{"article":{"id":18424,"heading":"Venezuela's press power abuse","author":"see below","created":"2002-08-20 02:47:59","modified":"2013-11-10 23:45:30","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 06:45:30","article":"

Subject: Venezuela's press power

(This is an outstanding and well-documented

analysis of the role that the private corporate

capitalist media played in orchestrating the

April 2002 coup against the democratically-

elected Venezuelan government which is led

by Hugo Chavez.

(When you hear about the lack of a so-called

\"free press\" in Venezuela, this essay gives an

excellent example of what THEY mean when

they talk about wanting a \"free press\" in Cuba.

They mean the freedoom to do things like this.

(This essay is so important that it's been put

up in formatted version at the FILES section

under the title: \"Venezuela's Press Power\"

<http:\/\/groups.yahoo.com\/group\/CubaNews\/files\/<\/a>>http:\/\/groups.yahoo.com\/group\/CubaNews\/files\/<\/a>

)

===================================

HOW HATE MEDIA INCITED

THE COUP AGAINST THE PRESIDENT

Venezuela's press power

------------------------------------------------------------

Never even in Latin American history has the media been

so

directly involved in a political coup. Venezuela's 'hate

media' controls 95% of the airwaves and has a

near-monopoly

over newsprint, and it played a major part in the failed

attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chávez, in

April.

Although tensions in the country could easily spill into

civil war, the media is still directly encouraging

dissident

elements to overthrow the democratically elected

president -

if necessary by force.

by MAURICE LEMOINE

---------------------------------------------------------



\"We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have

the

opportunity, let me congratulate you.\" In Caracas, on 11

April 2002, just a few hours before the temporary

overthrow

of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, Vice-Admiral

Victor

Ramírez Pérez congratulated journalist Ibéyiste Pacheco

live

on Venevision television. Twenty minutes earlier, when

Pacheco had begun to interview a group of rebel

officers,

she could not resist admitting, conspiratorially, that

she

had long had a special relationship with them.

At the same time, in a live interview from Madrid,

another

journalist, Patricia Poleo, also seemed well informed

about

the likely future development of \"spontaneous events\".

She

announced on the Spanish channel TVE: \"I believe the

next

president is going to be Pedro Carmona.\" Chávez, holed

up in

the presidential palace, was still refusing to step

down.

After Chávez came to power in 1998, the five main

privately

owned channels - Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión

(RCTV), Globovisión and CMT - and nine of the 10 major

national newspapers, including El Universal, El

Nacional,

Tal Cual, El Impulso, El Nuevo País, and El Mundo, have

taken over the role of the traditional political

parties,

which were damaged by the president's electoral

victories.

Their monopoly on information has put them in a strong

position. They give the opposition support, only rarely

reporting government statements and never mentioning its

large majority, despite that majority's confirmation at

the

ballot box. They have always described the working class

districts as a red zone inhabited by dangerous classes

of

ignorant people and delinquents. No doubt considering

them

unphotogenic, they ignore working class leaders and

organisations.

Their investigations, interviews and commentaries all

pursue

the same objective: to undermine the legitimacy of the

government and to destroy the president's popular

support.

\"In aesthetic terms, this revolutionary government is a

cesspit,\" was the delicate phrase used by the evening

paper

Tal Cual. Its editor, Teodoro Petkoff, is a keen

opponent of

Chávez. Petkoff is a former Marxist guerrilla who became

a

neo-liberal and a pro-privatisation minister in the

government of rightwing president Rafael Caldera. The

Chávez

government is not, of course, above criticism. It makes

mistakes, and the civilian and military personnel who

surround it are tainted by corruption. But the

government

was democratically elected and still has the backing of

the

majority. It can also be credited with successes,

nationally

and internationally.

When it comes to discrediting Chávez, anything goes.

There

was a scandal in Caracas in March when a faked interview

with Ignacio Ramonet, the director of Le Monde

diplomatique,

was circulated. In a statement alleged to have been made

to

Emiliano Payares Gúzman, a Mexican researcher at

Princeton

University, Ramonet was supposed to have said: \"Chávez

lacks

a respectable intellectual corpus, and that is why his

ship

is always off course. When he won the elections, it

seemed

to me that he had something about him. But populism won

out,

as so often happens in such cases. I have seen videos in

which he sings boleros while setting out his economic

programme, if indeed he has one. I think those true and

verifiable facts speak for themselves, I don't need to

voice

my opinion of somebody like that.\"



Venezuela Analítica (1) immediately posted the

\"statement\"

on the web, without checking on its authenticity, and it

then became headline news in El Nacional. The paper was

delighted to give credence to the idea of Chávez being

isolated internationally, and made no attempt to check

with

the supposed interviewee. When Ramonet denied having

made

the statement, El Nacional rounded on the hoaxer (2)

and,

less overtly, without even apologising, on Ramonet.

