supporting venezuela's decision to not renew RCTV's license:
This is why we respect CONATEL's (The National Telecommunication Commission of Venezuela) decision to not renew the broadcast license of the private television channel Radio Caracas (RCTV) which was taken in complete accordance with Venezuelan domestic legislation and international standards. Far from being an argument in favour of renewing its license to broadcast, the biased manner in which RCTV used this frequency for 53 years was an invitation to find an alternative use for it. Besides, RCTV still has the option to continue broadcasting on cable and satellite, if it so wishes.
(...) The Venezuelan government’s fair decision not to renew RCTV’s broadcast licence can be explained by what RCTV did during the April 2002 coup d’état in Venezuela –to wit, giving airtime to the coup backers, distorting the facts and ignoring acts which were an attack on freedom of expression. The events RCTV ignored included the violent take-over of the state TV station, thus silencing and disrespecting its journalists (RCTV also ignored the people’s reaction to the massacre in the streets). What the station did during the coup also permits us to understand why, today as yesterday, right-wing forces all over the world are closing ranks with the Venezuelan right.
(...) Democratising the media is something our democracies have yet to do. The information given out abroad about Venezuela and President Chávez clearly demonstrates the manipulation of information that affects all of our peoples. We unflinchingly defend our peoples’ freedom of expression and their right to be informed but we do not confuse this with the freedom of media companies --and the political and economic conglomerates who are their allies-- to manipulate information to suit their interests and aims.
Showing posts with label 2002 coup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2002 coup. Show all posts
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Sunday, May 6, 2007
excellent article on venezuela:
RCTV, together with three other private media corporations (Globovision, Venevision and Televen), which together control some 90% of the TV market, played a leading role in instigating and supporting the 47-hour coup. These private stations, owned by anti-Chavez billionaires and businessmen, have led an unceasing anti-Chavez campaign since the day he was elected. During the coup, they cooperated in suppressing any news that might portray the putsch in a bad light. So, for example, when hundreds of thousands of Chavez supporters took to the streets on April 13 demanding that Chavez be restored, the corporate media stations chose to ignore them and instead broadcast old movies and cartoons.
(...) Another example of blatant falsification from the corporate media stations occurred during the protests in the run-up to the coup. The media channels showed footage of Chavistas shooting from a bridge at unseen targets off the screen, and repeatedly claimed that they were firing at "unarmed opposition demonstrators" (without showing any actual footage of these "unarmed demonstrators", of course). In fact, those protestors on the bridge were themselves being shot at from nearby buildings and there were no "unarmed demonstrators" nearby for them to shoot at.
(...) Could you even imagine a situation whereby CNN or FOX News openly supported an armed putsch against the U.S. government and over four years later were still permitted to broadcast over the public airways, with basically the same people in charge? The very idea is laughable.
(...) The editors of Media Lens, a British-based media watchdog, have detailed at length the ridicule and scorn poured on Chavez by the mainstream press. They point out that the media finds itself unable to mention Chavez without prefixing his name with either "strongman" , "controversial left-wing president" , "extreme left-winger" , "controversial leader" , "outspoken" , "aggressively populist", "left-wing firebrand" , "international revolutionary firebrand" , "maverick" , "virulently anti-American" , etc. etc.
(...) Can you imagine The Guardian or the BBC introducing Tony Blair as "controversial leader Tony Blair", or George Bush as "virulently anti-Venezuelan George Bush"?
(...) For more on the "cartoonisation", ridicule and smearing of Chavez by the mainstream British press (including what John Pilger called "one of the worst, most distorted pieces of journalism I have ever seen"), see here, here, here and here.
(...) [a labor mp:] That was a novel place for Venezuela, because it had previously attracted little interest in terms of its history or politics, other than as the birthplace of Simon Bolivar, although that is fairly important. According to people to whom I spoke at the Foreign Office, Venezuela was never considered an attractive diplomatic posting. The usual take was that Venezuela was an oil-rich country run by a white, Americanised elite, with nearly 70 per cent. of its 24 million people living on the edge of hunger and poverty...
