[26] The popularity of Chávez then dropped due to his clashes with multiple social groups he had alienated and his close ties with controversial world leaders such as Ali Khamenei, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and especially Fidel Castro.

[1] Venezuela became Cuba's largest trade partner while Chávez, following Castro's example, consolidated the country's bicameral legislature into a single National Assembly that gave him more power[28] and created community groups of loyal supporters allegedly trained as paramilitaries.

[44] The military felt that after fighting against Castro's influence, guerilla groups and attempts to overthrow previous Venezuelan governments to expand his revolutionary presence since the 1960s, that they had finally lost when Chávez came to power.

[44] The "long-simmering resentment in the military"[attribution needed] was articulated publicly by four high-level officers, including Air Force Gen. Roman Gomez Ruiz, who called on Chávez to "resign peacefully and take responsibility for your failure".

[53] The Tactical Command, headed by Cilia Flores, Guillermo García Ponce [es] and Freddy Bernal (mayor of the Libertador Municipality), then shared plans of using the Bolivarian Circles as a paramilitary force to end marches and also defend Chávez by organizing them into brigades.

They also discussed launching a disinformation propaganda campaign on public and private television and having government loyalists fill the highways with their vehicles and then present the images on TV as if people were busy working like any other day.

[53][54] Shortly before the coup attempt, Alí Rodríguez Araque, a former guerrilla and Chávez ally then serving in Vienna as the general secretary of OPEC, allegedly heard of a potential oil embargo against the United States by Iraq and Libya, over US support for Israel.

On the evening of 10 April, Fedecámaras and CTV held televised news conference announcing that the strike would be extended indefinitely, unanimously voted for a "coordinating committee for democracy and liberty" in order to "rescue Venezuela's freedom".

[6] The strike began, according to The Washington Post, "as a managerial protest at the state-run oil company, but evolved into a broad effort supported by the country's largest business and labor groups to force Chávez from power.

[72] Some government supporters, who began to gather then, were armed with Molotov cocktails, rocks, sticks, chains, baseball bats, and metal pipes, and were ignored by the Venezuelan National Guard stationed to defend Chávez.

[15] As the march turned a corner and began to approach the Miraflores at about 2:00 pm, the National Guard fired about twelve tear gas canisters from behind the palace walls and the protesters fled back down the road.

[75] On Baralt Avenue, near the Llaguno Overpass as the march inched closer hundreds of Chávez supporters gathered and began throwing large rocks, Molotov cocktails and even tear gas at the demonstrators.

[75] Trying to regain the initiative, Chávez spoke in a lengthy broadcast on the successes of his administration while calling for peace, but the networks decided to split the screen, showing the violence outside the palace, with the audio from the speech appearing disrupted.

[80] According to surgeons, the marchers had been shot in the back with handgun fire while fleeing and others were severely injured from 7.62×51mm NATO military rounds from Fal rifles, standard equipment of the National Guard defending Chávez.

[82] Infuriated by the violence but "reluctant to stage an outright coup", according to The New York Times, a group of military officers who called themselves the "Movement for the Integrity and Dignity of the National Armed Forces" demanded on Thursday evening that Chávez resign.

"[89] Meanwhile, according to the Miami Herald, "Bernal, Vice President Diosdado Cabello and several other Chávez cabinet members were reported to be trying to win political asylum in foreign embassies, including those of Chile, Cuba, Iraq and Libya.

[91] Describing Carmona as "a bookish economist" who had worked with the Foreign Ministry and "run a variety of trade associations", The Washington Post said that one reason he was chosen as interim president "was that he was one of the few people who didn't want the job".

PDVSA management swiftly announced the end of oil exports to Cuba, and declared that it would step up production[citation needed] The removal of such officials was controversial, with one member of the opposition coalition stating that "In hindsight, it was the most idiotic thing that could have been done, (...) but we had just come out of an ambush and we were venting our distaste for the people who occupied those positions, so everyone applauded the dissolution.

[102] Speaking afterward about his one-day presidency, Carmona told The Miami Herald that he had been "misunderstood because ... the opposition wasted too much time forming a cabinet and naming the high military command", whereas if the coup had "been hatched in advance, those key decisions would have already been made".

[10] Also, the coup-makers were criticized for raiding the homes of some Chávez supporters, including Tarek William Saab, chairman of the congressional Foreign Relations Committee, and Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, Minister of the Interior and Justice.

On 18 April, Globovisión president Alberto Ravell "asked for forgiveness 'from any viewer who feels we failed them that day'", further stating that "Sacrificing our credibility (...) and freedom of expression, we decided not to broadcast images of violence and looting.

"[94] Oscar Garcia Mendoza, president of the major Banco Venezolano de Crédito, ran a "gigantic newspaper ad" celebrating Chávez's ouster, which, he wrote, would "substantially improve Venezuelan society".

[91] On 13 April, the editors of The New York Times applauded what they described as Chávez's resignation, calling him a "ruinous demagogue" and cheering the fact that "Venezuelan democracy [was] no longer threatened by a would-be dictator".

A number of high-ranking military officers, led by Vice Admiral Héctor Ramírez, recorded a video message broadcast later in the day that held Chávez responsible for massacring innocent people using snipers, referring to at least six dead and dozens wounded.

However, this claim has never been proven and is contested by the rest of the reporters present, such as Javier Ignacio Mayorca, Mayela León and Adrián Criscaut, who affirmed that the military officers were informed of the death of Tortoza during the filming of the message.

The head of the Casa Militar at the time, the guard of the president of Venezuela, Colonel Almidien Ramon Moreno Acosta, states in a report presented on May 15, 2002, before the National Assembly that ten suspects were detained on April 11 under the accusation of being snipers.

The crews swiftly repaired the traffic lights, restored the kiosks, painted the walls, covered the splinters in the cement surfaces and replaced the damaged street lamps free of charge.

[71] The people filmed shooting from the Puente Llaguno bridge were initially identified as being pro-Chávez political activists Rafael Cabrices, Richard Peñalver [es], Henry Atencio, and Nicolás Rivera.

In such a hearing on 14 August 2002, the Tribunal ruled by an 11–9 margin (with two justices recused) that four high-ranking military officers charged with rebellion should not stand trial, arguing that what took place was not a "coup" but a "vacuum of power" that had been generated by the announcement of Chávez's resignation made by General Lucas Rincón Romero.

A mockumentary made by German Venezuelan citizens Wolfgang Schalk and Thaelman Urgelles [es], opponents of the rise to power of indigenous people in Venezuela, X-Ray of a Lie, claims that there are omissions and distortions in The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.