Job Discussion Forums

[Guy Courchesne]

Some people in the media would have it that there is a potential war brewing between Colombia and Venezuela. Recent arms sales by Russia to Chavez have been cited, as well as Venezuela's support for FARC and Cuba.

Sounds to me like American propagandizing. Any thoughts on this from people in Colombia and Venezuela on this?

[moonraven]

There are a number of US propaganda elements that stand out:

1. Condolences' agressive comments in regard to Ch�vez in her confirmation hearing--where she was reprimanded by more than one Seantor for being disrespectful to the Venezuelan people. These have been followed up by comments from The Usual Suspects--the Iran-Contra retread Noriega, among others--sayng that Venezuela is harboring FARC members--based on the kidnapping of Granda in Caracas last December 13 in which 1.5 million dollars was supposedly paid by the Colombian (read US) government as bribes to Venezuelan police and military elements--and Ch�vez' decision to buy assault rifles, helicopters and MIG fighters from Russia. As Venezuelan V.P. Rangel pointed out, the US complaint seems to be of a "commercial" nature--as in the past Venezuela did their arms shopping in Washington without being accused of starting an armaments war.

2. The US is trying to provoke an armed conflict between the two countries in order to justify spearheading an invasion of Venezuela in pursuit of "terrorists" from Colombia--where it has placed a lot of military personnel--and make a grab for Venezuela's oil and gas (and diamond and gold and WATER reserves (I believe we've heard this song before?)

3. The US is also flapping its jaws at other SA countries in an attempt to get them to "pressure" Venezuela, given that in December they formed the South American Community of Nations after 5 plus years of concerted effort on the part of Ch�vez, Ch�vez has said that the US imposed hemispheric free trade scheme is dead and has been forming integrative commercial and media operations with other SA countries--most notably with Argentina and Brazil. The US doesn't like its back patio telling it that it is no longer welcome to grab its resources. It is trying the old "divide and conquer" technique, trying to dismantle SA unity as fast as Ch�vez puts it together.

4. Ch�vez is doing a rescue mission for "damnificados" due to the relentless rains and flooding in Venezuela--at the same time putting the blame on First World countries for altering the climate through global warming and thereby provoking these kinds of disasters. These comments come as the Kyoto Protocal goes into effect--with only 3 "industrialized countries" not on board: Australia, the US (the major provoker of the Global Warming phenomenon) and Monaco (I don't know what their industrial base is, so don't ask).

5. They are also after Ch�vez because he received a hero's welcome at the World Social Forum in Brazil 2 weeks ago--where the Brazilian president was booed--and indicated that only through socialism--not capitalism--would the problems of the world be solved.

6. And they are doing their propagandist best to attack Ch�vez because he just signed a bunch of enormous deals with China, at the same time as he has cancelled Phillips/Conoco and other contracts in Venezuela and threatened to sell the Citgo operation of 8 refineries and 14,000 gas stations in the US in order to stop "financing Mr. Bush".

7. Ch�vez has become a major player on the world board--not just here in Latin America--and his anti-US government message sticks in the Bush Gang's craw. They are screaming therir heads off in the media because when Ch�vez' (with partners Brazil and Argentina) satellite tv channel goes up in a month or so, most of this hemisphere will be able to get news about the region that has not been passed through the gizzard of CNN en espa�ol, a major US propaganda vehicle.

8. They are also gunning for him because more OPEC and non-OPEC countries are switching to the Euro for currency of payment. And OPEC is controlled by Ch�vez.

There are probably another 20 major elements involved here, but these should give you a general panorama....


*******
And hot off the press today: Ch�vez was in 7th place on the list of the most influential world leaders of 2004 (Global Leadership 50, published by investment group Eurasia)--after Sonia Gandhi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey), Viktor Yushchenko (Ukraine), Pervez Musharraf (Palistan), Ariel Sharon, and Hu Jintao. Bush was in 11th place. Lula (Brazil) in 10th place. And Uribe (Colombia) in 37th place.

