presidential palace. Having failed to procure the support of the Palace Guard and in the face of violent street protests, the military high command reinstates Chavez as Venezuela's constitutional president.

The documentary's account of the events of those days is beyond reproach. Official documents and eyewitness reports have confirmed the film's version of the events. But despite its accuracy, The Revolution will not be Televised does not adequately explain the confluence of factors that led to the attempted coup d'etat.

The events leading to April 11 began with Chavez's rise to power in 1998. With a convincing 56% of the popular vote, Chavez, himself an ex-coup leader, correctly understood the mandate the electorate gave him. He was in charge of replacing the country's two-party democratic system with participatory democracy- defined as the institutionalization of plebiscitary measures aimed at increasing direct citizen control over constituted powers. True to his word, the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 gave ordinary citizens the power to recall elected officials, initiate legislation, and derogate international treaties.

The 2002 coup d'etat resulted from the volatile mix of a non-pluralist regime change, an international policy that defied the United States, and an economic system that threatened to replace the invisible hand of the market with state intervention. On the political front, the president's notion of participatory democracy dramatically increased the power of the masses over government. But in the conflict that developed between Chavez's administration and the middle-class, it became clear the president's notion of participatory democracy did not correspond to a pluralist form of government.

Under Chavez, participatory democracy was a venue of political participation for “the sovereign” -a category that excluded all sectors of society that Chavez defined as having benefited from the spoils of the previous two-party regime. The president's new policy required the government endow the lower classes with the political savvy necessary to become full participants in the new democratic government. To this end, the presidency passed legislation to form Bolivarian Circles, or self-motivated groups charged with the task of developing grassroots cooperatives and organizing the population in Venezuela's barrios. Finding itself excluded from “the sovereign,” Venezuela's middle-class went on the offensive to reclaim its right to participate in the new democratic government.

Not only was Chavez's notion of participatory democracy problematic, his international policy also raised concerns. In control of the country's vast oil reserves, Chavez's first agenda was to raise enough revenue to fund his domestic policies. This led the president to formalize agreements with OPEC that reduced oil production and increased oil prices. As if this wasn't incentive enough to raise eyebrows in Washington, Chavez vexed the Bush Administration by posing jubilantly with dictators Saddam Hussein and Moammar al-Ghadafi. His relationship with Fidel Castro further revealed Chavez's propensity to make acquaintance with objectionable dignitaries. Praising the Cuban Revolution and declaring Castro a model of Latin American sovereignty, Chavez's name quickly joined the US list of undesirables. The relationship between Chavez and Washington deteriorated further after September 11, when Chavez categorized the United States' war on Afghanistan as a terrorist response to the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Despite the growing tensions between Washington and Chavez, the country's president did not come under the direct attack of the Bush Administration. This was largely the result of Chavez's economic program, which the president described as a “third way” of economic development. Despite his rhetoric against neo-liberalism, Chavez did not disrupt the sale of oil to the United States. He did not raise tariffs or impose restrictions on free trade.

Quite the opposite, Venezuela's new economic policy actively pursued foreign investment. But the new government broke with two important precedents. Chavez did not privilege US investment over that of other countries. Moreover, unlike previous leaders, who had climbed on the bandwagon of the Washington Consensus, Chavez restricted foreign investment in the nation's oil industry. He made the state the sole shareholder of the national oil company Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA), limited foreign investment in joint ventures by 50% percent, and doubled the fixed royalties the company paid the state. The legislation thwarted the privatization efforts of PDVSA's powerful elite and the backlash it provoked extended beyond the oil industry. For powerful economic groups Chavez's actions not only increased government regulation over the nation's oil industry, they presaged the beginning of an era of state intervention.

The Revolution will not be Televised alerts the viewer to the controversies that led to the coup, but fails to acknowledge the president's role in the conflict. Critics of Chavez's government rightly argue that the president's Bolivarian Revolution fomented a more divisive form of doing politics. Chavez stubbornly refused to compromise his political-ideological program. Instead, he readily eliminated all opposition to his program by isolating reform-minded opposition leaders and classifying them as hardliners. The government refused to embrace or even hear dissenting opinions. With Chavez steering the democratization process, there was no middle ground.

Other important facts are also overlooked. The coup's participants were not the homogenous mass the filmmakers would have us believe. While some actors deliberately plotted against Chavez, others unwittingly participated in the coup. As one protester noted, many in the opposition were “sheep led to the slaughter.” The opposition was a cacophony of voices united only in their desire to demand Chavez's resignation.

In the end, the facts portrayed by the film do not suffice as a causal explanation of the events leading to the coup d'etat. But the images the documentary provides of those crucial days cannot be captured by the historian's pen.

In the aftermath of April 11, Chavez himself has called on the more democratic elements within the opposition to prevail over the interests of a political and economic elite willing to seize power through any means necessary. At present, Venezuela's opposition attempts to do just that. Proclaiming citizens' constitutional right to recall elected officials, the opposition is reported to have collected three million signatures demanding a recall vote. If the signatures are ruled valid, that vote would take place in the next several months. Ultimately, Venezuelan's future does not depend on Chavez's removal from power, but on whether its population can agree to resolve the present conflict peacefully and legally.