dictatorship & politics - university of notre dameundpress/excerpts/p01086-ex.pdf ·...

B R I A N S . M c B E T H

Dictatorship & PoliticsIntrigue, Betrayal, and Survival in Venezuela, 1908‒1935

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

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© 2008 University of Notre Dame Press

Copyright © 2008 by University of Notre DameNotre Dame, Indiana 46556www.undpress.nd.eduAll Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in-Publication Data

McBeth, B. S. (Brian Stuart), 1951–Dictatorship and politics : intrigue, betrayal, and survival in Venezuela,

1908 ‒1935 / Brian S. McBeth.p. cm.

“Recent titles from the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies.”Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN-13: 978-0-268-03510-5 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN-10: 0-268-03510-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Venezuela — Politics and government — 1908 ‒1935. 2. Dictatorship —Venezuela — History — 20th century. I. Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies. II. Title.

F2325.M388 2008987.06'313— dc22

2008000406

∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

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Introduction

General Juan Vicente Gómez came to power in a bloodless coup on Decem-ber 19, 1908,1 and died in his sleep still in power twenty-seven years later, onDecember 17, 1935. In 1908, Venezuela was little known to the outside world,but by the time of Gómez’s death the country was of vital strategic impor-tance to the British Empire and, in addition, a significant supplier of oil tothe Atlantic seaboard of the United States.2 During Gómez’s time, Vene -zuela was transformed from being a predominantly agricultural country tothe second largest oil producer in the world. The history of the Gómezregime has been written as though it was almost preordained that the dicta-tor would remain in power for twenty-seven years. Such a view detracts fromthe political acumen that Gómez displayed in order to remain in power.Gómez was not only the undisputed leader of Venezuela from the end of1908 until his death in December 1935, but also the second most importantpolitical figure in the country during the previous Cipriano Castro adminis-tration (1899‒1908).3

This book is a reappraisal of the Gómez regime, which by no means wasa time of inert dictatorship, and the struggle by various groups to topple thedictator. What is new in the treatment of the regime is that it departs fromprevious studies by demonstrating that Gómez’s ability to withstand oppo-nents’ attacks resulted from more than ruthless repression. The exiles’ politicaldisagreements, personal rivalries, financial difficulties, occasional harassment

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by foreign powers, and at times plain bad luck were important contributingfactors, together with Gómez’s political acumen and repressive apparatus,that allowed the regime to survive so many plots against it. In addition, inexamining the opposition to the Gómez regime I have removed oil from thecenter stage of the regime’s foreign relations and examined instead the toler-ance and intolerance by foreign governments of the exiles’ activities. Thisbook refutes the usual picture of the steadfast foreign support for Gómezfrom the United States and European powers interested in Venezuelan oil byfocusing on the variable fortunes of the Venezuelan political exiles as theyattempted to arrange anti-Gómez uprisings from foreign soil. The historiog-raphy of the period has also overlooked the internal strife that took placewithin the Gomecista supporters of the regime.

The Gómez dictatorship has been viewed as one long period of peace, butthere was barely a year of his rule in which some kind of anti-governmentconspiracy was not being hatched. The permanent nature of the politicalthreat that Gómez faced, both from inside and outside the regime, placed himin a rather embattled position. The intellectual justification for the Gómezregime was brought about by the local intelligentsia who belonged to theschool of positivism such as Pedro Manuel Arcaya, José Gil Fortoul, andLaureano Vallenilla Lanz.4 The Venezuelan intellectuals of the time wereattracted to the philosophy of positivism because it helped explain and justifythe country’s turbulent history in a rational manner.5 In Gómez’s correspon-dence and actions, as we shall see, there is a strong sense of destiny, with noroom for doubt or for second thoughts.