[Guy Courchesne]

Thank you. Very thorough outline...what I would like to hear next is what teachers on the ground in Colombia or Venezuela are experiencing, the general mood.

[Alitas]

Guy, I beg you to read www.daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com

I'll be there next week--interviewing.

[Guy Courchesne]

Alitas, you have a good eye for photography. That or an obsession for self-portraits. Nice avatars.

Do let us know what's changed in recent weeks...Now I'm off to read a blog

Late Edit: So far, a fairly right wingy blog, but I'll take it as ballast.

[Alitas]

Oh, but read the comments. Anyway, it's an in-country perspective. I don't pretend to have my own, well-formulated opinion. I have a half-assed opinion at best.

Thanks for the compliment, I think.

[Guy Courchesne]

[moonraven]

Fortunately, alitas' right-wing buddy's blog page wouldn't open for me! The last time she gave us the link his hate site opened in a flash and gave me a good blast of nausea.

Yesterday the Yahoo News site had as one of their top stories the revelation by Fidel Castro of the US plot to assasinate Ch�vez. Today La Jornada here in Mexico jornada.unam.mx had a more fleshed-out version of the story, as well as a substantial response by Ch�vez and Venezuelan V.P. Rangel. Folks who have taken the trouble to learn the Spanish language during their stay here might want to check it out. And for those who only read in English, the following is from www.venezuelanalysis.com:

U.S. Media: Ch�vez-Bashing of Old Begins Anew

Saturday, Feb 12, 2005 Print format
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By: Justin Delacour - FAIR

[The original version of this article, entitled �Oil Calms Troubled Reporting,� appeared in the December 2004 issue of Extra!, the magazine of the U.S. media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (http://www.fair.org/). The article has been revised and updated.]

After the landslide victory of Venezuelan President Hugo Ch�vez Frias in the country�s August 15 recall referendum, U.S. press coverage of Venezuelan politics took a brief turn for the better. After it became clear that Ch�vez was likely to win, the New York Times offered much more balanced coverage than in April 2002, when the Times� editorial board joined the Bush administration in temporarily supporting a failed coup against Ch�vez.

The lull in press hostility appears to have been partly the result of instability in international oil markets. The brief change in press coverage coincided with the Bush administration�s own decision to recognize Ch�vez�s electoral victory so as to temporarily stabilize Venezuela politically and thereby assure the steady and continued flow of oil from that country.

However, a longer-term analysis of the sources that U.S. correspondents have relied upon�and the hemispheric policies that the U.S. media, government and corporations jointly support�reveals a stark media bias against the Ch�vez government. While the outcome of the referendum briefly tempered U.S. press hostility toward Ch�vez, recent media commentaries suggest that media hostility has returned with a vengeance.

Making peace with Ch�vez?

Last August, the New York Times� editorial board�which had long derided Ch�vez as a polarizing, anti-democratic figure�needed to explain how the left-populist Venezuelan president could defeat his opposition so handily at the polls. For once, the Times� editors accurately explained (8/18/04) that, unlike most of Ch�vez�s predecessors, �he has made programs directed at the everyday problems of the poor�illiteracy, the hunger for land and inferior health care�the central theme of his administration, and he has been able to use higher-than-expected oil revenues to advance social welfare." After international observers of both the Carter Center and the Organization of American States found Venezuela's electoral process to have been clean and transparent, the Times editorial argued that the opposition needed to �stop shouting foul.� This point was echoed in the Los Angeles Times� August 21 editorial. �To say that the process was marred by a massive electronic fraud, as the opposition has done, is irresponsible, considering there is no proof to back up the assertions,� the L.A. Times noted.
The New York Times editorial also criticized Chavez�s opponents� violations of constitutional norms, pointing out that they had �backed a briefly successful military coup attempt in 2002 and have led four national strikes aimed at bringing down the elected government.� Not surprisingly, the Times neglected to mention that it, too, had backed the failed coup against an �elected government.� In fact, just as coup leader Pedro Carmona was dissolving Venezuela's democratically elected Congress and jettisoning the democratically ratified constitution , the Times published an editorial (4/13/02) stating that, with Ch�vez gone, Venezuelan democracy was �no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."

