It may be useful to assess the dangers of the
systematically hostile attitude of the overwhelming majority of major
European and North American media companies in relation to the current
events taking place in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. This hostility
is only matched by an embarrassed, complicit silence with regard to
those involved in the putsch in Honduras or the repression enacted by
the Peruvian army against the indigenous populations of the Amazon.
In order to demonstrate this statement, here are a few recent facts:
1) On 5 June 2009, the Peruvian army massacred over 50 Amazonian
Indians who were protesting against the land concessions made by Alan
Garcia’s government for foreign, mainly European transnational
companies. The repression aroused no disapproval among the major global
media groups. |1|
These groups gave almost exclusive priority to the protests occurring
in Iran. Not only did the press fail to condemn the repression in Peru;
it did not even bother to cover the story. And yet in Peru, so great
was public discontent that the government had to announce the repeal of
the presidential decree which the Amazonian Indians had fought against.
Once again, media coverage of the government’s backtracking was almost
non-existent. We must ask ourselves the following question: if a
Venezuelan or Ecuadorian army or police intervention had caused the
deaths of dozens of Amazonian Indians, what kind of media coverage
would such events have received?
2) When the constitutionally elected president Manuel Zelaya was
ousted by the military on 28 June, the overwhelming majority of media
groups declared, in total contradiction of the truth, that the soldiers
were reacting to Zelaya’s attempt to modify the constitution, thus
ensuring he could remain in power. Several other media groups added
that he was following the example of Hugo Chavez, who is presented as
an authoritarian populist leader. In fact, Manuel Zelaya was proposing
to the Honduran citizens that they vote in favour of the organization
of general elections for a Constituent Assembly, which would have
represented real democratic progress being made in this country.
This
is well explained by Cécile Lamarque and Jérôme Duval on their return
from a CADTM mission in Honduras: “The coup d’Etat was carried out
on the same day Manuel Zelaya had organized a non-binding
“consultation” asking the Hondurans whether or not they wanted to
convene a National Constituent Assembly, after the elections which were
due to take place on the 29 November 2009. The question went like this:
“Do you agree that at the next general elections of 2009, a fourth
ballot box be installed so as to allow for the people to express their
point of view on the convocation of a national Constituent Assembly?
YES or NO?
” If this consultation had resulted in the majority
voting “yes”, the president would have issued a decree of approval
before Congress so that, on 29 November, the Hondurans would formally
make known their decision on the convocation of a Constituent Assembly
through this “fourth ballot box” (the first three ballot boxes would be
for the election of a president, deputies and mayors, respectively). In
order to give an air of legality to the coup, Congress and the Supreme
Court, associated with the putsch, deemed the ballot box to be illegal
and asserted that president Zelaya had “violated the Constitution” by trying to modify it “so as to set his sights on serving a new mandate”, in the manner of an “apprentice Chavist dictator”. And
yet, Manuel Zelaya, through this consultation with the people, was not
seeking to renew his presidential mandate of four years which cannot be
renewed. Zelaya would therefore be unable to be a candidate for his own
succession.” |2|
Whilst the popular movements opposing those involved in the Putsch
increased, with protests and strikes in July, August and September, the
big media names only dedicated a couple of lines to these events. On
the rare occasions when the leading daily newspapers dedicated a
feature article to the situation in Honduras, they adopted a policy of
slander against the constitutionally elected president by presenting
the military’s actions as a democratic military coup. This is the case
with The Wall Street Journal, which in its editorial on 1 July 2009 wrote, “the
military coup d’Etat which took place in Honduras on June 28th and
which led to the exile of the president of this central American
country, Manuel Zelaya, is strangely democratic.” The editorial adds, “the legislative and judicial authorities will remain intact” following military action.
