Fidel Castro, from President to Reporter

By Laura Mercedes Giráldez – Aug 8, 2024

“Do not self-immolate… Do not resign! Do not resign!” One must have a clear and accurate vision to give this advice to a man who was willing to sacrifice himself for his people, in the midst of a coup d’état.

In the early morning of April 12, 2002, Fidel Castro was able to contact—after hours of unsuccessful attempts—Hugo Chávez, who was barricaded in the Miraflores Palace, amid a deal between Pedro Carmona Estanga and Washington, by which Carmona intended to take constitutional power in Venezuela by force of arms.

Chávez represented that “bad example” that the ultra right and the US empire attack in the region. The Bolivarian Revolution meant a radical change in Latin America, and its link with Cuba terrified them.

They were right. Fidel’s constant support and infallible advice in those fateful hours helped Chavistas to pull themselves together and prevent the formula that the empire had tried against Allende from coming to fruition in Venezuela.

During that conversation, at 12:38 a.m., the presidents conversed about the forces that Chávez had on his side. “200 to 300 very exhausted men,” Chávez explained.

“‘Don’t self-immolate,'” he told me,” Chávez said to international press a year later about Fidel Castro’s advice. “‘Save your people and save yourself as best as you can, this does not end here.’ And at the end he said to me: ‘Your people are waiting for you here, I am waiting for you here. Save yourself, save yourself. I am waiting for you here.'”

The Cuban commander-in-chief was certain that it was an “unnecessary battle” at that moment, hence the two presidents evaluated the three alternatives that Chávez had: “to entrench himself in Miraflores and resist until death; to leave the palace and try to meet with the people to launch a national resistance, with very little chance of success in those circumstances; or to leave the country by resigning or without resigning to resume the struggle with real and quick prospects of success. We suggested the third option,” Fidel told Ignacio Ramonet for the book One Hundred Hours with Fidel.

“We talked about other issues: how I thought he should provisionally leave the country, communicate with a military officer who really had authority in the coup ranks, and tell him of his willingness to leave the country, but not to resign,” Fidel continued. “From Cuba we would try to mobilize the diplomatic corps in our country and in Venezuela, we would send two planes with our foreign minister and a group of diplomats to pick him up. He thought about it for a few seconds, and finally accepted my proposal. Everything would now depend on the enemy military chief.”

Indeed, Fidel knew that at that moment that they could only act using diplomacy. His strategy was to summon the ambassadors accredited in Havana in the middle of the night, to propose that they accompany the minister of Foreign Affairs to Caracas to rescue Chávez, the constitutional president of Venezuela, alive.

“I have references, not because he told me so, but because he spent two days without sleeping, without resting, calling presidents, calling people,” he narrated.

“I did not have the least doubt that Chávez, in a very short time, would be back to his post, carried on the shoulders of the people and the troops,” Fidel told Ramonet. “Now, he had to be saved from death… The military chief of the coup rejected the proposal, and informed Chávez that he would be submitted to court martial.”

From Miraflores, Chávez was transferred to several places: Fuerte Tiuna, Turiamo… In this journey, with Chávez already a prisoner, they lost communication.

The Venezuelan state TV station VTV had been taken off the air and rumors began to spread that the president had resigned. The leader of the Cuban Revolution was aware that this was false information. He was also clear about the importance of letting the Venezuelan people and the international community know that Chávez was still alive.

He knew that the private media was a fundamental axis in the coup strategy, since by selling the idea of the president’s resignation, they would talk about resuming the constitutional succession.

Let us remember that, in February 1957, the interview by The New York Times reporter, Herbert Matthews, of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, who was in the Sierra Maestra, was essential to disprove the propaganda that the Batista dictatorship had created around the supposed death or flight of Fidel, leaving the revolutionary struggle adrift.

The neo-republican censorship of that time had left the guerrillas in the dark, just as the national and international press, on the side of the aggressors, distorted the facts in favor of the dictatorship.

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Thus, headlines such as “It is over, Chávez surrenders,” “Chávez resigned,” “Chao Hugo” began to circulate with the undeniable purpose of misinforming the people and creating public opinion in favor of Carmona inside and outside the US backyard.

In view of this situation, and in the midst of the harassment of the Venezuelan leader’s family, on April 12, María Gabriela Chávez Colmenares, his daughter, was able to give an interview via telephone to Cubana de Televisión, which would dismantle the information warfare of the coup.

“Call Fidel,” Chávez had told her. And Fidel “attended to María and had her speak to the world,” the Venezuelan head of state later recalled. “With the help and cooperation of Fidel Castro, that good friend and comrade, the world heard a version distinct from the media coverage that was coming out to the world from here, that was part of the conspiracy plan.”

From then on, the aggressive attack would sink like the Titanic, in pieces. It had collided with the iceberg that broke the media censorship. With this, Venezuela and the rest of the world came to know that Chávez was alive, on the side of his people, and he had not resigned. Therefore, the credibility of the media that played the game of Carmona and the empire had substantially fallen.

“First, a greeting to all the Cuban people,” María Chávez said in her interview to Cuban TV. “Two hours ago we were able to communicate with my father, he called us on the phone and told us to please inform the whole world that he never resigned, that he has never signed a Presidential Decree to dismiss Vice President Diosdado Cabello, much less has he resigned. He simply went to the military, they arrested him and took him to Fort Tiuna, to the General Command of the Army, and at this moment he is detained in the barracks of the Military Police in Fort Tiuna. They have him completely incommunicado, they only allowed him to talk to us, his children. He asked us to look for lawyers, to talk to friends, family members, to demand respect for his rights and for us to see him because he did not know when we would be able to talk to him again.”

The enlightening message would be a well-delivered blow, since it was not only heard in Cuba but was also delivered to all the cable agencies and television stations accredited in the country.

From then onwards, the communication between the Cuban head of state and Chavez’s family as well as statements in Cuban press would be constant. The island became the bearer of the truth that the war, including the media war, wanted to hide at all costs.

Fidel had telephone contact with the Bolivarian leader’s parents as well as with General Lucas Rincón, inspector general of the Venezuelan armed forces; the mayor of Sabaneta, where Chávez was born; General Raúl Isaías Baduel, head of the Paratroopers Brigade; and Major General Julio García Montoya, permanent secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

“I had become a sort of press reporter receiving and transmitting news and public messages, with the simple use of a telephone and a tape recorder in the hands of Randy [Alonso]. I was a witness of the formidable counter-coup of the people and the Bolivarian National Armed Force of Venezuela,” Fidel commented.

(Granma English) with additional editing by Orinoco Tribune