(...) Given Opposition and US claims about Chavez's democratic legitimacy, it is interesting to note that he had faced the electorate eight times in six years by the end of 2004—a record that has been matched nowhere else in Latin America and which none of us would like to match...
(...) The domestic impact of Chavez's politics is clear. After the dramatic rise in oil prices in 2002 following the failed coup, the Venezuelan Government invested more than $3 billion in social policy reforms in 2005. A series of social investment programmes called missions cover such matters as pre-school education, primary education and literacy, secondary education, vocational worker training, primary health care in the most deprived neighbourhoods and a food distribution programme that covers 60 per cent. of the population. It is estimated that just over 1 million people have acquired literacy skills as a result of those programmes. The poorest in that country have access to medical assistance for the first time ever, thanks partly to the 17,000 medics provided by Cuba."
(...) [article begins again] That the U.S. knew about the April 2002 coup weeks in advance and gave it the go-ahead is also deemed unworthy of mention.
(...) e's referring to Chavez' comparison of Bush to Hitler, of course, and not to any of the many examples of similarly overblown Western rhetoric:
RCTV, together with three other private media corporations (Globovision, Venevision and Televen), which together control some 90% of the TV market, played a leading role in instigating and supporting the 47-hour coup. These private stations, owned by anti-Chavez billionaires and businessmen, have led an unceasing anti-Chavez campaign since the day he was elected. During the coup, they cooperated in suppressing any news that might portray the putsch in a bad light. So, for example, when hundreds of thousands of Chavez supporters took to the streets on April 13 demanding that Chavez be restored, the corporate media stations chose to ignore them and instead broadcast old movies and cartoons.
(...) Another example of blatant falsification from the corporate media stations occurred during the protests in the run-up to the coup. The media channels showed footage of Chavistas shooting from a bridge at unseen targets off the screen, and repeatedly claimed that they were firing at "unarmed opposition demonstrators" (without showing any actual footage of these "unarmed demonstrators", of course). In fact, those protestors on the bridge were themselves being shot at from nearby buildings and there were no "unarmed demonstrators" nearby for them to shoot at.
(...) Could you even imagine a situation whereby CNN or FOX News openly supported an armed putsch against the U.S. government and over four years later were still permitted to broadcast over the public airways, with basically the same people in charge? The very idea is laughable.
(...) The editors of Media Lens, a British-based media watchdog, have detailed at length the ridicule and scorn poured on Chavez by the mainstream press. They point out that the media finds itself unable to mention Chavez without prefixing his name with either "strongman" , "controversial left-wing president" , "extreme left-winger" , "controversial leader" , "outspoken" , "aggressively populist", "left-wing firebrand" , "international revolutionary firebrand" , "maverick" , "virulently anti-American" , etc. etc.
(...) Can you imagine The Guardian or the BBC introducing Tony Blair as "controversial leader Tony Blair", or George Bush as "virulently anti-Venezuelan George Bush"?
(...) For more on the "cartoonisation", ridicule and smearing of Chavez by the mainstream British press (including what John Pilger called "one of the worst, most distorted pieces of journalism I have ever seen"), see here, here, here and here.
(...) [a labor mp:] That was a novel place for Venezuela, because it had previously attracted little interest in terms of its history or politics, other than as the birthplace of Simon Bolivar, although that is fairly important. According to people to whom I spoke at the Foreign Office, Venezuela was never considered an attractive diplomatic posting. The usual take was that Venezuela was an oil-rich country run by a white, Americanised elite, with nearly 70 per cent. of its 24 million people living on the edge of hunger and poverty...
(...) Given Opposition and US claims about Chavez's democratic legitimacy, it is interesting to note that he had faced the electorate eight times in six years by the end of 2004—a record that has been matched nowhere else in Latin America and which none of us would like to match...
