Media under attack in Latin America / LJWorld.com

Archive for Monday, June 15, 2009

By Andres Oppenheimer

June 15, 2009

Here’s the most immediate threat to democracy in the Americas: a concerted move by authoritarian leaders to silence independent media throughout the region.

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, a disciple of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said that when he takes over as president of the 12-nation Union of South American Nations in July he will propose creation of a regional body to defend governments against critics in the media.

I’m not kidding. In what would be seen as a bizarre attack on basic freedoms in most modern democracies, Correa’s May 28 statement called for “creation of mechanisms to defend citizens and legitimately elected governments against abuses by the press.” The proposal was immediately backed by Venezuela and Bolivia, whose presidents routinely refer to any criticism in the press as “media terrorism.”

What’s worse, the three countries’ move to demand harsher penalties against independent media comes at a time when Correa is using legal shenanigans to close down his country’s Teleamazonas television network, and as Chavez has publicly ordered his Cabinet ministers to shut down Globovision, the most courageous television station in Venezuela. Chavez already shut down RCTV, Venezuela’s oldest television network, in 2007.

During his May 30 weekly radio address, Correa said he would take legal action to “finish now with the corrupt press.” Hours later, Ecuador’s National Council of Telecommunications, CONARTEL, upheld a $20 sanction against Teleamazonas for airing images of a bullfight on Feb. 17 during the 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. slot in which bullfight broadcasts are forbidden. A second violation — no matter how innocent — could lead to the station’s 90-day suspension, and the third one to the station’s closing, according to Ecuador’s laws.

In Venezuela, Chavez demanded May 28 that the attorney general and the public works minister “take action” against Globovision, or resign from their posts. The Chavez government has opened an investigation into Globovision for allegedly “inciting panic” in the population by scooping government networks with a May 4 report on an earthquake in Caracas.

Globovision was the first to report — accurately — that the earthquake was of a 5.4 magnitude.

Carlos Lauria, Latin America’s director for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (of which, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m a board member) told me that most other governments are mum about these attacks on the media.

“It’s astonishing that, at the June 2 Organization of American States annual meeting, they spent their time talking about Cuba’s readmission, and I didn’t hear of anyone talking about government attacks on the press that are going on right now in Venezuela, Ecuador and other countries.”

In a joint statement in late May, the semi-autonomous Rapporteurs for Freedom of Expression from the United Nations and the OAS expressed their “concern” over Venezuelan government statements that they said “generate an atmosphere of intimidation in which the right to freedom of expression is seriously limited.”

Asked about Correa’s latest proposal to create a regional mechanism to defend governments against independent media, OAS Special Rapporteur Catalina Botero told me, “I’m not aware of the details of the proposal. But what we think is mostly needed is to strengthen those institutions that defend freedom of expression from governments, not the other way around.”

My opinion: I couldn’t agree more. What’s most daunting about the latest attacks on the media is not that the narcissist-Leninist presidents of Ecuador and Venezuela are trying to silence independent media — after all, they need a controlled press to fulfill their goals of becoming presidents for life — but the fact that leading democracies in the region are not sounding the alarm. They should be raising hell. According to the 2001 OAS Democratic Charter, the group’s 34 member countries have “an obligation to promote and defend” democracy, including freedom of the press.

Yet where’s the outcry over the latest attacks on the media? I haven’t seen a regional outrage at the bizarre idea of creating a regional body to silence independent media, or at the latest threats to shut down Teleamazonas and Globovision, much like Venezuela’s RCTV was taken off the air two years ago.

If the region’s leading democracies remain mum, they will be contributing to the growing perception that inter-American treaties calling for the collective defense of fundamental freedoms are a joke. And they will be digging their own graves.

Discussion

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15 June 2009
at 6:44 a.m.

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TomShewmon (Tom Shewmon) says…

Thank goodness Obama doesn't have to worry about that here. Their all in the tank for him. They in fact develop policy and agendas for the Democratic Party–—for free!
15 June 2009
at 6:53 a.m.

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TomShewmon (Tom Shewmon) says…

sb: >They're< all in the tank for him.
15 June 2009
at 7:50 a.m.

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just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…

Oppenheimer is back with another one of his fairy tale op eds.

Sure, a free press is essential to any freely functioning democracy. But please don't pretend that either Venezuela or Ecuador has a history of having either. The “free press” of Oppenheimer's imagination in Venezuela and Ecuador were never anything more than propaganda mouthpieces for the oligarchic governments that ruled these countries for decades, and they really haven't moved far from that position.

That's not to say that Chavez and Correa don't deserve criticism for their heavy-handed tactics, but it's little different from what was done by neoliberal oligarchs that Oppenheimer would like to see returned to power.
15 June 2009
at 8:14 a.m.

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Bossa_Nova (Anonymous) says…

it's really bad in venezuela right now and ecuador is moving in that direction too. wacko extremists from both sides are bad for any society and chavez is the wackiest wacko on the left. that guy is going to run venezuela into the ground and take as many other countries with him (ie. ecuador, bolivia, nicaragua…) it's really frustrating knowing where those countries could be as opposed to where they are today.
15 June 2009
at 9:31 a.m.

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dschmidts (Anonymous) says…

just_another_bozo_on_this_bus is completely right. The article is both right and wrong.

The article is correct in saying that the media in these, and other countries, is under attack. This is not a left phenomenon only. In fact, in places like Ecuador, there is resistance to “lefter” than Carrera, such as indigenous and environmentalists attempting to derail his push for resources in the Amazon. Same with Chavez, pushes to forge an image.

This article is wrong because it fails to mention that RCTV and other media outlets conspired in a coup against Chavez in 2002, and that RCTV is now a cable station, similar to our stations in the US, not on the government's docket. Just like mentioned above, it is wrong in its underlying wish to have the powers that were before Chavez and Carrera - in Ecuador, the military, in Venezuela, the elitist junta that devised an “equal” power sharing scheme that preserved the wealthy to their “deserved” status.

“Free media,” is thus, the media that doesn't shake the boat. This author is against this, as well as Carrera and Chavez. You have more in common than you think.
15 June 2009
at 10:05 a.m.

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pace (Anonymous) says…

Good morning, the media hasn't visited most of central and south America for a decade. We get little news, much easier to take the press release than to go looking for missing reporters.