Editor's Note: Those who inform themselves about current events on even a marginal basis know that the western media uses their own selection of news reports, terminology, turns of phrase, half-truths and other manipulations to promote capitalist and neo-colonial ideologies. They do so despite their claims to be "value-free", impartial and neutral in their journalism. People have also become familiar with the term "media-wars" and have learned to "read between the lines" when watching the evening news or reading the morning newspaper. However, the current worldwide media campaign to bring down democratically-elected Hugo Chávez Frias, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is unprecedented. Pascual Serrano uncovers the absurdities and outright lies of this billion-dollar media campaign in the following analysis and report.

- Les Blough, Editor

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Pascual Serrano, Author, Editor & Founding Member of Rebeli�n

Translated into English by Iris Buehler, Tlaxcala and revised by Les Blough.

Our fellow citizens certainly have noticed Venezuela's permanent presence in the mass media. According to the image provided it would seem that Venezuela is a country on the verge of chaos, of destabilization, in constant conflict and crisis. And all this a direct result of quite the opposite - i.e. the fact that deaths caused by political violence, political repression, riots or massive strikes are nearly non-existent in Venezuela. Human Rights organizations do not have a certain knowledge of '"jailed journalists" or "citizens persecuted on ideological grounds" in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. In comparison, countries that are going through major states of social conflicts such as Chile, Peru or Mexico are not considered to be "news-worthy". Venezuela is treated differently today. All this occurs thanks to the capacity of the Venezuelan and foreign opposition and the national and foreign communications media who are trying to  convert Venezuela into images of a country with conflicts, scandals and crises. These are realities that have become normal in many other countries � but not in Venezuela.

If we observe in detail those �scandals� pumped by the mass media about Venezuela, we can draw a clear conclusion. They always concern affairs and issues that are part of everyday life in other nations, but once they occur in the country governed by Hugo Chávez they convert into negative criticism, political crisis, indignation or mockery. Let's revise.

United political party

During the past few years the mass media are blowing up into a scandal what they denominate as the creation of �a single political party� in Venezuela. Despite the fact that the specific name is United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV)), they resort to the expression �one sole political party�, in order to try to reinforce the idea that Hugo Chávez objective is one of putting an end to the multiple party system. In order to achieve this objective, they have created the notion that a single political party is being devised in Venezuela as has been the case other systems of so-called "real socialism: With one sole political party, Chávez seeks absolute control", published the news agency Efe -  "Venezuela: Chávez, towards 'one single party'" was the information disseminated in the Latin American press [1].

In reality, the PSUV project consists merely of an attempt to join together in one single organization which all sympathetic political parties support.

That project is Chávez' government program, just as is the case in the majority of the countries in which a leader - both of the Left and the Right - seeks to consolidate his/her leadership under a single political party.

Of course, the political parties opposed to Chávez shall continue to exist and to be eligible to stand for elections under equal conditions. In Venezuela, however, the opposition is trying to convert all of this into a cause of scandal while it is normal on a worldwide.

Presidential reelection

"Hugo Chávez starts to pound his project into shape, project aimed at converting himself into Venezuela's leader for life", claimed an editorial comment of the Spanish ABC daily as early as December 5^th, past year, after Ch�vez' December, 2006 electoral victory. "He should drop the foolish idea of changing the Constitution to become in practice, president for life" recommended the signatories of opinion pieces. Such was the reaction to one out of thirty (exactly 33) proposals that constitute the project of constitutional reform on which the Venezuelan citizen shall vote "Si" or "No" in a referendum. And once again it is about a criterion that has been in force in the majority of European countries for years, i.e., the possibility that the citizen may reelect their President as many times as they may want to. Moreover, unlike these other countries, in order for this to take place in Venezuela, this provision needs to be included into a project of constitutional reform which, according to the 1999 demcratic contitution, must be approved by the people in a referendum.

But if these sorts of changes happen to be about Hugo Chávez, the mass media immediately begin to air the "term for life" propaganda, insinuating that the reforms target Chávez to be in charge for his entire life. In fact, Chávez shall be in charge of the presidential office for as many times as the Venezuelans want him to be in charge. These are the same terms which have been established by law in Spain, France, Italy, and in almost all European countries.

In Venezuela, however, this is a scandal despite the fact that it is being determined by referendum - a majority vote by the people whereas in Europe it is normal that this is decided based on the final agreement in the new Treatise of the Reform of the EU. In that case the failed European Constitution is substituted with a "meeting of experts" of the twenty seven countries passed on October 2^nd, without any European citizen having knowledge of the reform, nor having had an opportunity to express their opinion, much less having voted on it.

