President Hugo Chavez’s decision not to renew the broadcast license of a television station critical of his government is intensifying fears of media censorship as the fiery leader accelerates his march toward socialism.
Last month, Chavez announced that Radio Caracas Television, Venezuela’s oldest private station, would cease broadcasting after its license expires May 27.
Chavez accuses the station, widely known as RCTV, of spreading disinformation and broadcasting soap operas and other programs that violate the nation’s 2004 media law restricting violence and sexual content over the airwaves.
Complicity in ’02 coup alleged
He also charges that RCTV’s general manager, Marcel Granier, took part in the 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez from power.
“They were part of the team of conspirators,” said Saul Ortega, a pro-Chavez congressman. “It’s a subversive channel that is outside the law.”
Granier has denied participating in the 2002 uprising against Chavez and said the station’s only crime is to challenge what he and other critics describe as the Venezuelan leader’s growing stranglehold on power.
“What’s in play is the right that people have to be informed and entertained,” Granier told the Caracas newspaper El Universal. “What’s in play is the right of journalists to do their job independently, without being threatened.”
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Groups ranging from Venezuela’s Roman Catholic Church to the Organization of American States have condemned Chavez’s decision to shut RCTV.
“It’s hard to imagine a more obvious case of censorship,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch. “President Chavez decided to punish the television channel because he doesn’t approve its editorial line.
“This is the first time that Chavez has really crossed the line,” Vivanco said.
Chavez’s move against RCTV has sparked protests outside the station’s Caracas headquarters and is one of several steps he has taken since winning re-election in December to push this oil-rich country toward “21st Century socialism.”
In addition to announcing plans to nationalize Venezuela’s electrical industry and its largest telecommunications company, Chavez is seeking to strip Venezuela’s Central Bank of its autonomy while uniting his supporters under a single leftist party.
The Chavez-dominated National Assembly is expected to grant the president decree-making powers so he can promulgate a host of “revolutionary laws.”
“We believe socialism is the path to social justice,” said Ortega, president of the National Assembly’s foreign relations commission. “Socialism is the antidote to overcome hunger, poverty and misery.”
The problems between Chavez and Venezuela’s private television stations and newspapers date back to April 2002, when the president was temporarily unseated in a bloody coup.
As protesters filled the streets and loyalist troops returned Chavez to power, commercial television stations were broadcasting cartoons, baseball and reruns of American movies.
Eight months later, the same media outlets ran opposition advertisements and other programs in support of the opposition-led national strike that sought to oust Chavez.
“They made no effort whatsoever to be neutral, objective or apolitical,” Vivanco said. “The private media in Venezuela clearly identified with the opposition to Chavez and they were a very powerful actor.”
Chavez outlasted the strike, and his popularity has soared as he has poured tens of billions of dollars into social programs aimed at the poor.
State-run stations expanded
The Venezuelan leader also has sought to end what he describes as the oligarchy’s monopoly over information by backing a plethora of state-financed community radio stations and launching several state-run television channels.
Programming on the state’s longtime flagship station, Venezolana de Television, often resembles a giant campaign ad for Chavez and his populist policies. One spot broadcast last week equated capitalism with misery and hate, while praising socialism as embodying equality and collectivism.
At the same time, Chavez pushed through the National Assembly a media law that supporters say protects children and makes broadcasters accountable to citizens. Critics say the law has forced some private media to curb criticism of the president.
“We have all been under pressure in the past few years,” said Miguel Otero, editor of the Caracas daily El Nacional.
Still, Venezuela boasts many news outlets with an anti-Chavez slant. But some opposition politicians suggest that closing RCTV would cripple their ability to challenge Chavez over the airwaves.
Julio Borges, leader of the Primero Justicia party, said RCTV is extremely popular among the nation’s impoverished majority. Globovision, a 24-hour cable channel also critical of Chavez, has a far smaller audience consisting of mostly wealthier Venezuelans, he said.
“I can go on Globovision and I’m talking to 10 percent or 20 percent of the population in the best case,” Borges said. “I go on RCTV and all of Venezuela is watching.”
So far, RCTV has not backed down to appease Chavez.
On a recent morning, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, the station’s caustic host of the talk show “The Interview,” accused the president of everything from subverting Venezuela’s democracy and giving away its oil wealth to ignoring the plight of the average citizen.
He also slammed the president for shutting RCTV.
“No matter how much they scream. No matter how much they walk around complaining. No matter how much they walk around insulting us, Hugo Chavez and his ministers know it, this is arbitrary,” said Rodriguez, his voice rising in anger.
“There is no legal basis for closure or confiscation, which is what they are in fact doing to Radio Caracas Television.”
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