The oil connection

Clearly, the Times� belated criticisms of anti-democratic forces within the opposition could not be misconstrued as sympathy for Ch�vez. Rather, the U.S. press� recognition of the Ch�vez government�s popular legitimacy --as well as their disavowal of the opposition�s dubious claims of �massive fraud�-- appears to have been partly motivated by short-term geopolitical and economic considerations.

On August 17, the Wall Street Journal�in a story headlined �Crude Prices Ease as Venezuela Vote Allays Some Fears��reported that Ch�vez�s decisive victory �erased fear that political unrest could disrupt the flow of oil from the world�s fifth-largest exporter.� Linda Giesecke, a Latin America analyst of the consulting firm Energy Security Analysis (ESAI), was quoted as saying that there had been �concerns� that a close vote in Venezuela would �create disturbances that could somehow impact crude exports and possibly crude production.� Ch�vez's clear victory, however, suggested that �these disturbances may not occur,� Gieseke said.

The Bush administration�s surprisingly early recognition of Ch�vez�s electoral triumph must be understood in this context. With Iraq's oil supplies threatened by violence, high gas prices became a point of political contention in the U.S. presidential race. On August 11, the Wall Street Journal presciently noted that --despite the Bush administration�s antipathy toward Ch�vez-- �the risk of sending prices at the gasoline pump even higher could prompt Washington to put a premium on stability over having friends in power.�

Had the circumstances been different, the Bush administration might very well have embraced the opposition�s claims of �massive fraud.� In fact, during most of Bush�s time in office, U.S. government officials have frequently peddled completely baseless allegations against the Ch�vez government.

In U.S. News & World Report (10/6/03), the magazine's Latin America bureau chief Linda Robinson uncritically repeated claims that Ch�vez was �flirting with terrorism.� Robinson quoted an unnamed �U.S. official� as saying that it was �no secret� that the Venezuelan government was cooperating with Colombian guerrillas in the trafficking of drugs and the smuggling of arms into Colombia.

In response to this charge, the Caracas-based U.S. sociologist Gregory Wilpert asked, �If this is no secret, then why does the U.S. government not make a formal complaint and officially declare Venezuela a �narco-state�?� (Venezuelanalysis.com, 10/2/03). Noting that U.S. News had made �extremely heavy use of unnamed government officials,� Wilpert suggested that these officials� decision to speak off the record permitted them to propagate claims that they could not prove in an effort to discredit a government that they did not like.

The Granda Affair: Ch�vez-bashing returns

Today, the Bush Administration --after having won the November U.S. election-- is intensifying its belligerence toward the Ch�vez government. Once again, the U.S. administration appears poised to peddle disinformation to the U.S. media as a means to malign the Ch�vez government.

In mid-January, one month after the Colombian government hired bounty hunters to kidnap a FARC spokesperson, Rodrigo Granda, from the streets of Caracas, the U.S. Ambassador to Bogot� declared �100 percent� support for Colombia�s obvious violation of Venezuelan sovereignty (Washington Times, 01/20/05).

While the editors of the Los Angeles Times� (01/28/05) jumped at the opportunity to cast Granda�s presence in Caracas as proof that Ch�vez had been �harboring Colombian guerrillas,� Associated Press (01/27/05) offered a slightly different account. AP noted that Granda, �with his graying hair, wire-rim spectacles and fondness for cardigans, looks more the part of a mild-mannered professor than of a Colombian rebel�� AP pointed out that Granda had �hobnobbed for years at conferences with prominent Latin American leftists� and that Tomas Borge, Nicaragua�s former interior minister during the Sandinista government, described him as a �political representative, not as a combatant, of the FARC.� Similarly, a letter signed by a number of prominent progressive intellectuals�including the U.S. linguist Noam Chomsky and the Venezuelan sociologist Margarita L�pez-Maya�described Granda as a member of the FARC�s international relations team who had been received by �high state representatives and important political and social organizations throughout the world, as part of his diplomatic activity in the search for a politically negotiated solution to the Colombian conflict� (Venezuelanalysis.com, 01/06/05).

