Peace and Justice Advocates
to Stage
Protest of Houston Chronicle's
Disinformation Campaign against Venezuela
They Charge the Newspaper
with Generating
Public Support For Overthrowing a
Democratically Elected Government
This Friday, November 30, at 4 p.m., opponents of U.S. intervention
abroad will gather on the sidewalk outside the Houston Chronicle
building at 801 Texas to protest the newspaper's unrelenting efforts
to demonize the democratically elected government of Venezuela.
The event is part of a national campaign to expose and head off
another U.S. destabilization of a democratic government in Latin
America that uses its national resources for the sake of its own
people instead of international corporate profits.
Venezuela Viva!, a member of the Venezuelan Solidarity
Network, is organizing the protest to denounce the Houston Chronicle’s
participation in the media war of disinformation that is taking
place throughout the US, which prevents citizens’ access to knowing
what is really happening in Venezuela. The newspaper consistently
portrays Chavez as a dictator, his government as repressive, and
his policies as destructive of the nation, when in fact Venezuela
is highly democratic, masses of people participate in the social
and political process, and the economy is thriving.
"It's not hard to understand why the Chronicle
so grossly violates journalistic standards when it comes to Venezuela,"
said Erika Sezonov, coordinator of Venezuela Viva! "The international
energy companies hate Chavez for using his nation's oil wealth to
lift Venezuelans out of poverty instead of enriching the corporations
and the small number of rich Venezuelans historically allied with
them. The Chronicle is doing the bidding of Exxon, Chevron, and
Texaco."
Typical of the Chronicle's disinformation campaign
is the way the referendum on the Constitutional amendment, to be
held Sunday Dec 2nd, has been portrayed as President Hugo Chavez's
bid to become a life-long dictator of Venezuela. It is true that
one of the reforms would remove term limits from the Presidency,
allowing Chavez to run for office again. But though removing term
limits may or may not be wise, it will be the Venezuelan people,
not Chavez, who will decide. And even without term limits, the President
will have to stand for re-election at the end of every term. That
is not a dictatorial system.
Tellingly, the Chronicle has made no effort to point
out that there are no term limits for most offices in the United
States. Congress is not term-limited; neither are most state governors
and state legislators. Even the U.S. Presidency had no term limits
until our Constitution was amended after Franklin Roosevelt's death.
Many European nations, such as France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy,
have no term limits on their chief executive. Of course, if any
of these facts had been mentioned, it would have undermined the
Chronicle's portrayal of Chavez as an aspiring dictator.
Sezonov pointed out the parallels between the treatment
of Saddam Hussein and Hugo Chavez by the corporate controlled media
in the U.S. "The Bush Administration demonized Saddam to persuade
the American people that its military invasion of Iraq was in the
service of freedom, not the oil grab it really was. It's doing the
same thing with Chavez who, unlike Saddam, has preserved freedom
in his nation and poses no military threat to anyone. His threat
is to oil profits, and that's a threat the energy companies and
its media servants like the Houston Chronicle find intolerable."
Another example of the Chronicle's disinformation
campaign was the way it reported the Venezuelan government's denial
of the renewal of the broadcast license of RCTV, a TV station in
Caracas. It was depicted as the end of a free media in Venezuela.
Not mentioned was the existence of the many other television stations
in Venezuela that
are critical of Chavez's government. Not mentioned was the existence
of 118 privately-owned national and regional newspapers in Venezuela,
most of them critical of the Chavez administration.
Even more egregious, the Chronicle didn't mention
the integral part RCTV played in the April 2002 abortive coup against
the democratically-elected government of Hugo Chavez. The station
owner and managers promoted the coup by, among other things, urging
people to join demonstrations calling for Chavez's overthrow, then
creating an impression of government violence against protestors
by using distorted and manipulated images to obscure who began firing
on whom. During the coup, RCTV cancelled their usual programs and
broadcast a two-day string of cartoons, movies, infomercials, and
black and white fuzziness. Thus, the people had difficulty understanding
that dissident military leaders had occupied the presidential palace
and taken Chavez into custody. When RCTV finally covered the coup,
they reported that Chávez had willingly resigned as president.
Its owner then pledged allegiance to Pedro Carmona, who was installed
as president by the coup and immediately abolished the Supreme Court,
the National Assembly, and the Constitution. In many countries,
the actions of RCTV's owner and managers before and during the coup
would have been judged to be treasonous and/or seditious. Despite
this, there have been no legal actions taken against them in the
last five years.
The Bush Administration was deeply involved in the
2002 coup attempt, a well-established fact that the Chronicle never
has mentioned or commented on. Instead, it portrays Chavez as paranoid
when it comes to the United States. In light of U.S.involvement
in the 2002 coup and America's long, inexcusable history of intervention
in
Latin America when corporate profits are threatened by popular governments,
Chavez has more than sufficient reason to fear the U.S. government.
Indeed, the CIA has been working with the wealthy
elites in Venezuela to destabilize the Venezuelan government and
bring about another coup so the international oil companies can
control Venezuelan oil once more.
The people in Houston have a right to know what is
happening in Venezuela and not be subject to the unjust manipulation
of information carried out by the Houston Chronicle, along with
CNN and other media who distort the truth to comply with the political
agendas of their corporate owners.
