APRIL 13 2022 marked 20 years since the people of Venezuela defeated the US-backed right-wing coup against their democratically elected socialist president Hugo Chavez in a record time of less than two days.

Last Wednesday hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, members of political organisations, social movements and trade unions gathered in various parts of Caracas and marched to the Miraflores presidential palace to pay tribute to what was achieved two decades before.

While addressing the crowd during the rally, Chavez’s successor President Nicolas Maduro stressed that the civic-military union was the key to defeating the 2002 coup and achieving the return of democracy in the country.

“On April 13 2002, it was the united homeland that rescued Chavez in that people’s revolution,” the president said. He highlighted the revolutionary capacity and courage of the Venezuelan people, stating that they have become “protagonists of a new history, of their democratic, cultural and political revolution.”