The Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario 200 or MBR-200) was the political and social movement that the later Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez founded in 1982.
The movement's first members were Chávez and his fellow military officers Felipe Acosta Carles and Jesús Urdaneta Hernández.
[3] On 17 December 1982, as Chávez biographer Richard Gott reports, The three revolutionary officers swore an oath underneath the great tree at Samán de Güere, near Maracay, repeating the words of the pledge that Simón Bolívar had made in Rome in 1805, when he swore to devote his life to the liberation of Venezuela from Spanish yoke: "I swear before you, and I swear before the God of my fathers, that I will not allow my arm to relax, nor my soul to rest, until I have broken the chains that oppress us..."[3]Gott further explains that the suffix "200" was added to the group's name the following year, in 1983, on the 200th anniversary of South American liberator Simon Bolívar's birth.
They were brought before army command on charges of plotting a coup that was suspected by the government as planned for Christmas Day.
[8] Chávez was sent in 1990 to Maturín, where he was appointed the official in charge of civilian matters with the Ranger Brigade headquartered in the area.
With a posting in Maracay, a city that is relatively near the national power structures in Caracas, Chávez's coup plans were no longer hindered by his own geographic isolation.
Indeed, many junior captains threatened to launch their own early coup, which would be independent of that waged by their higher ranked commanders.
[14] Yet one aspect of the planned coup remained clear throughout: Chávez's demand that it maintain a primarily military focus and character.
[15] In the early years after his release, Chávez considered the possibility of another coup attempt, but with the prospects appearing slim, some advisers, notably Luis Miquilena, urged him to reconsider his scepticism of the elections.
[citation needed] In 2001, Chávez accused the Fifth Republic Movement of bureaucratization under Luis Miquilena and proposed the re-launching of the original MBR-200.