According to the L.A. Times editorial, Granda�s kidnapping was a �bold move, justifiable under the circumstances.� The Times� editors neglected to explain what was so �bold� about the Colombian government�s weeks-long denial that it had used bounty hunters to nab Granda from Venezuelan territory. If Ch�vez�s assertion of a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty was so �comical,� as the Times claimed, one wonders why the Colombian government would continue peddling the lie�until all evidence pointed to the contrary�that Granda was captured in the Colombian border town of Cucut�.

As the Bush Administration�s attacks on the Ch�vez government have become more shrill, so too have the commentaries about Venezuela in U.S. media. Describing Ch�vez as �Venezuela's demagogic president,� the editors of the Los Angeles Times (01/28/05) parroted Colombian President Alvaro Uribe�s most recent claim that Ch�vez has tolerated Colombian rebel camps on the Venezuelan side of the border. Similarly, FOX News (02/04/05) recently asserted�without any supporting evidence�that Ch�vez is �backing guerrilla movements in the region.� The resounding echo of anti-Ch�vez propaganda then traveled, once again, to the pages of U.S. News (02/14/05), where publisher Mortimer Zuckerman claimed that Ch�vez, �a left-wing demogogue,� had allied himself with �the worst criminal organizations in Latin America, especially the narcoterrorists in Colombia.�

Amidst all this hysteria, each of the above-mentioned commentaries neglected to mention that�in a December interview with Venezuela�s state-run television station (Venezolana de Televisi�n, VTV)�Colombia�s own Defense Minister, Jorge Alberto Uribe, dismissed as mere �rumors� the accusations that Venezuela protected guerrillas (Venezuelanalysis.com, 02/04/05).

Obviously, the Colombian government has difficulty getting its stories straight. Nevertheless, the U.S. press continues basing its unsubstantiated assertions that Ch�vez �harbors� Colombia�s guerrillas on precisely the ever-changing claims of Colombia�s government. In sum, for the media mouthpieces of U.S. State Department propaganda, Colombia�s right-wing government can do no wrong.

Opposing "core values"

One reason that U.S. government officials and compliant media seek to discredit Ch�vez is that his government serves as an impediment to the economic domination of the hemisphere by U.S.-based multinationals, among which are most of the major media conglomerates.

Ch�vez is unequivocal in his opposition to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas pact (FTAA); the Venezuelan leader was once quoted as saying (AP, 11/13/03) that, under FTAA, competition between Venezuelan companies and powerful U.S. and Canadian multinationals "would be like a fight between a 12-year-old boy and Cassius Clay."

Analyst Michael Shifter of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue noted (In the National Interest, 7/16/03), �Venezuela under Ch�vez potentially poses a challenge to U.S. policy objectives, leadership and core values in this hemisphere.� By �core values,� Shifter is not referring to the core values of Middle America, but to the values of economic and policy-making U.S. elites. Prominent among their core values is �free trade,� which is, incidentally, a value that much of the U.S. population does not seem to share.

Like Shifter, corporate media are avidly committed to �free trade� as a �core value� of the United States. A search of major papers in the Nexis database for the month of April 2001--when governments of the Western Hemisphere met to discuss the proposed FTAA at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City-- found 34 editorials in U.S. papers supporting the FTAA and none opposing it (Extra!, 8/01).

