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Venezuela: Popular Counterattack

Venezuela: Popular Counterattack Caracas, Apr 13. -Venezuela commemorates the eighth anniversary of President Hugo Chavez' return to power, after he was ousted by a military coup for two days, with actions Tuesday favoring the civic-military alliance that marked those events.

The swearing-in ceremony of 34,000 militiamen at the centric Bolivar Avenue today symbolizes the spirit of those actions, when the population, along with constitutionalist officers, rescued the constitutional order.

On April 11, 2002, the rightist opposition headed by big businessmen, the leadership of the Catholic church, and the US embassy in Caracas took Chavez out of the Presidential Palace and detained him.

Though they tried to justify the coup with a power vacuum resulting from deaths they attributed to an order by Chavez, the majority of the population did not believe in the pretexts.

Thousands of Venezuelans took the streets demanding the return of the president, whose victory meant a hope for millions of Venezuelans traditionally excluded.

After eight years of the military coup, the commemoration takes place amid warnings that putschist sectors and foreign allies keep thinking on overthrowing the president by force.

Regarding that, local authorities and leaders of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) alert on the need to be ready to defend the country, with the creation of the popular militias playing a key role amid this context.

The reality for the president is similar to that of 2002: fight between the oligarchy and the poor, defined as confrontation between capitalism and socialism, with the parliamentary elections on September 26 as the next episode.(Prensa Latina)