The \"information\" that has been published has verged on

the

surreal. For example, \"sources from the intelligence

services have uncovered agreements entered into with

elements linked to Hezbollah on the Venezuelan island of

Margarita, who are controlled by the Iranian embassy.

You

will remember that when Chávez was campaigning, a

certain

Moukhdad was extremely generous. That debt had to be

repaid,

and now Iran is to make Venezuela an operational base,

in

exchange for training Venezuelans in Iranian

organisations

for the defence of the Islamic Revolution. Terrorism is

in

our midst\" (3).

On 21 March El Nacional ran the headline: \"Hugo Chávez

admits to being the head of a criminal network.\" Next

day

Tal Cual referred to \"the feeling of nausea provoked by

the

aggressive words he uses to try to frighten

Venezuelans\".

The president was insulted, compared with Idi Amin,

Mussolini or Hitler, called a fascist, dictator or

tyrant,

and subjected to a spate of attacks. In any other

country

actions would have been brought for libel. \"An ongoing

and

disrespectful attack,\" was how the minister of trade,

Adina

Bastidas, put it. \"They accuse me of funding the

planting of

bombs in the streets. And I cannot defend myself. If you

attack them, they complain to the United States!\"

Chávez responded to this media bombardment, sometimes

using

strong language, especially during his weekly broadcast

Aló

presidente! on the only state-controlled television

channel.

But his regime in no way resembles a dictatorship, and

his

diatribes have not been followed by measures to control

the

flow of information. Since Chávez took office, not a

single

journalist has been imprisoned, and the government has

not

shut down any media. Yet it is accused of \"flouting

freedom

of information\" and of \"attacking social communicators\".



'Tell the truth'

On 7 January a group of the president's supporters

besieged

the offices of El Nacional chanting hostile slogans.

Shouting \"tell the truth!\", they hurled objects at the

building. The number of attacks on journalists is

increasing, according to Carlos Correa, general

coordinator

of Provea (4), an organisation for the defence of human

rights, and they are being criminalised. \"Although there

have been no deaths, the situation is serious. Since the

media bosses decided to oppose Chávez politically, it is

no

longer possible to have a reasonable discussion about

the

country's problems. But to claim there is no freedom of

expression is outrageous.\"

\"You read the newspapers, you watch the TV news and you

have the impression that the country is gripped by

conflict,\"

says Jesuit Father Francisco José Virtuoso sadly.

\"Naturally

that all adds to the tension.\" The popular majority is

striking back in this war in which it is the target, no

longer prepared to tolerate journalists who consider

themselves above the law or the anti-democratic control

of

information.

Incidents are on the increase. The official agency

Venpres

described three media personalities as

\"narcojournalists\";

the journalists in question - Ibéyise Pacheco (editor of

Así

es la noticia, a member of the El Nacional group),

Patricia

Poleo and television presenter José Domingo Blanco

(Globovisión) - decided to make capital out of the

accusations. After condemning their \"persecution\" in

front

of the cameras at the US embassy, they left for

Washington,

where they got a heroic welcome. The Venpres article,

signed

by a J Valeverde (5), was repudiated by President Chávez

and

condemned by the defence minister, José Vicente Rangel;

it

led to the censure and resignation of the director of

Venpres, Oscar Navas. But that did not halt a campaign,

in

Venezuela and abroad, against a government accused of

\"muzzling the media\".

The media has proved adept at using the self-fulfilling

prophecy - both in relation to government supporters and

the

government. By protesting about infringements of

liberty,

when under no threat, and using lies and manipulation,

the

media provoked a reaction, sometimes inciting its

victims to

do wrong. Those misdeeds were then portrayed as the

cause

(and not the consequence) of the media's unhappy

relationship with the government and much of the

population.

We must condemn the attacks by the president's

supporters

on television units or journalists. But how could those

supporters tolerate always being described as \"Taliban\"

or

as \"villains\"? We should protest when journalists, even

if

they are aggressive and completely identified with the

oligarchy, are described as \"narcojournalists\". But

those

journalists had themselves bombarded the president with

false accusations and portrayed him as the accomplice of

Colombian \"narcoguerrillas\".

Led by men of influence and top journalists, the media

is

taking over from other players in the process of

destabilisation: Pedro Carmona's employers' association

(Fedecámaras), Carlos Ortega's Confederation of

Venezuelan

Workers, dissident members of the military, the

technocrats

of the national oil company (PDVSA) and a few discreet

US

officials (6). United in the Venezuelan Press Bloc

(BPV),

the media finally showed its hand when it joined in the

first general strike on 10 December 2001.



