Non grata in Venezuela
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Well, I'm non grata in the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez and so are hundreds of other members of the InterAmerican Press Association (IAPA), a hemispheric free press organization based in Miami.
I'm off early tomorrow morning, Nov.17, as a member of an IAPA delegation visiting Venezuela to try to put some pressure on Chavez and his accelerating crackdown on press freedom.
Earl Maucker, IAPA's president and editor and senior vice president of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Ft. Lauderdale, put it this way, "Once again we are here in Venezuela to demonstrate our solidarity with journalists and news media at a time when they are facing difficulties in carrying out their daily task of providing information to the Venezuelan people and to request that in the constitutional reform process absolute guarantees be given that freedom of the press will exist in full."
This will be the l0th time during the Chavez administration that IAPA officers are visiting Caracas.
IAPA has stated that over the past six months, the Chavez government has committed more "transgressions: against the press than has any other country in the Western Hemisphere.
Chavez has countered by saying he does not recognize the legitimacy of IAPA. He declared the organization invalid through Parliament. The National Assembly declared that IAPA "feeds lies and misinformation in the media" and has declared the members "non grata," according to Reuters. IAPA is so "non grata" to Chavez that his administration is making it difficult for IAPA to hold its March assembly in Venezuela, which has been scheduled for two years.
Three hotels in three different Venezuelan cities first accepted, then mysteriously canceled, IAPA's reservations for its mid year meeting. The first two hotels told IAPA that they had no vacancies. The third hotel said it would provide rooms, but that the group could not use its conference facilities.
The delegation will try to meet with Chavez and is scheduled to meet with government officials, members of civil society, and individual journalists and representatives of the news media.
We will wind up our mission with a press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 20. I'll keep you posted. B3
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Comments (2)
Did IAPA really endorse the 2002 coup attempt?
'It was on this day that the owning class of the commercial media reared its true face as a vested enemy of democracy.
The Inter-American Press Association, dominated by the oligarch owners of newspapers in América whose definition of "press freedom" is their liberty run their commercial fiefdoms at maximum political and economic profit, issued a statement on this date:
"President Robert J. Cox said today that political developments in Venezuela demonstrate to nations throughout the world that there can be no true democracy without free speech and press freedom."
As with Forero's inverted dialectic of "democracy or dictatorship," the IAPA press release was positively Orwellian. Repeating its prior complaints that Chávez's "belligerent and intolerant attitude towards journalists and the news media" (read: the President's speeches criticizing the simulation by a media that serves only the wealthy and denies voice to the majority) somehow constituted interference with press freedom, the IAPA showed its true fangs in endorsing a military dictatorship over a democratically elected government.
"This is a classic example for the new government headed by Pedro Carmona, which hopefully will turn things around, respect freedom of the press and encourage the independence of the judiciary, and thus, ensure restoration of true democracy," Cox added.'
http://www.narconews.com/threedays.html
No wonder IAPA is not welcome in Venezuela...
Posted by brian | November 16, 2007 08:53 PM
I'm relieved to read someone on the left daring to criticize Chavez. I keep wondering how far he's going to push his Chavez First agenda before progressives can see beyond a one dementional hero worship of him.
So thanks for posting this.
Posted by Felix | November 28, 2007 02:02 AM