Gómez, a man of medium height and a successful agricultural business-man in his native Táchira before entering politics who is reputed to have siredseventy-four children from thirty-three women, was the largest single finan-cial backer of Castro’s successful 1899 Revolución Restauradora, which broughtthe Tachirenses to power. Gómez’s entrepreneurial skills were put to gooduse during the military campaign when he was appointed quartermaster,ensuring that supplies and ammunition reached the fighting men. Gómez’sown military skill was later fully tested during Manuel Antonio Matos’s Lib-ertadora revolution (1901‒1903) when, as vice president and head of the army,he defeated the ablest regional enemy caudillos. From then on Gómez’s mili-tary skill would be unquestioned by friend and foe, giving him the firm con-viction that he would always defeat his enemies.

During the Castro administration, Gómez, together with Castro andother government officials, acquired large cattle ranches in Guayana, Apure,and the central states. Gómez, for example, when he was federal district gov-

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ernor from 1899 to 1900, secured the exclusive right to supply the capital citywith meat, later adding the cities of Puerto Cabello, Maracay, and Valencia.In addition, Gómez controlled the lucrative cattle export trade to the WestIndies, which at the time represented 10 percent of the country’s total exporttrade of $16 million. This aspect of Gómez’s activities continued on an evengreater scale once he achieved power. He and his family became the mainshareholders in the Compañía Venezolana de Navegación, the paper andcement factories at Maracay, the Lactuario de Maracay, C. A. Central Azu-carero del Zulia, Compañía Ganadera Nacional, and the Venezuelan Tanningand Coloring Extracts Ltd. Gómez’s brother, Juan Crisóstomo ( Juancho)Gómez, held the monopoly and sale concession for the supply of frozen fishto Caracas together with Teodoro Arriens, for which the latter paid him$946 each month. These ventures were extremely profitable; for example,Eustoquio Gómez, a first cousin who began his political career with no realassets to his name, by 1924 had $574,713 deposited with the Banco de Vene -zuela, $123,165 with the Royal Bank of Canada in Maracaibo, and $400,000

in the latter’s bank branch in New York.6

Gómez referred to his December 1908 coup as being an “evolutionwithin the same cause,”7 because his arrival to power only involved a changeat the head of the Castroist structure of government. Although Gómez wasone of the most important linchpins in Castro’s administration, he intendedhis new government to be a breath of fresh air that revitalized the country’simage, which had been thoroughly discredited during the previous regime.His underlying desire was to bring peace and prosperity to the country, en-capsulated in one of the regime’s mottoes of “Peace and Work.” In politicalterms, the December coup was rationalized as abolishing “absolutism as aform of government”8 and establishing a “genuinely democratic regime.”9

Gómez wanted to strengthen Congress by instituting a system that ensuredthat the democratic principles of government remained intact by preventingthe executive from accumulating too much power. The new governmentpromised to safeguard the constitutional rights of its citizens by allowingfreedom of expression, respect for the sovereignty of the states, and the pro-tection of industry from the pernicious impact of monopoly power that theprevious government had pursued with a vengeance. Gómez wanted initially,above all, to reach agreement on the country’s pressing international disputesto recover some sense of stability in order to live in “peace and harmony.”10

There was, however, a need to strip Castro of his powers because he re-mained the nominal head of government. Gómez would do so by institutinga trial at the Federal Court and of Cassation against the former president,

Introduction — 3



who was accused of conspiracy to murder Gómez. On February 27, 1909, thecourt unsurprisingly found Castro guilty, immediately suspending him of hispresidential duties. At the same time, Héctor Luis Paredes instituted crimi-nal charges against Castro for the murder of his brother Antonio Paredes inBarrancas in 1907. Castro’s trial in absentia for crimes against the state andfor the murder of Paredes allowed the government to strip Castro of hispresidential title and bar him from ever holding office again. This was aneminently neat way of solving the legal problem of Gómez staying in powerwithout the need to suspend Congress and local councils. Consequently, allexecutive and legislative officers remained in place, with the same congress-men, state presidents, court officers, and minor government officials appointedby Castro continuing under the new Gómez administration.