Given Ch�vez�s expressed view that FTAA is a �colonialist project" (AP, 11/13/03), it should come as little surprise that U.S. News and World Report, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times�among many other U.S. publications�call him �demagogic� in their commentaries. As FAIR associate Norman Solomon pointed out (CommonDreams.org, 7/8/04), big media routinely characterize anti-�free trade� positions as �demagogic�:

In the simple algebra of corporate media, �protectionist� equals �demagogic.� So, in the media world view, economic populism is like a dog that must be housebroken and kept on a leash. Sometimes, to maintain discipline, it needs to be whacked on the nose with a newspaper. Who gets to speak?
U.S. reporting on Venezuela relies overwhelmingly on pro-�free trade� and anti-Ch�vez sources like Shifter. The progressive economist Mark Weisbrot pointed out in a syndicated column for Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services (6/1/04) that, �although there are any number of scholars and academics�both Venezuelan and international�who could offer coherent arguments on the other side, their arguments almost never appear.� Judging from the fact that no U.S. newspaper published Weisbrot�s column, the U.S. press does not seem to have taken kindly to the criticism.

A new analysis of reports about Venezuela in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune and Christian Science Monitor corroborates Weisbrot�s charge of media imbalance. Since the failed coup of April 2002, the most frequently quoted anti-Chavez analysts are cited in more than five times as many press reports as their Chavez-sympathizing counterparts. This evident bias is even starker at the New York Times, where analysts who sympathize with the Ch�vez government are out-quoted by their anti-Ch�vez counterparts by a 7-to-1 margin.

When looking only at the media�s citations of Venezuelan sources, the anti-Ch�vez bias appears even starker. While readers of U.S. reports about Venezuela are treated to a steady barrage of quotes from myriad Venezuelan analysts opposed to the government, independent Venezuelan experts who sympathize with the government are virtually never quoted.

Searches of the six U.S. publications reveal that, in a two-and-a-half year period from April 12, 2002 to October 12, 2004, only six press reports included quotes from the prominent Venezuelan sociologist Margarita L�pez-Maya and the historian Samuel Moncada, both of whom speak English fluently and sympathize with the Ch�vez government.

In contrast, the ranks of Caracas-based anti-Ch�vez analysts whom U.S. newspapers quote are extensive. Alberto Garrido --an anti-Ch�vez historian-- was cited 24 times (a four-fold advantage over Moncada and L�pez-Maya combined). Other oft-quoted opposition sources include the virulently anti-Ch�vez Venezuelan pollsters Luis Vicente Le�n and Alfredo Keller; Alejandro Plaz and Maria Corina Machado of the opposition �civic organization� S�mate, which is partially U.S.-funded; and Teodoro Petkoff, the editor of the anti-Ch�vez Caracas daily Tal Cual. Even Jos� Antonio Gil Yepes�a pollster who once told the L.A. Times (7/8/02) that Ch�vez �has to be killed��was quoted more often than L�pez-Maya.

Perhaps the starkest indicator of bias was that, for every report that cited one of the two pro-Ch�vez Venezuelan academics, there were more than 17 stories in which one or more of the anti-Ch�vez Venezuelan analysts was cited.

A skewed narrative

Michael Shifter�the anti-Ch�vez U.S. commentator who is quoted more frequently than all pro-Ch�vez analysts combined�illustrates the tendency among opposition sources to provide a skewed and incomplete picture of Venezuela�s political and economic situation. In addition to being quoted profusely, Shifter has been granted ample column space to deride the Ch�vez government in the op-ed pages of the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

In the immediate wake of Ch�vez�s referendum victory, Shifter sourly opined in a Washington Post column (8/23/04) that Venezuela's performance under Ch�vez had been �dismal.� �All key indicators point to deterioration,� he wrote. Shifter neglected to point out that the business-led opposition had contributed heavily to the country�s economic problems by attempting to sabotage the government through lockouts, capital flight and political destabilization.

It should be noted that some correspondents do occasionally recognize what their anti-Ch�vez sources neglect to point out to them. Even New York Times correspondent Juan Forero�who has frequently quoted Shifter�could not help but notice (8/8/04) that residents of poor Caracas neighborhoods tended to blame the opposition for the economic free fall of 2002 and 2003, �which was set off by strikes aimed at removing Mr. Ch�vez from power."

