| From: | "Karen Lee Wald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |
| Subject: | Word Games: the media's role in the Venezuela coup |
| Date: | Sun, 14 Apr 2002 09:02:02 -0700 |
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
Now that the legally and democratically elected government led by Hugo Chavez is back in power, corporate media is for the first time acknowledging that there had been a coup-- a word they did not use until now, with exceptions such as the Sun-Sentinel's Vanessa Bauza, who placed "coup" in quotation marks when she told readers that Cuban leaders were "calling it a coup"...On Saturday morning about 15,000 Cubans gathered at a weekly
government-organized rally to denounce what officials called
a fascist "coup" led by the rich in Caracas.
government-organized rally to denounce what officials called
a fascist "coup" led by the rich in Caracas.
No quotation marks were put around "resignation"; no major newspaper or media (like CNN) hedged it by saying "the military officers who whisked President Chavez out of sight CLAIM he resigned...." When the DID report his statement that he had NOT resigned, on the contrary, it was carefully hedged: they did not say "President Chavez said in statements to family members that he had at no time resigned". Rather, they told us that family members and friends "claimed" or "said" that he had said so. We were left with doubts not about his resignation, but about whether he had denied resigning.
Now, for the first time, with legitimacy restored, the press is scrambling to get their wording right. AP finally reported on Sunday morning: Hugo Chavez was freed by his military captors and returned to reclaim the Venezuelan presidency Sunday, in a dramatic restoration of power two days after he was forced from office by army commanders.
Now we see "military captors" "forced from office" replacing "resigned".
NOW we see wording that should have appeared over the last 3 days: "The military said Chavez resigned Friday hours after generals arrested him for allegedly ordering gunmen to fire on a massive opposition protest on Thursday. "
But where was all this correct reporting when the media moguls were so eager to believe Chavez had been successfully overthrown?
But where was all this correct reporting when the media moguls were so eager to believe Chavez had been successfully overthrown?
Today, Reuters describes "troops loyal to the presidency" -- but until now, wire services and other corporate media were describing these same loyalists as "rebels" who were being put down by the military (regarded as the "legitimate" armed forces) who had carried out the coup -- a strange reversal of roles!
The editor in chief of the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde gave a fast lesson in reporting by placing two TVs side by side in the newsroom, one carrying Cuban new and the other CNN. Even these experienced journalists were stunned at how far CNN diverged not just from what they knew to be happening from other reports, but from the very images carried by the CNN cameras.
The NY Times' Tim Weiner, amazingly, wrote the truth from Mexico just prior to Chavez' return:
The New York Times
April 14, 2002
A Coup by Any Other Name
By TIM WEINER
MEXICO CITY � When is a coup not a coup? When the United States says so, it seems � especially if the fallen leader is no friend to American interests.
What else to call the fall on Friday of Venezuela's president, Hugo Ch�vez? An armed transition of power? By any other name, though its European and Latin American allies deplored it, it was a consummation devoutly wished for by the White House.
"The actions encouraged by the Ch�vez government provoked a crisis," the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said on Friday. That sentence was spring-loaded, given the history of Latin American coups tacitly encouraged or covertly supported by the United States. *
This honest assessment appeared Sunday morning -- after Chavez was back in office. It would bolster our belief in the corporate media's attempt to provide some honest reporting if it had appeared before. Now we are left to wonder when he wrote it, and when the NY Times editorial board decided it was safe --or necessary -- to publish it.
April 14, 2002
A Coup by Any Other Name
By TIM WEINER
MEXICO CITY � When is a coup not a coup? When the United States says so, it seems � especially if the fallen leader is no friend to American interests.
What else to call the fall on Friday of Venezuela's president, Hugo Ch�vez? An armed transition of power? By any other name, though its European and Latin American allies deplored it, it was a consummation devoutly wished for by the White House.
"The actions encouraged by the Ch�vez government provoked a crisis," the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said on Friday. That sentence was spring-loaded, given the history of Latin American coups tacitly encouraged or covertly supported by the United States. *
This honest assessment appeared Sunday morning -- after Chavez was back in office. It would bolster our belief in the corporate media's attempt to provide some honest reporting if it had appeared before. Now we are left to wonder when he wrote it, and when the NY Times editorial board decided it was safe --or necessary -- to publish it.
*(see full article below)
The Juventud Rebelde column that described the two television experiment also observed:
En 1917, el escritor estadounidense John Reed escribi� que ��las guerras crucifican la verdad", y ten�a raz�n. Lo hemos visto muchas veces, con impotencia, con dolor. Pero no hay modo de sostener una misma mentira un mes s� y otro no. Los golpistas y sus asesores no contaban con la reacci�n del pueblo, porque no contaban con la capacidad de resistencia y movilizaci�n de la verdad.