Energy-saving bulbs

One of the environmental policies put into practice by the Venezuelan government is the substitution of incandescent light bulbs by low-energy bulbs by the beginning of 2007, an initiative that has also been suggested by numerous governments worldwide. In Venezuela, just as in Cuba, the substitution is being subsidized by the government and a social worker visits the homes to replace the light bulbs because the environmental impact is only significant if the substitution is being carried out massively. Nevertheless, among the opposition sectors, as well as in some press outlets, there was a rumor going round that the government, through the substitution of the bulb, would install an electronic "chip" in its center that would allow to "tape everything that is taking place and what is being spoken inside each house". There are also claims, affirming that the social workers are, "... secret agents who, thanks to their talent and some sophisticated mechanisms, can draw up an inventory of all our properties in less than three seconds" [2].

In Venezuela, according to the mass media, even the governmental financing of light bulbs aimed at saving energy ends up being a giant spy operation.

Purchasing of armaments

The discourse that the Venezuelan government is re-arming and thus allegedly poses a threat of destabilization to the region is frequent in the mass media and in sectors that are critical of Chávez. In interviews given to the Spanish press the opposition claims that Chávez:

"... wants to cause a civil war. He is arming a sector of the population. Only one sector of the population against the other ... we object to the arms sales the Zapatero government keeps up with my country because it is the seed of a civil war" [3].

But the truth is that regarding the purchasing of arms Venezuela is well behind Washington's two main allies in the region, Columbia and Chile. Although the opposition media headlines Venezuelan arms, it is not true that the country is at the vanguard regarding the purchasing of armaments. During the past years, Chile bought arms for a total of US$2,785 million while Venezuela spent US$2,200 million. If we have a look at the expenditures for the defense budget in terms of its proportional share of the gross domestic product (GDP), the first place is also occupied by Chile, with a 3.8% in 2005, followed by Columbia with a 3.7%, a country that in addition derived benefit from a generous military aid that was granted by the United States and amounts to US$3,000 million since 2001 for the Plan Columbia and the Plan Patriota. In 2005, Venezuela was still placed far behind, with a 1.6% of the GDP spent in military expenditures; quite similar to what was the country's average before Hugo Chávez came to power [4].

Once again we are faced with the double standard: if Venezuela purchases arms it sparks off an arms race that destabilizes the region but when others do so it is being ignored or the argument is being used that it is for defending themselves against terrorism or delinquency.

RCTV

On May 27^th the Venezuelan government did not renew the open signal broadcasting license of the TV channel RCTV, Radio Caracas Televisi�n, a fact that provoked a worldwide scandal that was even discussed in the European Parliament and in the OAS as an infringement of freedom of speech because of the closure of a TV station. Practically in all countries the airwaves are public property and it is the State that grants for a determined time span the limited licenses that are technically possible for their use by enterprises or other entities. Once their period of validity has expired, said licenses must be subjected to the governmental decision as to whether or not a renovation of the license is granted. In Venezuela it was decided not to renew the RCTV license in order to provide the State with a new channel for public use. This is a daily and habitual decision made worldwide as demonstrated research conducted and published in March this year. That report showed 236 closures, revocations and non-renewals of radio and TV licenses in 21 countries, including the USA and the European Union [5].

On the other hand, it was not at all a "closure" as mass media and opposition permanently claims, given the fact that less than two months later RCTV was broadcasting via cable [6], and the enterprise decided to avoid continuous broadcasting from the moment of renovation of their license because they preferred to depict the license non-renewal as a scandal.

Once more we witness how normalcy is being converted into a conflict simply because it concerns Venezuela and the government of Hugo Chávez.

Register of names

During the first days of September the Venezuelan and foreign press disseminated the ridiculous information that, in their obsession to infringe the civil liberties of the Venezuelans, the government prohibited parents to decide the names of their children and limited the options to only fifty male and another number of female names. "Parents can only choose among 100 names for their children", headlined the daily Clarion from Buenos Aires [7]. "Prohibited to be named Superman, Michael Jackson or McGeifer in Venezuela", read the newsflashes published by the news agency Efe [8].

In reality the matter was about a proposed draft law of Civil Register establishing that "civil registries shall not permit that the persons declaring a birth be it their parents, representatives or legal guardians" would register names that would expose their children to ridicule, that are extravagant or difficult to pronounce in the official language".