Scaremongers

\"Free\" opinions published in print -\"Time for a change

of

government\" or \"Time to overthrow this government\" (7) -

were reinforced by dubious manipulation of the broadcast

media. On 5 April two TV presenters gave their own

commentary on a strike of petrol stations that was

linked to

the PDVSA conflict: \"Have you remembered to fill up?

Hurry,

because tomorrow there won't be a drop left in the

country.\"

By encouraging motorists to rush out to buy petrol, they

provoked unnecessary chaos, though the strike was only

partial and the stations were still receiving supplies.

On 7 April Ortega and Carmona announced that there was

to be

a general strike. The editor of El Nacional, Miguel

Enrique

Otero, stood shoulder to shoulder with them and spoke on

behalf of the press: \"We are all involved in this

struggle

in defence of the right to information.\" Two days later

the

BPV, which had just been visited by the new US

ambassador,

Charles Shapiro, decided to back the strike. From then

on

the television companies broadcast live from the

headquarters of the PDVSA-Chuao, the designated assembly

point for opposition demonstrations.

\"Take to the streets\" thundered El Nacional on 10 April

(in

an unattributed editorial). \"Ni un paso atrás! (not one

step

backwards)\" responded the hoardings on Globovisión.

Another

TV company broadcast: \"Venezuelans, take to the streets

on

Thursday 11 April at 10am. Bring your flags. For freedom

and

democracy. Venezuela will not surrender. No one will

defeat

us.\" The call to overthrow the head of state became so

obvious that the government applied Article 192 of the

telecommunications law. More than 30 times -for all

television and radio channels - it requisitioned 15-20

minutes' air time to broadcast its views. But the

broadcasters divided the screen in two and continued to

urge

rebellion.

On 11 April military and civilian press conferences

calling

for the president's resignation marked the next phase.

On

RCTV, Ortega called on the opposition to march on

Miraflores

(the presidential palace). At about 4pm, when the scale

of

the conspiracy was apparent, the authorities gave the

order

to block the frequencies used by the private channels.

Globovisión, CMT and Televen went off air for a few

moments

before resuming their broadcasts using satellite or

cable.

All screens broadcast an image that had been edited to

show

armed counter-demonstrators firing on \"the crowd of

peaceful

demonstrators\". As a result the Bolivarian Circles, the

social organisation of Chávez supporters, were blamed

for

deaths and injuries (8).

The conspirators, including Carmona, met at the offices

of

Venevisión. They stayed until 2am to prepare \"the next

stage\", along with Rafael Poleo (owner of El Nuevo Pais)

and

Gustavo Cisneros, a key figure in the coup. Cisneros, a

multimillionaire of Cuban origin and the owner of

Venevisión, runs a media empire - Organización Diego

Cisneros. It has 70 outlets in 39 countries (9).

Cisneros is

a friend of George Bush senior: they play golf together

and

in 2001 the former US president holidayed in Cisneros's

Venezuelan property. Both are keen on the privatisation

of

the PDVSA (10). Otto Reich, US assistant secretary of

state

for Interamerican affairs, admits to having spoken with

Cisneros that night (11).

At 4am on 12 April, to avoid bloodshed, Chávez allowed

himself to be arrested and taken to the distant island

of

Orchila. Without presenting any document signed by

Chávez to

confirm the news, the media chorused his \"resignation\".

The

boss of the bosses, Carmona, proclaimed himself

president

and dissolved all of the constituent, legitimate and

democratic bodies. Venezolana de Televisión, the only

means

of communication available to the government, was the

first

broadcaster forced to shut down when Carmona took power

(12).



Ready for the coup

The press greeted the coup (though they censored any use

of

that word) with undisguised enthusiasm. And for good

reason.

Interviewing Admiral Carlos Molina Tamayo and Victor

Manuel

García, director of statistical institute Ceca, at

6.45am,

presenter Napoleón Bravo boasted that he had allowed his

own

house to be used to record a call to rebellion by

General

González González. García described his role at the

dissident military centre of operations at Fort Tiuna:

\"We

were short of communications facilities, and I have to

thank

the press for their solidarity and cooperation in

helping us

to establish communications with the outside world and

pass

on the instructions that General González González gave

me.\"

\"One step forward\" was the triumphant headline in El

Universal. Journalist Rafael Poleo, who had filed the

account of the first meeting of the rebel leaders, took

responsibility (with others) for the document setting up

the

new government. During the afternoon \"President\" Carmona

offered Poleo's daughter, Patricia, the post of head of

the

central information bureau. The decree establishing a

dictatorship was countersigned by the employers, the

church

and the representatives of a pseudo \"civil society\", and

also by Miguel Angel Martínez, on behalf of the media.

