Dear Friends and Family,

What a turn of events! Chavez has returned to Venezuela and has taken office as president once again! On Saturday there were huge marches all over Venezuela, in which at least nine more persons were killed. These were triggered when the provisional president, Pedro Carmona, decreed that the National Assembly would be dissolved, a move the opposition coalition hadn’t agreed upon. The question of the constitutionality of Pedro Carmona's appointment and his decrees also became decisive. It led to the resignation of Carmona and the appointment of the vice president as the temporary constitutional president. Chavez returned at 3:00 a.m. this morning and was reinstalled around 8:00 a.m.

This morning in a televised address, Chavez said, "There are a lot of urgent things to take care of now. We must fix that light that has been broken. I call for peace. I call for strength within all Venezuelans." And despite its role in his temporary removal from office Chavez praised the military saying, "Our military forces...have a heart. I was never mistreated" and "I have learned a lot from our military forces. By listening to them I felt like a soldier once again." He promised to install a Government Counsel on Thursday that would be in charge of conducting roundtable discussions with all sectors. He also announced that the Board of Directors he had appointed to PDV, the state owned petroleum company, had resigned.

What exactly is going on? We do not know. Who is telling the truth? We do not know.

What has us personally concerned is the way the media has been controlled on both sides. The state-owned television station had been off the air until yesterday, and it was not until it was broadcasting again that the news of the massive marches was televised. Why did the other stations not broadcast what was going on? Today the only news comes from the state-owned station and there is absolutely no news from the other stations, which have traditionally supported the opposition movement. Even their Web sites have been removed or limited to reporting only what the state-owned station reports. Why have the other stations been silenced?

In spite of reports of looting and rioting in some sectors of Caracas, the state-controlled TV station reports that everything is calm and in order. However, Stratfor.com reports:

STRATFOR sources in the Assembly and the armed forces say an informal count indicates that about 75 percent of the Assembly's members oppose allowing Chavez to continue as president. The sources added that former Interior and Justice Minister Luis Miquilena, who commands a sizeable block of moderate votes inside the dominant pro-Chavez Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), will be a key powerbroker in any effort to end Chavez's presidency by legal and constitutional means.

Stratfor also reports that the military is split into three factions: One group that emerged April 11-12 as the leader of a center-right faction of career officers who oppose Chavez' attempts to politicize the armed forces and shift the country away from a capitalist democracy. This is the group that backed the civil opposition movement on April 11 that temporarily forced Chavez out of office. A second group consists of ultra-conservative officers in all four branches of the armed forces who are supported by right-wing business interests and who influenced the provisional president to rule by unconstitutional and dictatorial decrees. The third group consists of pro-Chavez officers who declared themselves in rebellion against the Carmona government before it was sworn in on April 12 and who were key in helping return Chavez to office. We hope that reason will prevail and that fighting will be avoided among these three military blocs.

The leaders of the Presbyterian Church of Venezuela (PCV) ask for your prayers. The church includes people who have consistently supported Chavez' inclination toward the poor and marginalized and his expressed desire to create a new society based on equality and justice for all, as reflected in the new Bolivarian Constitution approved during 1999 in a general referendum by the country at the beginning of his term of office. At the same time, others in the church have been just as unswerving in criticizing the divisive, conflictive, and largely polarizing rhetoric and behavior of the Venezuelan head of state. Nevertheless, the PCV has always advocated peaceful solutions to the country's crisis. We are certain that the PCV opposes any attempt to overthrow or otherwise depose the legitimate government by force or by any means that do not comply with legal and constitutional due processes.

In Ocumare, where we live, all appears quite normal. People are out walking the streets just as they would on any Sunday in April, the baseball teams are enjoying themselves in the stadium below our apartment, and traffic is circulating normally.

At this point there are more questions than answers. Please continue praying that no more blood is shed and that a peaceful solution will be found to the conflict among all the many factions.

Yours in Christ,

Deborah and Carlos

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 264