Chavez snubs IAPA journalists in Venezuela

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down for the IAPA press release in English and Spanish on its free press mission to Venezuela)

It was an amusing and telling moment in the history of freedom of the press:

I serve on the executive committee of the Inter American Press Association, and arrived in Venezuela on Nov. 17 as part of a mission to check on President Hugo Chávez's accelerating crackdown on the news media. Chávez had a message waiting for our delegation.

It was a half-page advertisement from the Venezuelan National Assembly, in the big morning Caracas daily paper El Universal, reprinting a copy of a congressional resolution urging the executive branch to declare the IAPA non grata (not welcome) in Venezuela. (Scroll down to see a copy of the ad.)

That set the tone for our mission: The sponsor of the resolution refused to meet with the IAPA's delegation. In fact, no member of the three branches of the Venezuelan government or the National Electoral Council was willing to meet with the IAPA.

However, Chávez, who was plastered all over the papers and television for his trip to Iran and France, did send us a Chavista group called Journalists for the Truth.

The president of the group told the IAPA mission that there was complete freedom of the press in Venezuela, then promptly went outside the room and told the waiting press that the IAPA had been "duped in good faith by the reports prepared by the 'opposition' Venezuela press."

Gonzalo Marroquín, chairperson of the IAPA's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, immediately retorted to the press that "it would seem that the journalists were at another meeting."

In fact, the IAPA expressed "deep concern at the instability of press freedom in general and warned of the limited debate and public awareness surrounding planned constitutional reform and called on authorities to create an appropriate framework of guarantees and transparency for the Dec. 2 referendum," according to its press release on its findings.

Earl Maucker, who led the mission as the IAPA's president and editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., noted in a press conference that "the government's unwillingness to talk about issues of press freedom and free speech, so essential to a democratic society, strengthens our belief that there is no real climate of respect, or the tolerance and political will to hold an open and comprehensive dialogue at a time when a major constitutional revision is under way."

The mission met with members of the Venezuelan Press Bloc, a constitutional attorney, representatives of a human rights group, polling experts, the mayor of Chacao, the head of the National Press Workers Union, and other knowledgeable civilians. The mission and its final press conference were widely covered in the Venezuelan print and broadcast press. Marroquín, director of Diario Prensa Libre in Guatemala and a former television newscaster, was most eloquent in debating the IAPA's findings on the government radio and television stations.

There were no violent incidents and no attempts to intimidate nor demonstrate against the IAPA mission. However, Chavez has made it difficult, if not impossible, for IAPA to hold its scheduled assembly next March in IAPA. Three different hotels in three different cities offered to host the convention, then mysteriously canceled their invitations.
Suddenly, two hotels said they did not have enough rooms, the third said it had it had rooms but could not provide meeting facilities. Even the J.W. Marriott Hotel that our mission was staying in asked us to hold our meetings and press conference in a nearby hotel.

Interestingly, after I posted a report on my blog, a self-described Venezuelan named Palomudo offered a comment describing the IAPA as a club of rich media owners.

"Look who owns the media in the USA and ask yourself what they did to convince you of their lies," Palomudo wrote, echoing the Chávez line. "Remember Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction? ... The media is your worse [sic] enemy and people like Bruce B. Brugmann are nothing more than media mercenaries pay [sic] to lie!!!"

Quite a statement, considering the Guardian is one of the strongest critics in the nation of media concentration and has consistently written about and criticized the mainstream media's misreporting on Iraq. As an independent paper with a left-liberal approach, we'd be open to supporting some of Chávez's economic policies of fighting multinational oil companies and redistributing wealth.

But we also believe that all governments — left, right, center, and otherwise — need a free and vigorous press and unfettered public debate. As long as Chávez refuses to accept those essential conditions, we happily stand with the non grata editors and publishers in the IAPA, and the courageous editors, publishers, media, students, and everyone else fighting Chavez for press freedom in Venezuela. B3

IAPA Deputy Director RicardoTrotti and IAPA President Earl Maucker touch up the press release on deadline shortly before the IAPA press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 20th.

Click here for IAPA press release (English version).
Click here for IAPA press release (Spanish version).
Click here to view El National ad.