(...) The domestic impact of Chavez's politics is clear. After the dramatic rise in oil prices in 2002 following the failed coup, the Venezuelan Government invested more than $3 billion in social policy reforms in 2005. A series of social investment programmes called missions cover such matters as pre-school education, primary education and literacy, secondary education, vocational worker training, primary health care in the most deprived neighbourhoods and a food distribution programme that covers 60 per cent. of the population. It is estimated that just over 1 million people have acquired literacy skills as a result of those programmes. The poorest in that country have access to medical assistance for the first time ever, thanks partly to the 17,000 medics provided by Cuba."
(...) [article begins again] That the U.S. knew about the April 2002 coup weeks in advance and gave it the go-ahead is also deemed unworthy of mention.
(...) e's referring to Chavez' comparison of Bush to Hitler, of course, and not to any of the many examples of similarly overblown Western rhetoric:
Rumsfeld likens Venezuela’s Chavez to Hitler
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11159503/
Robertson apologizes for assassination call
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/robertson.chavez/
Germany likens Ahmadinejad to Hitler
http://archive.gulfnews.com/indepth/irancrisis/more_stories/10016391.html
Newt Gingrich: Iran’s President is the New Hitler
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/25/100038.shtml
Israel should not shy away from threatening to kill Iran's Ahmadinejad
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3390265,00.html
Sen. Voinovich: Ahmadinejad 'Hitler-like'
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/9/19/135836.shtml
Ahmadinejad – Another Hitler
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/20345.html
(...) To give just one example of the brutality inflicted upon the people of Nicaragua by the U.S.-backed Contra death squads, an American priest living in Nicaragua described 'the Contras going into a town, shooting it up, killing people, taking a fourteen-year-old girl, raping her, slitting her throat, cutting her head off and putting it on a pole to intimidate the rest of the population.'Olmert compares Ahmadinejad to Hitler
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3245121,00.html
Friday, May 4, 2007
world bank, imf in latin america:
Other countries may follow. President Rafael Correa of Ecuador announced last week that it was kicking the World Bank's representative out of the country. It was an unprecedented action, which President Correa punctuated by stating that "we will not stand for extortion by this international bureaucracy." In 2005, the World Bank withheld a previously approved $100 million loan to Ecuador to try to force the government to use windfall oil revenues for debt repayment, rather than the government's choice of social spending.
(...) Over the last 25 years Latin America has had its worst long-term economic growth performance in more than a century.
(...) On April 12, 2002, just hours after Venezuela's democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup, the IMF stated publicly that it was "ready to assist the new administration [of Pedro Carmona] in whatever manner they find suitable." This instantaneous show of financial support for a newly installed dictatorship - one which immediately dissolved the country's constitution, general assembly, and Supreme Court - was unprecedented in the IMF's history. Typically the IMF does not react so quickly, even to an elected government. It is no wonder that this move was seen in Venezuela and elsewhere as an attempt by the IMF to support the coup itself.
(...) The scandal over Paul Wolfowitz's leadership at the World Bank, which is about to topple the Bank's most unwanted president ever, is just the tip of the iceberg. Last month the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office stated that since 1999, nearly three-quarters of aid to the poor countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are not being spent. Rather, at the IMF's request, it is being used to pay off debt and accumulate reserves. This is a terrible thing to do to some of the poorest countries in the world, who desperately need to spend this money on such pressing needs as the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
(...) Whether this will spur reform that can actually change the colonial relationship that these institutions maintain with their borrowers remains to be seen. More likely, they will simply continue to become less relevant to the developing world, as has happened drastically over the last decade.
Other countries may follow. President Rafael Correa of Ecuador announced last week that it was kicking the World Bank's representative out of the country. It was an unprecedented action, which President Correa punctuated by stating that "we will not stand for extortion by this international bureaucracy." In 2005, the World Bank withheld a previously approved $100 million loan to Ecuador to try to force the government to use windfall oil revenues for debt repayment, rather than the government's choice of social spending.
