'Reporters Without Borders' Lies
about Venezuela
by Salim Lamrani
www.zcommunications.org/, July
9, 2009
On May 29, 2009, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) published an
open letter to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in which the organization
denounced the government's actions against Globovisión,
a "privately-owned news channel", alleging it was being
"hounded by the government and the administration."
According to the Paris-based organization, Globovisión
was being "targeted by official proceedings that could lead
to it being taken off air for 72 hours" for "quoting
statistics provided by the US Geological Survey" while reporting
on the May 4, 2009 earthquake.1 Venezuelan authorities are accusing
the channel of "violating Article 29 of the Law of Social
Responsibility in Radio and Television (Ley RESORTE), which sanctions
media outlets that 'promote, justify or incite war; promote, justify
or incite disruption of public order. RWB asks: "In what
way does reporting on an earthquake, however poorly, fit within
this definition of an offense?" Presented in this way, the
matter might shock international public opinion. However, contrary
to what RWB asserts, the reality is different and has been carefully
avoided by the French organization for "the defense of press
freedoms."
Globovisión vs democracy
Since 1998, Globovisión has relentlessly opposed the democratic
government of Hugo Chavez. In April of 2002, the broadcast network
actively participated in the coup d'état by Pedro Carmona
Estanga. In any other country in the world, Globovisión
would have been closed and its leaders sentenced to long prison
sentences. But the Supreme Court, controlled at that time by the
opposition, refused to recognize the coup and explained the overthrow
as merely a "power vacuum."
Since then, the channel has multiplied its calls to insurrection.3
In May of 2007, Globovisión encouraged the murder of President
Chavez by manipulating images and sending subliminal messages.
On the program Aló,Ciudadano, Marcel Granier, the director
of another channel that strongly criticizes Chavez, RCTV, was
interviewed while simultaneously displaying images of the attempted
assassination of Pope John Paul II in May 1981. Globovisión
could not explain why it broadcast images of the attempted assassination
during a program dealing with the non-renewal of RCTV's license.
Several semiotic experts were categorical about the incident:
"It urged the murder of the President." In France,
such actions would have resulted in the incarceration of the reporters
as well as the company's owners.
Globovisión's journalists and newscasters also amplified
their defamatory rhetoric towards the government using words like
"dictatorship" and "tyranny" to justify calls
for civic disobedience and acts of violence, something that would
be unimaginable in the West.
The case of the earthquake
At 4:40 am on the morning of May 4, 2009 an earthquake struck
the Venezuelan state of Miranda, followed by three aftershocks
(at 4: 50 am, 6:23 am and 6:24 am), without causing injuries.
At 5:25 am, Interior and Justice Minister Tarek El Aissami announced
that the earthquake had been felt in several locations. "We
are receiving reports of the effects. We are, through Funvisis,
determining the epicenter and magnitude. We want to make clear
that, so far, we have no reports of any material or structural
damage. We want to call for calm. There is an order for an immediate
deployment of patrols to protect people who have fled their houses,"
he said. At 5:44 am, El Aissami gave a second report declaring
that he had met with the President and with Vice-President Ramon
Carrizález, and emphasized that Chavez had ordered the
deployment of the Bolivarian National Guard to guarantee public
security.
Meanwhile, at 5:40 am, Funvisis President Francisco Garcés
announced that two earthquakes had struck the capital, Caracas,
as well as the entire metropolitan area, and requested that the
media make announcements asking the public to remain calm . At
6:05 am, Public Works and Housing Minister Diosdado Cabello indicated
that the metro, the railroad and the airport were all functioning
perfectly. Education Minister Héctor Navarro also emphasized
that schools and universities had not been affected by the earthquake
and were open. Health Minister Jesus Mantilla announced that
the country's hospitals were working normally. At 6:47 am, Telecommunications
and Information Minister Socorro Hernandez informed the public
that the telecommunications system was unaffected. Likewise, Hidrocapital
President Alexander Hitcher explained that the water system was
working normally. At 7 am, Communication and Information Minister
Blanca Ekhout indicated that all government institutions had been
in a state of alert since the beginning of the earthquake. Jacqueline
Faría, the head of government for the federal district,
as well as Rafael Ramirez, Minister of Energy and Petroleum, kept
the public informed about their respective responsibilities.
