Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Monday, Oct. 22, 2001

Already notorious for his love affair with Castro's Cuba and his unabashed admiration for that nation's communist dictator, Chavez most recently angered U.S. officials by his blatant support for international terrorists, as NewsMax.com reported on Sept. 21 (Chavez: A New Danger to America).

Now, in the best tradition of communist dictators everywhere, Chavez is moving against Venezuela's fiercely independent media, threatening Globovision, a large TV network, and launching bitter attacks on the rest of the media.

Already empowered by the constitution, which he rewrote, and by a recent Supreme Court ruling that the document bans newspapers from displaying support for a single political position in the majority of their columns and editorials, Chavez has taken to ranting against the media in some of the most rabid speeches he has yet made against those who dare to oppose his campaign to make Venezuela a carbon copy of Castro's Cuba.

"His language has been supremely intolerant and aggressive," Teodoro Petkoff, editor of Tal Cual, a Caracas daily, told the New York Times' Juan Forero. "He personalizes his disputes and debates with the media and does not perceive the gravity. He does not understand that he is not just some political leader, but the president of the republic."

In the absence of any real organized political opposition, the media have been forced into the role of watchdog and government critic, putting themselves squarely in Chavez's sights.

"As that has happened, the level of tension between the Chavez administration and the media has increased, and you begin to see an increase in rhetoric used against the media," a Western diplomat who closely follows Venezuelan politics, told the Times.

The Times reported that Chavez's "harshest comments came in two speeches this month in which he singled out the television network Globovision and its news director, Alberto Federico Ravell."

Chavez charged that the network is an "authentic enemy of the revolution" carrying out a "conspiracy against the country.

"We have to identify the enemies of the revolution," said Chavez. "Yes, the people need to know who they are and what they look like, what is their name. I am here to unmask them."

Angry in particular about a Globovision report that mistakenly stated that nine taxi drivers had been killed in one night, whereas in fact one had died, Chavez accused the network of fomenting unrest. He was angry because the day after the report aired, cabbies in Caracas shut down several streets to complain about crime.

Chavez bragged that he "can, at whatever moment, revoke" Globovision's license. The Times says that he compared the network to Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels, alleging that Goebbels' strategy of "repeating a lie 100 times until it is true" is similar to that of Globovision.

José Vicente Rangel, a former journalist who is Chavez's defense minister, defended the president's comments, saying that the press "should be conscious that if they criticize hard, then they should be ready to receive hard criticism."

Critics say that Chavez's attacks have been so bitter they could easily provoke his devoted supporters to violence against members of the press, Marylene Smeets, who oversees Latin America research for the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, told the Times.

A case in point: During an Oct. 4 Chavez tirade in which he devoted much of his time to castigating Globovision, people in the crowd shouted "close them down" and "terrorist" as Chavez mentioned Ravel, Globovision's news director.

"They lie and manipulate," one follower, Miriam Bolivar, 46, said of the press. "It is terrorism. We need to do away with them."

But the verbal salvos in recent weeks have reached a worrisome level of intolerance, said journalists, diplomats and political analysts. The rhetoric is also of concern to the United States, which has also been irritated by Chavez's friendship with Fidel Castro and his flirtation with leftist guerrillas in Colombia.

"There is sharper criticism, there is naming of people, there are a variety of activities that really bear watching," said a Bush administration official in Washington. "That's where we are right now. We're watching."

The criticisms of the press, political analysts say, come as the news media have filled the role of critic of the government, especially in the absence of strong opposition political parties. After rewriting the constitution, Chavez has taken control of the National Assembly. No opposition politician has emerged to capture the country's imagination.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Latin America
Castro/Cuba
Media Bias

A product that might interest you:
Promote NewsMax - Show the World What You Stand For!