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Venezuelans Commemorate Chavez’s 1992 Military Rebellion

Known as "4F", the February 4, 1992 revolt catapulted Hugo Chavez and his clandestine Bolivarian movement into the national limelight, setting the ex-coronel on course to become Venezuela's first elected Afro-indigenous president.
The march went on for miles and miles from the headquarters of Venezuela's public telephone company to Miraflores Palace
The march went on for miles and miles from the headquarters of Venezuela's public telephone company to Miraflores Palace

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched through downtown Caracas on Sunday in commemoration of the 26th anniversary of late President Hugo Chavez’s February 4, 1992 uprising against the center-right neoliberal government of Carlos Andres Perez. 

Known as the “Day of Dignity” or the abbreviation “4F”, the failed revolt catapulted Hugo Chavez and his clandestine Bolivarian movement into the national limelight, setting the ex-coronel on course to become Venezuela’s first elected Afro-indigenous president. 

The day is commonly regarded as the birth of country’s Bolivarian Revolution and has come to symbolize national resistance to US imperialism and its support for Venezuela’s pacted representative democracy, known as the Fourth Republic, which was widely accused of human rights violations and rampant corruption. 

Speaking to a red-clad sea of supporters outside of Miraflores Palace, President Maduro called on Venezuelans to continue the struggle against imperialism and what he termed the “economic war” that he says is being waged to topple his government. 

“February 4th is more future than past and every day should be a [February 4th] against the economic war, imperialism, corruption, and traitors,” he declared. 

Maduro is currently seeking reelection with the backing of the United Socialist Party as well as other allied leftist parties and the march also doubled as a show of strength in support of the incumbent. 

The head of state has pledged an “economic revolution” to overcome Venezuela’s worst economic downturn in decades, which was born in part of the country’s deep dependence on oil extraction. 

Text by Lucas Koerner for Venezuelanalysis.com.