Nevertheless, at 5:20 am in the morning, in other words barely
40 minutes after the first telluric shock, the director of Globovisión,
Alberto Federico Ravel, hurriedly and personally intervened live
on his TV station - after providing wrong information on the epicenter
of the earthquake based on information coming from...the United
States - to directly attack the government, accusing it of carelessnessly
transmitting a message of fear and terror. "It really distresses
us but we can not find anyone in authority from whom to request
precise information, exact information [...]. All we can do is
be patient, be very patient waiting for our authorities to inform
us, to give us precise information, give us true information of
what is happening at this moment because we do not have anyone
to go to. We called Funvisis but we lost the connection. We have
not been able to communicate with the firefighters. Mayor [Gerald]
Blay is not reporting if there are damages in his region."
At that point in the conversation, the Globovisión newscaster
interrupted his director to remind him of a fact. "Director,
we just had a phone call, again, with the director of Funvisis
and he informed us that he is driving right now and because of
that it has been impossible for him to contact us. Nevertheless,
he reiterated to us that as soon as he stops driving he will contact
us and we will be able to go on air live with him to provide better
information."
Instead of accepting the suggestion as reasonable, Ravel took
advantage of the opportunity to again stigmatize the government
authorities: "At this moment those official sources who provide
so much propaganda ought to be informing the public about what
is happening, rather than us having to go to the U.S. meteorological
service to inform the people that there has been an earthquake."
Tarek El Assaimi denounced "the small-minded attitude and
irresponsible use of the mass media." Ravel, instead of transmitting
a message of calm, used a natural catastrophe for political ends
and "to plant fear among the people," according to Diosdado
Cabello.12 What would happen in France if the director of the
private channel TF1 had attacked the government of Nicholas Sarkozy
with the same virulence forty minutes after the beginning of the
2008 floods, accusing it of having abandoned the victims to their
luck?
RWB disinformation
Of course, RWB carefully criticized the situation, trying to turn
a serious violation of journalistic ethics and a grave lack of
media responsibility into a violation of press freedoms. In reference
to the 2002 coup d'état, the Paris-based organization recognizes
that "Legal proceedings, along with debate about the approach
of some privately owned media during these events, were not without
cause at the time." But RWB ignores the continuous and
illegal actions of Globovisión when it asks: "But
now, what is the accusation based on when more than seven years
have passed since those events?
Lastly, RWB writes to Chávez, "Globovisión
is the sole broadcast media with a voice strongly critical of
your government. Never in other Latin American countries, where
your counterparts have faced a hostile, or considered to be hostile,
media has the state response taken such an extreme form. Never
has the leader's lone voice so dominated almost the entire television
sector." Here the lie is triple: the organization Robert
Ménard presides over tries to make believe that the actions
of Globovisión are something common in Latin America, that
the government of Chavez attacks the channel because it broadcasts
criticisms against him, and that the country's other TV broadcasters
take orders form the Venezuelan leader.
Once again, it is easy to contradict the assertions of RWB. On
the one hand, no Latin American media outlet has called for the
overthrow of an elected president in the way that Globovisión
has done. On the other hand, it is enough to watch the private
stations, which represent more than 80% of Venezuelan media, to
realize that criticism against the government is acerbic and constant.
Finally, any serious analyst knows for certain that no country
on the American continent can boast of having freedom of expression
and press similar to that of Venezuela. Thus, from the RWB perspective,
media outlets must incite insurrection and the overthrow of the
established order, as Globovisión does, in order to not
be considered lackeys of the powers-that-be.
Ever since Hugo Chavez was elected president of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, Reporters Without Borders has taken the
side of the anti-democratic, coup-plotting opposition and has
continued to defend their interests internationally. In fact,
during the coup d'état of April 11, 2002, RWB did not denounce
the leading role played by the private media, which was opposed
to the democratically elected president. Worse still, on April
12, 2002, RWB published an article that rampantly spread the coup-plotter's
version of the events in an attempt to convince international
public opinion that Chavez had resigned:
"Shut in the presidential palace, Hugo Chavez signed his
resignation during the night under pressure from the army. Later
he was taken to Fort Tiuna, the main military base in Caracas,
where he is detained. Immediately afterwards, Pedro Carmona, the
president of Fedecámaras, announced that he would lead
a new government of transition. He affirmed that his appointment
was the result of a `consensus' among Venezuelan civil society
and the Armed Forces command."
RWB is not an organization that defends press freedoms, but rather
it is an obscure entity with a very precise political agenda tasked
with discrediting, by whatever means necessary, those progressive
governments worldwide who are on the United States' black list.
This is not surprising when one learns that RWB is substantially
financed by Washington through the National Endowment for Democracy,
a front organization for the CIA, according to the New York Times.
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