On its part, perhaps in a more subtle manner, the famous French newspaper Le Monde
participated in a smear campaign against Manuel Zelaya. Here is one
example. On 12 September 2009, Jean-Michel Caroit, the paper’s special
correspondent in Honduras, quoted the words of a French expatriate
living in the country and then associated these words with the
systematically repeated lie regarding Zelaya’s supposedly sinister
intentions, “ ‘For the Hondurans, Zelaya’s return is unacceptable as
that would mean there would be twenty years of a Chavez-style
dictatorship,’ states Marianne Cadario in reference to the Venezuelan president who - as his ally Manuel Zelaya tried to do (underlined by me) -
modified the Constitution in order for him to be allowed to be
re-elected. Marianne Cadario, a Frenchwoman who has lived in Honduras
for over thirty years states that she is “very shocked by the reaction of the international community who condemned the putsch.” |3|
The tone of newspapers like Le Monde and Libération
began to change at the end of September after those involved in the
putsch began to increase their repressive measures. The tone became
more critical of those involved in the putsch. Having said this, the
daily newspaper Libération deserves a prize for its use of euphemisms. In fact on 28 September 2009 (3 months to the day after the coup) the title “The Scent
of Dictatorship” (underlined by me) of a paragraph explaining how the
government involved in the putsch had declared, “‘the banning of “any public unauthorized meeting,” the arrest of “anyone putting their lives or anyone else’s in danger” “evacuation” of areas where there are protesters and those who interfere with “any broadcasting of programmes by any media that endanger public order.” |4|
3) At the beginning of August 2009, the Venezuelan authorities’
intention to question the right of 34 radio and television channels
made the headlines in the international press: “It is further proof of the almost total disappearance of the right to expression and criticism in this authoritarian country.”
The way in which the major news publications treat the subject of the
media in Venezuela is one of unilateral hostility, despite the fact
that 90% of the Venezuelan media is privately owned, a large number of
which actively support disinformation campaigns. Globovisión,
one of the main privately-owned TV channels, actively participated in
the military coup d’Etat against Chavez on 11 April 2002.
A documentary
made by Globovisión made its way around the world on 11 April
2002 and the days following the military coup. It was actually a
set-up, designed to distort the truth. One can see people posing as
Chavez supporters on a bridge, firing their guns in an unidentifiable
direction. The voice-over of the Globovisión journalist states
that the Chavez supporters are about to kill opposition protesters who
were protesting peacefully in the streets below the bridge.
The
Venezuelan prosecution has been able to reconstruct the exact chain of
events, having analysed the reports and photographs made by certain
individuals on the day of 11 April. In fact the pro-Chavez militants,
who, according to Globovisión, were shooting at protesters,
were actually responding to gunfire coming from an armoured vehicle of
the metropolitan police, allied to the putsch. The opposition
protesters were no longer in the streets when those guns were fired.
Several sources can prove without a doubt that the assassination of the
anti-Chavez protesters was used as a set-up so as to attribute these
crimes to Chavez, thus justifying their coup.
On 11 April 2008, the
Venezuelan viewers were able to see again the images of the press
conference given by the military involved in the putsch at a time when no protester had been killed yet.
And yet the military announced at that time that they were taking power
following the murders carried out by the Chavez supporters. This
clearly supports the theory that these murders were planned
deliberately so as to be able to justify their seditious plan.
In the days following the putsch, on 12 and 13 April 2002, when
hundreds of thousands of unarmed citizens surrounded the barracks of
the putschists to demand the return of Hugo Chavez, then in prison, Globovisión
failed to broadcast any coverage of these protests, explaining that the
country was back to normal and that Hugo Chavez had tendered his
resignation and was on his way to Cuba. During the last hours of the
putsch, this channel broadcast only cartoons and variety shows |5|.
Globovisión
in fact connived with the putschists on several critical occasions, a
fact which led the parents of victims and injured survivors’
associations to demand the channel’s conviction. Up to now the Chavist
government has refused this demand in order to prevent further
escalation of the international smear campaign being waged against him.
Several human rights associations are dissatisfied with the passive
attitude of the Venezuelan authorities in this matter.
More recently, Globovisión has been sympathetic towards the authors of the 28 June putsch in Honduras. Several programme presenters at Globovisión
have supported the putsch from the very beginning, at the same time
accusing the Chavez government of interference in condemning it. For
example, Guillermo Zuloaga, the president of Globovisión, stated on 17 July that “the
government of Micheletti complies with the Constitution, and we would
like, indeed we would be delighted, if here in Venezuela, the
Constitution was respected in the same way that it is in Honduras”, thus making clear his support for the putschist government.
Globovisión has never been prohibited from broadcasting. What
major European or North-American media has even mentioned this fact?
What major European or North-American media has ever informed the
public that the overwhelming majority of Venezuelan media are
controlled by the private sector? Or that they account for over 90% of
the viewing audience? Or that they are extremely aggressive towards the
government, presenting it as a dictatorship, or that some of them
played an active part in ousting a constitutionally elected president,
and have continued to broadcast freely for seven years?
