Reply #5: More on Venezuelan media from the Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias

[JohnyCanuck]

The poor of Venezuela, the vast majority of the population, love Chavez because he is bringing them not only democracy, but also a chance to access the country's vast natural wealth. For example, as last Sunday's Star revealed, Chavez's land reform laws, which are redistributing 2 million hectares of idle, state-owned property to poor families, are upsetting the wealthy élite who, as in many Latin American states, have long exploited the campesinos. And so they are exercising their economic might to bring Chavez down.

Well, they don't say information is power for nothing. Venezuela's wealthy anti-Chavez class owns the five largest television stations and nine of the 10 major national newspapers. And time and time again in the last few years, particularly in April, 2002, when Chavez's opposition staged a coup against him and again last winter when there was a 64-day oil strike and business lockout, the private media have gone on the attack, in ways that make the U.S. feeding frenzy on the Bill Clinton thong-gate look like a Victorian ladies' tea.

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The thing about the Venezuelan media is, they often feed the international media. Never do they tell you that the infant mortality rate under Chavez has plummeted or that school enrolment has soared. It's all doom and gloom, linked to the "leftist" Chavez. Just last week for instance, Reuters relied on "local television'' images to report how Chavez forces were terrorizing oil company workers. But having seen Inside The Coup's dissection of the Venezuelan media, I had to discount the story.

Venezuelan News Media Dissected


If you get a chance to see the CBC Newsworld production "Inside the Coup" mentioned in the article do so. It was made up of video shot in and around the Presidential offices and the streets of Caracas at the time of the coup. It's almost like watching a TV thriller as the Generals take over and Chavez is sent off to prison after refusing to resign. Then his palace guard successfully stages a counter-coup and regain control of the presidential offices for the Chavez supporters.

In the midst of it all as things start going bad for the coup plotters, the commercial TV stations in Venezuela refused to anounce that the presidential guard had regained control of the government offices and that the former government's ministers were coming out of hiding to resume running the government. Once the Chavez supporter took over the one governmnent owned TV station and overcame some technical problems to get it back on the air, they were able to tell the country that they were in control again in Caracas and the coup rapidly disintegrated.

It was touch and go for a while, as there was a real worry that if the Chavez supporters didn't know that the Chavez loyalists had taken control again of the government offices, the coup plotters would have time to stage a counter attack. Once the word went out over the airwaves that the Chavez loyalists were in control in the Presidential Palace, the pro-Chavez crowds took to the streets by the thousands to show their support and junior officers and enlisted men from the Venezuelan military started calling in from various military bases by phone to anounce their loyalty to Chavez.

The documentary ends with Chavez being flown in by helicopter from the island where he was held prisoner and he is welcomed by the cheering of thousands of supporters. It's a very powerful and moving documentary. It would surprise me very much, if the coup plotters have called it a day and are not cooking something up right now in a second attempt to unseat the thorn in their side.