We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution

Four. Sergio’s Blood: Student Struggles from the University to the Streets

Four. Sergio’s Blood Student Struggles from the University to the Streets Student, a great heart in your chest, your homeland Venezuela awaits much from your determination. Seek out the working class with which to make the Revolution. —Alí Primera In mid-1993, the Venezuelan political system was in a veritable free fall. The Caracazo—predictable for some of its participants but utterly astonishing for elites intoxicated by their own myths—was followed soon after by a pair of attempted coups in February and November 1992. While the nominally social democratic ruling party Democratic Action (ad) succeeded in closing ranksagainstthismilitaryinterventionintopolitics,aschismquicklyemerged within the ruling class as others saw political opportunity amid the turmoil. If ad supported Cartos Andrés Pérez in 1992, they would sell him up the river in 1993 to save their own skins, and if, as in the case of ad, the party abandoned the leader, the opposite would be true of the Christian Democrats (copei): the party’s founder, Rafael Caldera, one of the architects of Venezuela’s exclusionary two-party system, e√ectively jumped ship with a speech in the Congress that certainly did not support the coup attempt but nevertheless explicitly connected it to the same popular rage that had fueled 106 chapter four the Caracazo. Wistfully sensing popular ambivalence toward the institutional order, Caldera insisted that ‘‘there can be no democracy if the people cannot eat.’’∞ This was a truly visionary bit of opportunism, one that catapulted Caldera back to power in the heavily disputed election of 1993.≤ September 23, 1993 A large march set out from the Central University (ucv); a joyful combinationofmusicandstreetpartytotheobserver ’seye.Butthetensionwasinthe context, and behind the playfulness of the samba there lay the very real and imminent threat of a state violence that did not begin or end with the Caracazo , the last deadly gasps of a decadent and flailing system. As Roland Denis, then a young student leader, puts it, ‘‘Joy and combat are never separable in good popular mobilizations.’’ This is not to say that these are the same, of course, but if it was joy that inspired the students, combat was the inevitable result of seeking the joy of liberation under a socially repressive , neoliberal state. ‘‘This great parade of joy’’ wound from the ucv toward the old city center, and as the telltale signs of impending attack manifested themselves in the subtleties of police maneuver, the ‘‘forever warriors’’ took the lead while the ‘‘forever defeatists’’ attempted to dissuade them. As the march arrived at the Esquina del Chorro, it was clear that the students would not reach the Congress. But this was no surprise, and for a moment it seemed as though the day would be merely a repetition of skirmishes past, another expression of the violent street tactics that had become coterminous with Popular Disobedience. ‘‘Tear gas, bullets rubber and real, stones, burning tires, Molotov cocktails, scattering and regrouping, the resumption of battle at other points of the city center’s perimeter, some street vendors joining in, the solidarity of the motorizados, even some broken windows, injuries, arrests, and a police contingent or two surrounded. But in this case something would change. The repressive strategy would not merely seek to disperse, control, and detain, but instead some assassins would be added to the ranks of the police with precise extermination missions .’’≥ The traditionally repressive intelligence forces of the disip were present, carrying with them death sentences that had been decided beforehand and simply awaited execution. While Denis was escorting his young daughter out of harm’s way, one such sentence was carried out. The executioner loaded a large steel nut into a shotgun and fired it. The victim was Sergio Rodríguez Yance, a student revolutionary well known for embodying, in Denis’ words, the ‘‘joy and sergio’s blood: student struggles 107 combat’’ of Venezuelan popular struggles. The executioner, too, was joyful, leaping with glee in untelevised video footage when the metal lump punctured Sergio’s chest. A close personal friend of Sergio, Denis’ retrospective lament and homage is touching: ‘‘Poet, salsa singer, dancer, joker, friend, lover, child, disobedient, warrior, solidaristic, and with an always smiling but almost exasperating humility. Sergio was life itself, its creator as its product; he was what that marvelous goddess granted us as a prize for all the irreverent and liberating pressure that had exploded and could not be stopped. Albert Camus and his Rebellious Man...