Venezuela's media urged citizens to march against President Hugo Chavez yesterday as a national day of protest paralysed the city and heightened fears of a violent coup.
Radio and television presenters abandoned all pretence at impartiality as messages flashed across the screen. "No going back!" read one slogan, against a background of violent images from the April coup.
Shoppers queued up to stockpile "coup food", with pasta, bread and tinned foods the preferred tonic in the case of prolonged civil unrest.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched though Caracas toward Miraflores Presidential Palace, while hundreds of troops and police formed a ring of security five blocks from the palace backed by scores of barricades. President Chavez ordered troops to install sand bags and barbed wire inside the presidential palace while anti-aircraft batteries guarded against aerial attack.
Venezuela's employer's federation offered a day's salary to workers who joined the march, a historic turnaround in a continent marked by pro-business death squads dedicated to eliminating trade union leaders.
"If one million people march against the president today then he has no choice but to resign," said Mr Manuel Cova, General Secretary of Venezuela's Central Worker's Union, (CTV), an organisation which represents 12 per cent of workers. The CTV openly backed the April coup, joining forces with the powerful Employer's Federation which bitterly oppose Mr Chavez's plans to redistribute wealth and organise the poor.
Opposition leaders agreed to divert the march around government buildings but both sides feared a provocation which would unleash a conflict of incalculable consequences. "One spark and we all go up," said Mr Juan Marquez, a graphic designer, as he marched along the Libertador Avenue, en route to the centre.
President Chavez left Caracas early yesterday morning, inspecting troops in nearby Maracay. The nation's armed forces have been confined to barracks and there are rumours of an assassination attempt against the president.
Church leaders added their voices to the anti-Chavez chorus, blaming the president for bringing the nation to its knees. President Chavez, an army paratrooper who strolled into power in 1998, promising a "peaceful, democratic revolution", has lost allies, his reforms criticised as too little or too much.
President Chavez's ambitious social projects have been stalled due to inefficiency and corruption as inexperienced leaders jumped on the populist bandwagon. His support lies mainly among the extreme poor, many of whom say they will defend him with their lives.
The US government distanced itself once more from Mr Chavez, as Ambassador Charles Shapiro told the media that Venezuela was not a fully democratic nation. "If the system isn't democratic then a coup is viable," said Mr Alberto Garrido, a leading political analyst.