Chavez documentary to be broadcast tonight RTE 1
Chavez - Inside The Coup is to be broadcast tonight on RTE 1 at 10.10pm as a "True Lives" special. This documentary is a thrilling insight into Chavez, charting the coup in Venezuela in full and his dramatic return to power some 48 hours later.Venezuela is the world's 4th largest exporter of oil, and the third highest supplier to the United States. In 1999 Hugo Chavez had been democratically elected president by a landslide majority, promising to end corruption However, from the begining Chavez faced powerful enemies both inside and outside Venezuela.
On the 11th April 2002, the world awoke to the news that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had been removed from office and had been replaced by a new self-appointed "interim" government. News reports carried stories of the mayhem in Caracas, where 11 people had been killed in what were alleged to have been bloody street battles between Chavez supporters and an opposition march. Viewers all over the world were led to believe that Chavez had ordered the killings, and had therefore been forced to resign.
What in fact took place was the first coup of the twenty first century, and probably the world's first media coup.
Chavez - Inside The Coup is a Power Pictures production and has received funding from The Irish Film Board, ZDF/ARTE, NPS, BBC and RTE.