This is a measure that is in force in a large number of countries. For instance, in Argentina the law prohibits "names that are extravagant, ridiculous, contrary to custom, that contain political ideologies or that would cause confusion with regard to the person's gender"; in Spain it is prohibited to include "more than one composed name, names that would objectively be to the detriment of the person, names that would cause confusion with regard to the identification of the gender, as well as names that are identical to the names of the living brothers and sisters"; in Switzerland "names that are detrimental to the interests of the child" are not being permitted. As far as the list of the hundred names is concerned, it was only meant as a point of reference. It was thus an initiative that is habitual in numerous countries. The national election council (Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE)) had to issue a public note to clarify the following:

The proposal has the purpose to guarantee the human right of identity from birth and thus the progressive, unrestricted and effective exertion of all civil and political rights. It contemplates important innovations such as the creation of a civil registration system that does not exist at present, the granting of a unique identification number that would simplify the registering of vital issues; the automation of the processes that would allow every citizen access to their registered information from each part of the country; the creation of a bilingual register in Spanish and in the native language; the possibility to change ones name through official channels, amongst other aspects. Nevertheless, the information that has been spread concentrated exclusively on questioning alleged prohibitions that are, however, not part of the preliminary draft.

The clarification was in vain, it was ignored at least by the Spanish media. What is already normal half the world over, is depicted as an attack on the freedom of the citizen the moment it is applied in Venezuela.

Time change

During the past month of September it was foreseen to move the clocks ahead in Venezuela by 30 minutes, with the objective to make better use of the daylight period. This is a measure established in numerous countries, or by moving the clocks ahead or by setting time back half an hour or an entire hour (daylight savings time). When Venezuela considered applying this regulation, it made headlines: �Hugo Chávez cuts the hour in two halves� (Periodista Digital. 01-09-2007). The information given reads as follows [9]:

"I am not the culprit. It was recommended to me and I said, yes". The excuses, that are not really excuses, come from Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, who by coming September 24^th is going to revolutionize the universal (sic) time zone by moving the time of his country 30 minutes ahead.

 

"The unprecedented measure was even somewhat confusing for the president. Chávez presented the measure in his program "Alo, presidente", (Hello Mr. President) accompanied by his brother Adan, Venezuela's Minister for Education. The two of them needed quite some time to explain to the country what exactly it was that the country was supposed to do coming 24^th [of September]."

The Time change has been thoroughly criticized by Venezuelans and foreigners.

In Spain, the diary El Mundo diffused the following:

"The elder brother of the Bolivarian leader, Minister of Education Adan Chávez commented later on that the clock would have to be moved ahead instead of setting it back, comment that lead to a general confusion and mockery by the part of the opposition newspapers" [10].

But the truth is that the only thing Venezuela would do [by implementing the Time change] is to return to the system that had been in force until 31^st of December, 1964. Apart from Venezuela there are other countries like for instance Australia, India, and Iran that are, at least in some zones, in a half-hourly time zone. Moving the time ahead or setting it back one hour for the same reasons is still more frequent both in Europe and in America. Yet only when Venezuela who is doing so, then "the worldwide time zone... is being revolutionized" and "the hours are being split in two".

Education law

In all countries drafts of education laws are being discussed, but once this happens in Venezuela some communication media says what we came to understand on September 10^th, thanks to the public TV program La Hojilla which diffused the recording of a Miami radio program packed with atrocities [11].

In said program it was explained that "Hugo Chávez´communist rabble" would deprive parents of their custody right over their children, and they claimed that they "read" the following paragraphs are part of the draft [education] law:

"Paragraph 3: Once the present Law is in force, the Custody Right of persons below the age of 20 shall be exerted by the State through persons or organizations authorized by the State.

 

"Paragraph 4: Any minor shall remain in the care of their parents until the age of 3, thereafter they have to be entrusted both for their physical and mental education and for being enabled to achieve their patriotic capacities to the Organization of Child Circles, an organism authorized through the present Law to be in charge of the protection and care and the exertion of the Custody Right over these minors.

 

"Paragraph 5: The Organization of Child Circles shall issue the prognoses (sic) that are necessary to ensure that any minor between the age of 3 and 10 would remain in the Province where their parents live ensuring that they would stay at their parents home no less than two days per month, so that they would not lose contact with the nucleus of the family. Past the age of 10, any minor could be assigned for their cultural instruction and patriotic training to a place that would be most appropriate for them, taking into consideration the highest interests of the Nation�.

