Alejandro Velasco

But again, early in the morning, this was before I was going to school, and my mother always has a role in this, she wakes me up very early and says, you got to come and watch what's going on.

And so we turn on the television set, and what you see on the image on the screen is this grainy,

I mean, I know that it seems weirdly cinematic, but that's the way that my mind remembers it.

It's a grainy image of a military officer backed by two other ones holding large rifles.

And this guy was reading a statement saying that there's a coup that has taken place.

We are seizing control over the state in order to bring about democracy to Venezuela, which has been trampled by the corrupt regimes that have been in power.

And

That's the first thing.

And then you start to hear the fighter jets flying overhead.

And then you start to hear, you know, bombs going off.

And then you start to see, as dawn turns into morning, other images come forward.

And, you know, this is a very famous image, but I remember watching it live, which was of this person that at the time none of us knew.

His name turned out to be Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez.

who had come out after surrendering, after unsuccessfully trying to take over the presidential palace and arrest the president at the time, Carlos Andrés Pérez.

And he was given this period of time to speak to the nation, primarily to tell the troops elsewhere that were loyal to him to lay down their arms.

But he used the time that he had to also, in a very subtle but extremely effective way, talk about two things.

And also to take responsibility for it.

And those two things were astonishing to hear, even for me as a 14-year-old, because no one had taken responsibility for what by that point was very clearly an economic crisis that had come about to Venezuela.

Everyone would blame somebody else.

Oh, the IMF or the prior presidents or, you know, this person or that person, etc.