(...) Over the last 25 years Latin America has had its worst long-term economic growth performance in more than a century.
(...) On April 12, 2002, just hours after Venezuela's democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup, the IMF stated publicly that it was "ready to assist the new administration [of Pedro Carmona] in whatever manner they find suitable." This instantaneous show of financial support for a newly installed dictatorship - one which immediately dissolved the country's constitution, general assembly, and Supreme Court - was unprecedented in the IMF's history. Typically the IMF does not react so quickly, even to an elected government. It is no wonder that this move was seen in Venezuela and elsewhere as an attempt by the IMF to support the coup itself.
(...) The scandal over Paul Wolfowitz's leadership at the World Bank, which is about to topple the Bank's most unwanted president ever, is just the tip of the iceberg. Last month the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office stated that since 1999, nearly three-quarters of aid to the poor countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are not being spent. Rather, at the IMF's request, it is being used to pay off debt and accumulate reserves. This is a terrible thing to do to some of the poorest countries in the world, who desperately need to spend this money on such pressing needs as the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
(...) Whether this will spur reform that can actually change the colonial relationship that these institutions maintain with their borrowers remains to be seen. More likely, they will simply continue to become less relevant to the developing world, as has happened drastically over the last decade.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
a very detailed account of the venezuelan coup in 2002 (wilpert):
The coup showed just popular Chavez really was and how determined his supporters were to prevent his overthrow. They went onto the streets, at great personal risk (over 60 people were killed and hundreds were wounded by the police in the demonstrations that inspired the military to bring Chavez back to power), to demand their president’s return to office.
(...) Fourth, and perhaps most importantly for the future evolution of the Venezuelan conflict, the coup was the third nail in the political coffin of the country’s old elite. The first such nail was Chavez’s election in 1998, which brought an explicitly anti-establishment figure into Venezuela’s presidency for the first time in forty years. The second nail was the passage of the 1999 constitution and Chavez’s confirmation as President, in 2000, which democratically swept the country’s old elite almost completely out of political power, such as the governorships, the Supreme Court, and the National Assembly. With the third nail, the failure of the 2002 coup, the opposition lost a base of power in the military and a significant amount of good will in the international community. The next three nails, the failed 2002-2003 oil industry shutdown, the August 2004 recall referendum, and the December 2006 presidential election, only further solidified the old elite’s demise as a political force in Venezuela.
The coup showed just popular Chavez really was and how determined his supporters were to prevent his overthrow. They went onto the streets, at great personal risk (over 60 people were killed and hundreds were wounded by the police in the demonstrations that inspired the military to bring Chavez back to power), to demand their president’s return to office.
(...) Fourth, and perhaps most importantly for the future evolution of the Venezuelan conflict, the coup was the third nail in the political coffin of the country’s old elite. The first such nail was Chavez’s election in 1998, which brought an explicitly anti-establishment figure into Venezuela’s presidency for the first time in forty years. The second nail was the passage of the 1999 constitution and Chavez’s confirmation as President, in 2000, which democratically swept the country’s old elite almost completely out of political power, such as the governorships, the Supreme Court, and the National Assembly. With the third nail, the failure of the 2002 coup, the opposition lost a base of power in the military and a significant amount of good will in the international community. The next three nails, the failed 2002-2003 oil industry shutdown, the August 2004 recall referendum, and the December 2006 presidential election, only further solidified the old elite’s demise as a political force in Venezuela.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
on 'balance' in the mainstream media, describing 2002 venezuela coup:
Chavez opponents accused government loyalists of firing on the marchers, while the president's backers blamed police and anti-Chavez snipers of firing on both pro- and anti-government demonstrators.
Chavez opponents accused government loyalists of firing on the marchers, while the president's backers blamed police and anti-Chavez snipers of firing on both pro- and anti-government demonstrators.
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