The opposition to Gómez’s rule came mainly from the following groups:former members of his government exiled in Colombia, the Caribbean, Cen-tral America, Mexico, Europe, and the United States (detailed in table 1), asmall dissenting group of young army officers; various left-wing groups, andfrom certain sectors of an incipient middle class produced by the prosperityand relative stability enjoyed by Venezuela during this period. The opposi-tion from organized labor was minimal, as there was no real labor move-ment.11 The rebels and exiles came from all walks of life. There were largelandowners such as Leopoldo Baptista, José María Ortega Martínez, andArístides Tellería; professionals (medical doctors, lawyers, engineers) such asFrancisco Hermógenes Rivero, Alejandro Rivas Vásquez, Santos AníbalDomínici, Carlos León, Néstor Luis Pérez, Rafael Ernesto López, ManuelAntonio Pulido Méndez, and Atilano Carnevali; other professionals (workingin banks, industry, and commerce) such as Rodolfo Rojas, Pedro Felipe Rojas,Pedro Elías and Francisco de Paúla Aristeguieta Rojas, and Manuel Jové; andfinally others, like Juan Pablo Peñaloza, Guillermo Egea Mier, Doroteo Flores,and Carlos López Bustamante, who worked in miscellaneous industries suchas hotels and shipyards. As we shall see, the “caudillo-type” expeditions againstGómez such as the Odin/Harrier, Angelita, Falke, and Superior expeditionswere difficult to organize owing to the logistical problems encountered andsometimes just plain bad luck. The exiles, however, showed greater politicalacumen than current historiography credits them with; many of the rebel ex-peditions were linked to simultaneous uprisings in the countryside, as well assupport from nations such as Mexico that opposed Gómez.

A contemporary commentator portrayed Gómez as the “shame of Amer-ica”12 for his savage repression of his political opponents, but it is doubtful




whether his methods were any worse than those of his contemporaries.Moreover, with the demise of Castro (of natural causes) in 1924, Gómez wasextremely confident that his enemies would be unable to topple him; he al-lowed thousands of Tachirenses exiled in Colombia to return to the countryin 1925 and two years later released all political prisoners from the notoriousLa Rotunda jail in Caracas. Gómez cultivated good foreign relations with allthe major foreign powers because he did not want a repeat of what happenedduring the Castro years, when the country was subjected to a “peacefulblockade”13 by the British, German, and Italian navies and later the UnitedStates, France, the Netherlands, and Colombia broke off diplomatic relations.Nevertheless, the rebels almost succeeded during 1917‒18 in getting the UnitedStates to sever diplomatic relations. Mexico was the only country that showedany open hostility toward Gómez, breaking off diplomatic relations for almostten years beginning in 1923. Other Latin American countries such as Colom-bia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Peru at different times also supported various exile

Introduction — 5

Table 1 Cabinet Ministers and State Presidents Who Became Exiles

Name Ministry Period State Period

Alcántara, Francisco Linares Interior 1908‒12

Baptista, Leopoldo Secretary General 1908‒1909

Baptista, Trino Education 1909‒11 Trujillo 1909

Baptista, Víctor M. Trujillo 1909‒12

Carabaño, Rafael María Development 1908‒10

Iturbe, Aquiles Federal District 1908‒1909 Carabobo 1913Governor Táchira 1909‒10Development 1911‒12

León, Carlos Federal District 1909Governor

Olivares, Régulo Defense 1908‒10 Táchira 1910‒11Ortega Martínez, José María Public Works 1909Rolando, Armando Anzoátegui 1909‒13Tellería, Arístides Bolívar 1909‒11

1912‒14Vargas, Roberto Public Works 1908‒1909 Guárico 1909

Source: Adapted from Appendix A.