[the Miami broadcast continues ...]

"Imagine you would have your child only until the age of three and then they would come to your home asking you to hand it over to the State", said the Miami based presenter. One of the women present, called on all mothers to participate in demonstrations or to leave the country before their children would be kidnapped."

It is obvious that nobody in their sane mind would believe the allegations to be true; nevertheless, we looked for the project that is currently being discussed by Venezuela's Legislative Assembly and that dates back to the year 2005. We could verify that it establishes the following in the paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 that so much worried the presenters of Miami:

 

Education as a human right

 

Paragraph 3: Education is an inalienable and indispensable, integral and permanent human right. Under its supreme guidance, the State, as the guarantor of human rights, together with the participation of the families and of society, assumes it as a function that is imperative and of highest interest.

 

Any person has the right to education under equal conditions and opportunities; to that end, the State guarantees that education is being realized in a democratic, gratuitous, continuous, integral, and inter-cultural manner and of high quality from elementary school to pre-graduate university level inclusive.

 

Education shall be compulsory from the level of elementary school to the level of diversified secondary high school and professional education, inclusive.

 

Education as a social duty

 

Paragraph 4: Education is a basic social duty. Under the supreme guidance of the State, any person has the duty to actively participate in the advancement of the process of formation of the citizen and in the spreading of the human right to education of all female and male citizen, and incorporate themselves into the educative process for the purpose of their personal development, for the benefit of the full employment of their social rights and responsibilities.

 

Educational Status

 

Paragraph 5: The State, through the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ministry of Higher Education, exerts the chairmanship over the Bolivarian Education in its imperative capacity concerning the orientation, management, control and supervision of Bolivarian Education in the realm of the legal force of the democratic and social State of Law and Justice. The State guarantees education as a human right and basic social duty, assuming education as a public service that is gratuitous, compulsory, continuous, multi-factorial, integral, permanent and of quality for the creation of a just, participatory, protagonist, multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual, democratic society in solidarity based on the ethical appraisal of liberating labor. In the pursuance of this responsibility the State shall vouch exclusively for the interest of the Nation. The State, with the participation of the families and of society, promotes the process of citizen education.

There is obviously no resemblance with the propaganda that is being disseminated. The moment it concerns Venezuela even a reform of the education law is converted by some communication media into a plan for the kidnapping of children!

Muslims

In all countries there are Muslim communities, and it is in Europe where this community is increasing in numbers. But if this happens in Venezuela, the Diario de America, in the introduction to a report [12] has to say the following:

Chávez has invited Shiite "missionaries" from Iran to convert the Guajiro population and other natives of Amazonia. The entire Wayuu tribe converted into Muslims, the women put on the veil and the men practice shooting with Kalashnikovs. Having strapped on the suicide belt charged with bombs, some of them pose for photos and the Venezuelan government spreads the images, publicizing their concord with Ahmadinejad and with terrorist groups of the Middle East.

It suffices to quote as an example of the inaccuracy of this commentary that the Guajiro natives live in Venezuela's State of Zulia, at the north-east of the country and more than thousand kilometers away from Amazonia. The rest of what is being claimed is absolutely harebrained and lacks any substantiation.

There are many more examples we could quote to reveal the double standard that operates to magnify the conflict in Venezuela in the minds of the rest of the world; however, this review shows already that the attempt is aimed at presenting an unstable country drowned in crisis, in which, at the most unexpected moment, anything could literally happen: assassination of a political leader, a coup d'etat or a civil war. Their imperative is that international public opinion does not come to understand that Venezulanos are actually a people seeking their own form of organization and of democracy in freedom and sovereignty. Only by means of a projected image of instability and social convulsion can the ground be prepared to convert into foreseeable and inevitable aggressions launched against a social revolution that is nurturing the hopes not only of Latin America but of the Left on a world-wide scale. Yet, there are already many of us who know the truth about Venezuela and who know that the truth is neither to be found in their newspapers nor in their private TV-channels.

Notes:

1. Venezuela: El partido "nico y el presidente vitalicio".
   Venezuela: The single party and the president for life. By Pascual Serrano.
   
   
2. Sustitución de bombillas e histeria venezolana.
   Substitution of light bulbs and Venezuelan hysteria. By Pascual Serrano.
   
   
3. Andres Ayala: "Chávez va a desencadenar una guerra civil en Venezuela".
   Andres Ayala: "Chávez is going to unleash a civil war in Venezuela".
   
