Was Phil Gunson a journalistic advocate of Venezuela's coup in 2002?

A freelance journalist, Phil Gunson has been based in Caracas since 1999.

By Justin Delacour

Latin America News Review

May 21, 2010

In analyzing old NPR coverage of Latin America for my dissertation, I just came across a curious interview from the day after the coup against Venezuela's Chavez government in 2002. The interview is with the prominent freelance correspondent Phil Gunson, who has reported on Latin America for the Miami Herald, The Economist, Newsweek, The Guardian and The Independent.

Gunson first explains that, in shutting down Venezuela's Congress and Supreme Court, the coup leaders were effectively "dispensing with the need to deal with any remaining opposition on the part of Chavez's supporters, and they can pretty much do what they like because, of course, they have the armed forces with them."

Then, immediately after explaining that the coup leaders had just dissolved the Congress and Supreme Court, Gunson had these glowing words to say about coup leader Pedro Carmona:

"He has a reputation as a conciliator, as a man of consensus--if you like, the polar opposite to his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who had a distinct talent for dividing rather than uniting."

(In another interview with NPR that day, Gunson said that Carmona was known "as a man with strong democratic credentials").

Never does it seem to occur to Gunson that to speak of Carmona "as a conciliator, as a man of consensus" immediately after explaining that he had just dissolved the Congress and the Supreme Court is grossly contradictory.

One wonders if Mr. Gunson will ever be called upon to explain the words that he used to describe Carmona at the failed coup leader's moment of infamy.