Can one imagine
General de Gaulle failing to take repressive measures against a
newspaper, radio or TV station that was seen to actively support an OAS
coup6|
with a group of military putschists and held (up) at gunpoint the MPs
who were there? If Manuel Zelaya were restored to office as
constitutional president, would he and his government not be in their
right to demand accountability and take measures against the Honduran
media owners who deliberately supported the putschists by
systematically deforming the truth and covering up the many human
rights violations committed by the military? during the Algerian war? Would it not be considered normal
for the Spanish government to take measures against the media that
actively supported – in real time – Colonel Tejero when he burst into
the Cortes |
4) Arms spending. When you read the European or North American
papers, you have the distinct impression that Venezuela is indulging in
huge arms expenditures (particularly by way of Russia), which poses a
serious threat in the region. Yet according to the CIA |7|
the situation is quite different: the Venezuelan military budget ranks
6th in the region, after the budgets of Brazil, Argentina, Chile (far
less populated than Venezuela and regarded as a model), Colombia and
Mexico. In relative terms, taking the GDP of each country, the
Venezuelan military budget comes 9th in Latin America! Is any of this
published in the leading news publications?
On another front, in August 2009 we read in the papers that Sweden
took Venezuela to task after the Colombian government once again
denounced its neighbour for supplying arms to the FARC guerilla. Sweden
had in fact informed Colombia that SAAB missiles found in a FARC camp
had been supplied by Venezuela. But for those who read Hugo Chavez’
detailed response it became clear that the missiles in question had
been stolen from a Venezuelan harbour in 1995, four years before Chavez
became president.
Conclusion: One needs to be aware of the one-sided
manner in which the leading media report the news, and adopt a highly
critical approach when appraising it. The discrediting of Hugo Chavez,
Rafael Correa and Evo Morales is so excessive that it poses the risk of
numbing international public opinion in the event of another coup
d’Etat, or of lulling the public into approving aggressive measures
taken by a government such as the US. Among the many insidious and
unfounded accusations, we can read in the Spanish papers (for example
in El Pais) that Rafael Correa’s election campaign was financed
by the FARC. We can also read that the Venezuelan authorities do
nothing to fight drug trafficking. In the case of the Honduran
president Manuel Zelaya, the discredit heaped on him is intended to
prevent international opinion mobilizing in favour of his return to
power as head of State.
Translated by Francesca Denley and Judith Harriss
Footnotes
|1| See http://www.cadtm.org/Le-CADTM-est-pleinement-solidaire and http://www.cadtm.org/Perou-le-massacre-de-Bagua
|2| Cécile Lamarque and Jérome Duval, « Honduras : Why the Coup d’Etat », 17 September 2009, www.cadtm.org/Honduras-Pourquoi-le-coup-d-Etat
|3| Jean-Michel Caroit, « Au Honduras, la campagne électorale s’ouvre dans un climat de haine », Le Monde, p. 8, Saturday 12 September 2009.
|4| http://www.liberation.fr/monde/0101593847-le-honduras-s-enfonce-dans-la-crise
|5|
It is interesting at this point to note the initiative of Hugo Chavez’
government on 11 April 2008, six years after the putsch. The government
used its right to broadcast on the private and public TV stations to
show a re-run of the entire reportage produced by the anti-Chavist
private channels (Globovisión, RCTV...) on the official
inauguration session of the president and the putschist government in a
reception room in the Miraflores presidential palace. The complete
programme, which the whole of Venezuela could watch on 11 April 2002,
was re-broadcast without any cuts or critical commentary by the Chavez
government. Hugo Chavez relied on the critical acumen of Venezuelan
viewers to form their own opinion on the active complicity of the
private media with those behind the putsch, amongst whom the viewer
could identify the leading Catholic church authorities, the putschist
military brass, the head of the anti-Chavist labour union CTV
(Confederation of Workers of Venezuela), the chief executives of
private corporations and the president of the Venezuelan Federation of
Chambers of Commerce (Fedecámaras), Pedro Carmona. It should be said
that this president, who held power for scarcely 36 hours, earned the
enduring nickname of “Pepe el breve” (Pepe the brief).
|6|
On 23 February 1981, an attempted coup d’état organized by Franquist
sectors took place in the Spanish Congress, The leader, Colonel Tejero,
held up the members of parliament present at gunpoint and took them
hostage as the new president of the government was being sworn in.
|7| See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html, consulted in March 2009 |