We Should Back Chávez
It’s Not Too Late For Britain To Stand Against The Washington Consensus On Latin America
Neoconservative forces, via compliant media outlets and Christian right groupings within the European parliament, are preparing their latest attack on Hugo Chávez and the government of Venezuela. The latest focus of the campaign is the decision of Venezuela’s broadcasting authorities not to renew the licence of the private television channel RCTV. The anti-Chávez apparatus once again presents a test for Foreign Office ministers.
Washington’s outriders characterise the decision as an affront to freedom of speech, yet the facts speak in louder tones. Over 80% of Venezuelan television and radio outlets are privately owned; this excludes a number of cable and satellite television networks that are widely available. Of this 80%, significant sections are owned by corporate groups. According to a recent New York Times editorial, this has led to a situation in which “even the best news outlets tend to be openly ideological…so the owners’ views can permeate reporting”.
Almost all Venezuelan newspapers remain in private hands. The press is free to report, and express opinions, without government interference. Most do so with considerable brio on a daily basis. No media outlet has encountered licensing problems for the expression of political views. No journalist has been imprisoned or punished for report or comment.
In RCTV’s case, the broadcaster failed to meet basic public-interest standards. The criterion for this assessment is similar to that used by the US Federal Communications Commission. RCTV will be free to broadcast via cable and satellite, which are available across the country.
In the UK, if Channel 4 aided an attempted coup against the government that resulted in civil unrest and even death, would anyone be supporting the renewal of its licence? RCTV has lost its licence because its wealthy owners slanted news coverage to provide support to the April 2002 coup against Chávez and the elected government. This will not be news to those who gathered in parliament last week to view John Pilger’s excellent documentary The War on Democracy, which shows footage of RCTV involvement.
As the coup failed and Venezuelans questioned Chávez’s “resignation”, RCTV prohibited correspondents from airing these developments.
So what hope that our representatives in the EU might withstand rightwing pressure and argue against a discriminatory move against Venezuela at a meeting in Strasbourg next week? If the Foreign Office’s public strategy document Latin America to 2020 is anything to go by, not very much.
Lord Triesman, the document’s main author and a Foreign Office minister, outlines an adherence to free-market liberalism and singularly defined democracy as the prerequisites for UK engagement in Latin America. The document shows our government remains committed to the neoliberal model as a means of tackling the highest levels of social inequality in the world. However, anyone interested in nations such as Venezuela or Bolivia can see that the “Washington consensus” trade and aid packages have failed the most desperate people of those nations.
In the document, many Latin American leaders are named and congratulated, yet Chávez receives no such recognition. The Foreign Office appears to ignore the reasons for the popularity of Chávez, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador: the failure of neoliberal policies imposed by Washington and endorsed by the EU.
It is not too late for a Labour government to engage with those who wish to achieve justice for their peoples. Events in Strasbourg next week provide an opportunity for the UK government to show reason and goodwill.
Colin Burgon is Labour MP for Elmet and chair of Labour Friends of Venezuela burgonc@parliament.uk
© 2007 The Guardian
Chavez is labeled as a threat to democracy by the American government who will use its media to spin a negative slant to anything that he does. Same as the US had done to Castro for the past decades. I just hope Chavez can avoid assassination as well as Castro has.
Hoa binh
“The fact is … that when totalitarian nations like China and Saudi Arabia play ball with U.S. (and British) business interests, we like them just fine. But when Venezuela’s freely elected president threatens powerful corporate interests, the Bush administration treats him as an enemy.”
Robert Scheer
Chavez represents the symbol for everything global corporate capitalism without conscience is. And to authoritarians, no other model is acceptable. Their media cheerleaders can hang every detestable castigation on the man and leave him without any means to defend his policies. When the truth gets out, people generally do get it… I, too, hope he can continue to evade US attempts to bleep him out. Presently US forces are rather bogged down elsewhere.
I apologize to those who read all the articles on commondreams, but I want to reach as many people as I can. This information has me completely freaked out.
A Presidential Directive was signed by President Bush on May 9th giving him unconstrained powers in case of a national emergency. In the case of a national emergency (terrorist attack), I don’t want that psychopath in charge of anything. How can he get away with this? It’s terrifying!!!
worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55825
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
President Bush has signed a directive granting extraordinary powers to the office of the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.
The “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
” was
signed May 9, notes Jerome R. Corsi in a WND column
.
It was issued with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive.
The directive establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for “National Essential Functions” of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments,
as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president’s directives in the event of a national emergency.
“Catastrophic emergency” is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage,
or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
It says the president can assume the power to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.
The directive says the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, currently Frances Fragos Townsend
, would be designated as the national continuity coordinator.
Corsi says the directive makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created for the national continuity coordinator with the National Emergency Act
,
which requires that such proclamation “shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register.”
A Congressional Research Service study notes the National Emergency Act sets up Congress as a balance empowered to “modify, rescind, or render dormant” such emergency authority if Congress believes the president has acted
inappropriately.
But the new directive appears to supersede the National Emergency Act by creating the new position of national continuity coordinator without any specific act of Congress authorizing the position, Corsi says.
The directive also makes no reference to Congress and its language appears to negate any requirement that the president submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists.
It suggests instead that the powers of the directive can be implemented without any congressional approval or oversight.
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke affirmed to Corsi the Homeland Security Department would implement the requirements of the order under
Townsend’s direction.
The White House declined to comment on the directive.
Got the message cosmos.
“In the UK, if Channel 4 aided an attempted coup against the government that resulted in civil unrest and even death, would anyone be supporting the renewal of its licence?”
And if, in the US, Fox News helped Bush steal an election, and cheer led the nation into an illegal war without end that killed hundreds of thousands and bankrupted our country, would anyone be supporting the renewal of its licence? Hmmmmm….
Of course everyone should be supporting Chavez!
His is the ONLY ethical game in town.
Hi cosmos….I copied your post and forwarded it to my email contacts. Yeah, one can see all the little steps being laid down to propel us into what may be oblivion. If this step is not specifically for GWB, then for the next “selected” or manipulated president we get.
cosmos, (et al)
yes, the nutbar wants to be a dictator. You guys (Americans) need to impeach him, now, if not yesterday.
Please, do it. There are movements happening all over America; you can learn how to do it from those already working on it.
Long live Chavez.
Excellent article. Too bad the U.S. does not have reporters such as this one. U.S. talks about freedom of the press, while trying to stop Michael Moore from telling us about the sick society USA. VENEZUELA President Hugo Chavez is to be congraluated for taking on stations that believe they own the airways. Would that a few hundred T.V stations in the U.S. rceive the same fate. We would not lose anything if ABC,NBC,CBS and Fox Network would go of the air tomorrow. We would, I believe, gain a great deal.
I’m surprised that the readers of commonDreams support Shutting down an opposition TV channel, apparently a popular one, that all its ‘crime’ was - apposing the President.
Free media, and critical thinking, are the keys to democracy.
Chavez’s actions against freedom of speech remind me of dark chapters in human history.
vets is right. Chavez should not have shut down the station. He should have had put all the perpetrators of the coup on trail for treason, including all the stations and the people behind it that were involved.
Don’t forget the genocide in Rwanda, where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not give amnesty to the private radio station operators such as Radio Machete that incited the Hutus to kill all the Tutsis. Hate journalists were still convicted of genocide and sent to jail.