However, most press narratives stick to the anti-Ch�vez script. As just one example, a report in the Washington Post on March 11, 2004 cast Venezuela�s political and economic situation as follows: �Ch�vez's policies, Venezuela's faltering economy and allegations of creeping authoritarianism are ostensibly driving the violent street protests here and the growing efforts to oust the president.� The report then quoted an anti-Ch�vez politician, Julio Borges, who said that inflation was rising, the economy had lost jobs, crime in urban centers had increased and Ch�vez �is a demagogue.�

A balanced approach would at least recognize the existence of a counter-narrative that blames economic troubles not on Ch�vez but on the business-led opposition, and would have pointed out the remarkable recovery of Venezuela�s economy following the opposition�s disastrous campaign of economic sabotage from December 2002 to February 2003. Venezuela�s gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2004 was 30 percent above the first quarter of 2003, and the IMF was predicting a growth rate between 9 and 10 percent for all of 2004, the highest in Latin America (Venezuelanalysis.com, 5/19/04). In fact, the IMF�s growth projection turned out to be grossly underestimated, as Venezuela�s economy actually grew 17 percent last year (Newsweek International, 02/14/05).

In sum, despite uncharacteristic balance in the immediate wake of Ch�vez�s recent electoral victory, longer-term trends in press content and the recent barrage of virulently anti-Ch�vez commentaries suggest that major U.S. media are predominantly hostile to the Ch�vez government. As long as Ch�vez remains an impediment to �free trade� and other �core values� of U.S. elites, one can expect U.S. media hostility toward the Ch�vez government to continue.

Justin Delacour is a freelance writer and a doctoral student of political science at the University of New Mexico. He receives email at [email protected]

[Alitas]

Ah yes. This from the dame who will send you over to read aporrea.

As a gesture of fairness here is the link: www.aporrea.org.

[moonraven]

I did not send anyone to that site. If you had bothered to read my previous post, you would have noted that I recommended two sites--neither of which was Aporrea.

Aporrea is, however, a good source of information for Spanish-speakers--they are like Yahoo News in that they pull news stories from everywhere--but I did not recommend them because they are not a site of commentary.

One of the reasons for your ignorance in regard to Venezuela--can't for the life of me figure out why you want to get a job in a country that pays low wages and whose government and programs you are not in sympathy with--is that you still haven't bothered to learn anything about its history or culture.

[Alitas]

I was referring to a past thread about Venezuela in which you were involved. To be honest I rarely read your long cut-and-paste jobs. Hurts my eyes.

You refuse to give me credit and that is fine with me. Once I am as old as you, my pretentious alitas will be earned.

I go to learn and love, and also, I don't need the money.

[moonraven]

You go to learn WHAT?

Sorry your eyes are so tender that you are not able to read. That also explains a lot about your deliberate ignorance.

Age does not always bring wisdom--so your wings may NOT be earned when you're my age.

[Alitas]

Can you comprehend that there are people who live in Venezuela who do not think Chavez is a god?

Do you realize not everyone on here is going to agree with your agenda to promote him positively?

Do you have a problem with young people? Rich people? Pretty young things? Girls who refuse to read your propaganda?

Do you think you get to choose which histories are taught or learned?

I have a feeling our experiences of Venezuela are so widely different, there may never be a bridge between them. One of my major issues when travelling there is that people often ask me to choose a side. Well, I don't want to choose a side. But in this discussion, I choose to provide some outlets that negate your siempre pro-Chavez stance.

Please do not fault my lack of history or culture in doing so. You refuse to give credit if it ain't the volume you're reading.

[moonraven]

Don't tell me that you have not chosen a side. Everything you have ever posted on this site indicates that you are anti-Ch�vez, and that you hang with "escu�lidos". You have never provided any facts or information that have supported your hateful views--and therefore you are a propagandist.

I do not have a problem with young people, or rich people (depending on their level of social consciusness).

As for the not-all-that-goodlooking little tootsies who refuse to read anything BUT right-wing propaganda--yes, I have a big problem, given that I did not become an educator to promote ignorance.

[Don Alan]

Let's simplify the argument. Chavez = bad man and that's it.