groups in their quest to oust Gómez. The oil companies, especially theAmerican ones, were at times suspected of financing various abortive revolu-tions, but their involvement with the exiled political leaders was extremelylimited. Certain oil companies did help the government by providing intel-ligence on political activity at the various oil camps and operational centers.The one important personal and local link between the oil industry and theexiled revolutionaries was through General Antonio Aranguren, the richestman in the country, who held the oil concession operated by the VenezuelanOil Concessions Ltd. (VOC), a Royal Dutch– Shell Group (Shell) sub-sidiary. In addition to being on the board of VOC, Aranguren was a directorof the Venezuelan Eastern Oilfields Ltd. and the Venezuelan ConsolidatedOilfields Ltd. He was also the country’s most successful oil intermediary andnegotiator who, together with Gil Fortoul in 1928, successfully negotiated thetransfer of the national reserves acquired by the Compañía Venezolana dePetróleo, Gómez’s own company, to the Creole Syndicate.14 In the early1920s, Aranguren became a fierce opponent of Gómez, partly financing the1921 Odin/Harrier expedition, the 1924 Angelita expedition, the 1929 Falkeexpedition, and probably the 1931 Superior expedition.

There are books in Spanish that touch on certain topics included in thisstudy, but none offers the comprehensive treatment on exile politics found inthis book. Previous authors of the Gómez dictatorship, such as Brito Figueroa,Rangel, Polanco Alcántara, Betancourt, Fuenmayor, Caballero, Baptista,Brandt, and Siso, have argued that Gómez survived for so long in powerbecause of international support for the regime, his success in building thenational army, and the fierce repression of the opposition.15 The nonrecogni-tion or the threat of nonrecognition was one of the chief means by which theUnited States attempted to discourage revolutionary changes of governmentin the Caribbean after 1909. Although it is true that the United States leftGómez to his own devices after the development of the oil industry in the1920s, the rebels in 1917‒18 almost succeeded in getting the American gov-ernment to withdraw recognition of the Gómez regime, but the entry of theUnited States into World War I in 1917 brought this effort to an end. Gómezwas able to use the 30 percent surtax on imported goods from Curacao andTrinidad, the Dutch and British colonial islands respectively off the coast ofVenezuela, to get the two European countries to keep a close check on theexiles living on those islands. Gómez saw the formation of a modern army asessential in order to defend the gains made by his government, but he en-sured that he controlled the vast majority of the country’s armory by onlyallowing his state presidents a small cache of arms.




The historiography of the period asserts that Gómez rotated his statepresidents periodically so that they could not gain a regional political foot -hold to challenge him. A detailed examination of the time spent in each state(see table 2) by state presidents reveals that out of a total of 102 state presi-dents during the period, only 10 percent were rotated, defined as governingin three or more states. If we broaden the definition to include governing intwo states, the rotation accounts for just over 36 percent. If we look at thenumber of years in office by the state presidents, we find that around a thirdof the state presidents governed in two or more states, accounting for over 65

percent of the total period governed. Of these, a select group of ten governedin three or more states, representing just under 22 percent of the total periodgoverned. What is more revealing from the figures is that twenty-five of thestate presidents governed for periods of six or more years in a single state,accounting for 42 percent of the total period.

Moreover, a number of state presidents spent more than 10 years in onestate. Amador Uzcátegui headed Mérida State for 14 years, León Jurado waspresident of Falcón State for 19.5 years over two periods, José Rafael Luque inMiranda State and José Domínguez in Apure State spent 12 years governingtheir states, and Guillermo Barreto Méndez was president of Cojedes Statefor 11.5 years. Many of the state presidents had long-standing connections withGómez, such as José María García Velasco, Rafael María Velasco Busta-mante, Emilio Fernández, Gumersindo Méndez, Elbano Mibelli, EustoquioGómez, and Pedro María Cárdenas, who were some of the young officerswho accompanied Castro’s invasion of Venezuela on May 23, 1899. Others,such as Félix Galavís, Aquiles Iturbe, León Jurado, and Vincencio Pérez Soto,were part of Gómez’s military campaign against Matos in 1901‒1903.