Daniel Romero, private secretary of the former

social-democrat president Carlos Andrés Pérez, and an

employee of the Cisneros group, read it out.

The desire for revenge provoked repression. The interior

minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, and a member of

parliament, Tarek William Saab, were arrested, and

heckled

and manhandled by a crowd. RCTV triggered a manhunt by

publishing a list of the most wanted individuals and

broadcast violent searches live, aping the hectic pace

of US

news broadcasts. The live broadcast on all channels of

attorney general Isias Rodríguez's press conference was

suddenly taken off air after only five minutes when he

talked about the excesses of the \"provisional

government\"

and condemned the \"coup\".

On 13 April the Chávez supporters were unleashed, and

officers loyal to him retook control. But the only way

Venezuelans could get information was through CNN

broadcasts

in Spanish - available only on cable, or on the internet

sites of the Madrid daily El País and the BBC in London.

Announcing the rebellion by the 42nd parachute division

in

Maracay, CNN expressed amazement that the press were

saying

nothing. The freedom of information that had been

clamoured

for had been replaced by silence. Screens were filled

with

action films, cookery programmes, cartoons and baseball

games from the major US leagues, interspersed only with

repeats of General Lucas Rincón's announcement of the

\"resignation\" of Chávez.

Thousands logged on to the internet and got on their

mobile

phones, but only the alternative press was able to beat

the

blackout. Popular newspapers, television and radio began

life in the poor districts, and were an important source

of

communication and information. Short on experience, they

were the first targets of the \"democratic transition\".

According to Thierry Deronne, the presenter of

Teletambores,

Chávez had never asked them to broadcast his speeches.

But the anti-Chávez powers did not hesitate long after

their

coup before arresting editorial staff and seizing

equipment,

ensuring that the only way the people could find out

what

was really happening was via the opposition press. In

Caracas, Radio Perola, TV Caricuao, Radio Catia Libre

and

Catia TV were searched and personnel subjected to

violence

and detention.

In the late afternoon of 13 April, crowds gathered in

front

of RCTV (then Venevisión, Globovisión, Televen and CMT,

as

well as the offices of El Universal and El Nacional),

throwing stones and compelling journalists to broadcast

a

message calling for \"their\" president to be restored. It

was

an intolerable attack on the press; terrified

journalists

broadcast an appeal for help on air - conveniently

forgetting that they were supposed to be on the rebel

side.

\"We too are part of the people; we too are Venezuelans

and

we are doing our duty. It is not possible that the

supporters of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez [no mention

that he was head of state] should consider us their

enemies.\"

It was 20 hours before the state channel Venezolana de

Televisión came back on the air with the help of

militants

from the community media and from soldiers from the

presidential guard. The silence was broken and

Venezuelans

then found out that the situation was changing. Except

for

Ultimas Noticias, no newspaper was published next day to

announce the president's return. The private television

channels broadcast no bulletins. Globovisión alone

rebroadcast the information that had been transmitted by

the

international agencies (13).

Although the restoration of democratic normality did not

result in media repression, the media continues play

victim.

It gives priority to the \"coup heroes\", speaks of a

\"power

vacuum\" and calls for the resignation of Chávez -

described

as a \"murderer\". Openly called the \"hate media\", it

claims

to be the \"coup media\".



------------------------------------------------------------

(1) Seze on www.analitica.com.

(2) Gúzman claimed to have done it to show just how

unreliable the Venezuelan press was.

(3) \"Entrelíneas\", El Nacional, 15 March 2002.

(4) Programa Venezolano de Educación-Acción en derechos

humanos.

(5) It was later discovered that this was the pseudonym

of

an unsavoury character called Rafael Kries.

(6) See \"Venezuela: a coup countered\", Le Monde

diplomatique

English edition, May 2002.

(7) \"Overthrow the government\", El Universal, 20 March

2002.

(8) See Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, May

2002,

and the photographs posted on our website.

(9) Including: Univisión (80% of broadcasts in Spanish

in

the United States), Canal 13, Chilevisión, DirectTV

Latin

America, Galavisión, Playboy TV Latin America, Playboy

TV

International, Uniseries, Vale TV, Via Digital, AOL

Latin

America.

(10) The former would like to see it in the hands of a

US

company close to his interests, and the latter has his

eye

on Citgo, the American subsidiary of PDVSA.

(11) Newsweek, Paris, 22 April 2002.

(12) The same applies to Radio Nacional de Venezuela and

the

official news agency Venpres.

(13) Some journalists have resigned in disgust, like

André

Izarra, of RCTV where the management has imposed a ban

on

pro-Chávez reporting.

Translated by Julie Stoker



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