   
4. Mitos y realidades de la carrera armamentista.
   Myths and realities of the arms race. By Ra�l Zibechi.
   
   
5. Report on 236 closures, revocations and non-renewals of radio and TV licenses in 21 countries, including the USAand the European Union.
   
   
   Venezuela: On the non-renewal of RCTV's open signal broadcasting license. By J. David Carracedo. Translated into English by Iris Buehler and revised by James Hollander.
   
   
6. Cómo son las televisiones prohibidas por Chávez.
   This is how the TV channels are that were prohibited by Chávez. By Pascual Serrano.
   
   
7. En Venezuela, los padres sólo podrán elegir entre 100 nombres para sus hijos.
   Clar�n. In Venezuela, parents can only select about 100 names for their children.
   
   
8. Prohibido llamarse Supermán, Maikel Jackson o Makgiber en Venezuela.
   Cadena Ser. Prohibited in Venezuela to be christened Superman, Michael Jackson or McGifer.
   
   
9. Hugo Chavez parte las horas por la mitad.
   Hugo Chávez parts the hours in two.
   
   
10. Venezuela pospone por segunda vez la adaptaci�n de su nuevo huso (sic) horario.
    El Mundo. Venezuela postpones for the second time the adaptation to its new time zone (sic).
    
    
11. Vídeo del programa La Hojilla. 10.09.07.
    Video of the La Hojilla program.
    
    
12. De Ilich Ramírez a Osama Bin Laden.
    Diario de Am�rica. From Ilich Ram�rez to Osama Bin Laden.

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Pascual Serrano

About the author: Pascual Serrano, born in 1964 in Valencia, Spain, graduated 1993 in Journalism at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, Spain. He started to practice journalism working for the Spanish daily ABC. He was founder and chief editor of the review Voces, edited by the political organization Izquierda Unida.

His works developed after his journeys through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Columbia, Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.

In 1996 he founded together with a group of journalists the electronic publishing platform Rebelión today functioning as an alternative internet daily.

He is founding member of the Red de Intelectuales y Artistas en Defensa de la Humanidad, (Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity) created in Mexico in 2004.

Customarily he contributes to tens of Latin American publications on topics concerning communication and international politics.

He is co-author of the books "Periodismo y crimen" (Journalism and Crime) and "Washington contra el mundo" (Washington against the World), and compiler of "Mirando a Venezuela" (Looking towards Venezuela).

At the beginning of 2006 he published �Perlas. Patra�as, disparates y trapacer�as en los medios de comunicaci�n� (Pearls. Humbug, Absurdities and Fraud in Communication Media) edited in Spain by El Viejo Topo. A modified version was edited in Cuba and Venezuela: �Juego Sucio. Una mirada a la prensa espanola� (Unfair Games. Taking a look at the Spanish Press).

At present he is member of the editorial staff of the reviews Mundo Obrero, El Otro País and Pueblos, where he contributes customary.

Since December 2005 he is editorial assessor to Telesur, a TV channel promoted by Venezuela with the participation of Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia, which aims at being a model for communication opposed to the dominant communication media of the first world.

In February 2007 he was awarded the first prize of the International Contest for Essays "Pensar a contracorriente" (Awkward and intransigent thinking) for his work "Violencia y medios de comunicaci�n" (Violence and Communication Media), convoked by the Cuban Book Institute (Instituto Cubano del Libro), the Cuban Ministry of Culture and the Publishing House Ciencias Sociales.

His last book is titled "Perlas 2. Patra�as, disparates y trapacer�as en los medios de comunicación", (Pearls #2. Humbug, Absurdities and Fraud in Communication Media) published in September 2007 with a prologue by Alfonso Sastre and an epilogue by Ignacio Ramonet. The same month he publishes in Venezuela "Medios violentos. Palabras e imágenes para la guerra" (Violent Media. Words and Images for War), co-authored with Santiago Alba.

(Original Source of �Notas bibliogr�ficas�: http://www.pascualserrano.net)

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Original source in Spanish: " Venezuela, donde lo normal siempre es un escóndalo". Published on October 08, 2007.

Tlaxcala- This article and bibliographical notes have been translated from Spanish into English by Iris Buehler, a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. It has been revised by Les Blough, Editor of Axis of Logic.

This translation is on Copyleft for any non-commercial use: verbatim copy of the translation in its entirety may be freely reproduced, respecting its integrity and citing the source (Axis of Logic), the author, translator and revisor.