Introduction — 7

Table 2 Distribution of State Presidents between Single, Double, and MultipleStates, 1909‒35

Number Number of Years in States Governed Presidents % Office %

One 65 63.7 191 35.3Two 27 26.5 231.5 42.8Three + 10 9.8 118.5 21.9

Total 102 100 541 100




At the national level, Gómez surrounded himself, especially at the be-ginning of his rule, with intellectual and prestigious men such as RománCárdenas, José Gil Fortoul, Samuel Dario Maldonado, and Pedro ManuelArcaya. Gómez appointed seventy-four different ministers during his regime,with eight ministers serving six years or more, representing 25 percent of thetotal period. The figure would be higher if we stripped out a number of min-isters at the beginning of the regime who later turned against Gómez. Someof the ministers served for long periods, in particular Pedro Itriago Chacín asforeign affairs minister for almost fourteen years, Carlos Jiménez Rebolledoas defense minister for twelve years, Juancho Gómez as federal district gov-ernor for ten years, and Román Cárdenas as finance minister for ten years.Many of the ministers were also state presidents, and in the case of VictorinoMárquez Bustillos, also provisional president from 1914 to 1922 (see table 3).

The book is divided into three parts: Part I, 1908‒1916, deals with theestablishment of Gómez as a dictator; Part II, 1917‒1928, deals with the con-solidation of power and the internal and external pressure Gómez withstoodto remain in power; and, finally, Part III, 1929‒1935, deals with the largest fil-ibustering expedition mounted against the regime in 1929 and the decliningyears of the regime until Gómez’s death of natural causes while still in poweron December 17, 1935. Appendix A provides a brief biographical note to someof the more important political actors of the Gómez regime and a number oftables that list the names and dates of the ministers and state presidentsduring the regime. It should be noted that, with minor exceptions, all cur-rencies have been converted into US dollars for ease and consistency. Theforeign exchange conversion tables are given in Appendix B, where there isalso a present-day (2003) value multiplier. This allows the reader to arrive ata present-day value for a particular sum at a given date. For instance, to cal-culate the 2003 value of $100 in 1909 all the reader needs to do is multiplythe sum by a factor of 19.5, which is found in the table, to arrive at the valueof $1,950. Finally, to avoid confusion with the various surnames, “Gómez”throughout the book refers to the dictator. For other family members eithertheir nicknames, such as Vicentico for José Vicente Gómez, or their firstnames, such as Eustoquio Gómez, are used. For other families the paternaland maternal surnames are used, so that José Rosario García Bustamante isreferred to as García Bustamante, and José María García Velasco is referredto as García Velasco. Where there are two brothers such as Pedro CésarDomínici and Santos Aníbal Domínici, their first given names together withtheir surnames are used for the sake of clarity.




Table 3 Cabinet Ministers Who Were Also State Presidents

Provisional Name Ministry Period State Period Presidency

Antonio Alamo Development 1922–29 Bolívar 1933–35Sucre 1929–31

Trino Baptista Education 1909–11 Trujillo 1909

Manuel Díaz Rodríguez Foreign Affairs 1914 Nueva Esparta 1925Nueva Esparta 1932–34

Development 1916–17

Santiago Fontiveros Development 1914–15 Trujillo 1915–17Trujillo 1921–25

José María García Velasco Federal District 1929–31 Trujillo 1912–14Governor Zulia 1914–18

Carabobo 1928

Juan Crisóstomo Gómez Federal District 1912–23 Miranda 1911–14Governor

Julio Hidalgo Federal District 1923–24 Aragua 1914–18Governor

Carlos Jiménez Rebolledo Defense 1917–28 Barinas 1909–15

Samuel Darío Maldonado Education 1908–1909 Aragua 1921–23

Victorino Márquez Federal District 1911–12 1915–22Bustillos Governor

Defense 1912–13

Rafael Requena Secretary General 1931–33 Aragua 1929–31

Rafael María Velasco Federal District 1925–28 Aragua 1918–20Bustamante Governor

Finance 1929–30

Federal District 1931–35 Lara 1921–25

Governor




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