[In 1917, US writer John Reed wrote that "wars crucify the truth", and he was right. We've watched it happen --impotently, painfully -- many times. But you can't sustain the same lie one month and not the next. The coup-makers and their advisers didn't take into acount the people's reaction, because they diidn't recognize the ability of the truth to resist and mobilize.]
==========================
Karen Lee Wald
2175 Aborn Road, apt. 164
San Jose, CA 95121
telephone 408-532-6147
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Karen Lee Wald
2175 Aborn Road, apt. 164
San Jose, CA 95121
telephone 408-532-6147
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please note that while Weiner is quite candid, the tone of his article is to accept the reality of the US' position as a given.
The New York Times
April 14, 2002
A Coup by Any Other Name
By TIM WEINER
MEXICO CITY � When is a coup not a coup? When the United States says so, it seems � especially if the fallen leader is no friend to American interests.
What else to call the fall on Friday of Venezuela's president, Hugo Ch�vez? An armed transition of power? By any other name, though its European and Latin American allies deplored it, it was a consummation devoutly wished for by the White House.
"The actions encouraged by the Ch�vez government provoked a crisis," the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said on Friday. That sentence was spring-loaded, given the history of Latin American coups tacitly encouraged or covertly supported by the United States.
For Washington, the real crisis in Caracas was Mr. Ch�vez. It ended with his leaving office at gunpoint. Now 1.5 million barrels of Venezuelan oil a day will keep flowing to the United States. And none will go to Fidel Castro's Cuba � Venezuela's new leader, an oil man, immediately declared that tap shut.
In Latin America, the United States has long preferred friendly faces in presidential palaces, playing reliable roles, whether or not they are wearing uniforms. It supported authoritarian regimes throughout Central and South America during and after the cold war in defense of its economic and political interests.
In tiny Guatemala, the Central Intelligence Agency mounted a coup overthrowing the democratically elected government in 1954, and it backed subsequent right-wing governments against small leftist rebel groups for four decades. Roughly 200,000 civilians died.
In Chile, a C.I.A.-supported coup helped put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power from 1973 to 1990. In Peru, a fragile democratic government is still unraveling the agency's role in a decade of support for the now-deposed and disgraced president, Alberto K. Fujimori, and his disreputable spy chief, Vladimiro L. Montesinos.
The United States had to invade Panama in 1989 to topple its narco-dictator, Manuel A. Noriega, who, for almost 20 years, was a valued informant for American intelligence. And the struggle to mount an armed opposition against Nicaragua's leftists in the 1980's by any means necessary, including selling arms to Iran for cold cash, led to indictments against senior Reagan administration officials.
Among those investigated back then was Otto J. Reich, a veteran of Latin American struggles. No charges were ever filed against Mr. Reich. He later became United States ambassador to Venezuela and now serves as assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs by presidential appointment. The fall of Mr. Ch�vez is a feather in his cap.
THERE is so far no evidence that the United States covertly undermined Mr. Ch�vez. He did a decent job destabilizing himself. But the open White House embrace of his overthrow will not be lost on Latin American leaders who dare thumb their noses at the United States, as did Mr. Ch�vez.
Yes, he was freely and democratically elected, and his starry-eyed visions of a united South America unshackled from the dominance of Washington's power did not bother the administration much. But his selling oil to Mr. Castro? His alliances with his brothers in petroleum production, Saddam Hussein and Muammar el-Qaddafi? His not-so-tacit support for the Colombian rebels? And the potential threat he posed to thousands of American gas stations?
Above all, the United States wants stability in its backyard. Mr. Ch�vez did not fit in with President Bush's vision of "the century of the Americas" in "a hemisphere of liberty."
The Organization of American States, the most venerable alliance in the Americas, has a new Democracy Charter, signed by every one of its members, including the United States, on Sept. 11. It requires strong action against military coups. Yet, in all likelihood, it will be ignored in Venezuela's case, because Washington wanted Mr. Ch�vez gone.
Today, armed dictatorships cannot flourish as easily as they did in the cold war. Ideologies have little power left in Latin America. But civil institutions have less. Laws, legislatures and legal mechanisms have been starved by strong armies and weak democracies. The promised land of political empowerment pledged by free traders still seems far away. And in Venezuela, despite its oil, more than 85 percent of the people are still dirt poor.
"Venezuela has been in and out of crises like this for 50 years, with arrogant elites overthrown by popular uprisings whose leaders become arrogant elites," said David J. Rothkopf, chairman of Intellibridge, a Washington consulting firm run by former senior intelligence and foreign policy officials. "The only cure would be to extract all the oil from Venezuela at once."
The cure for Washington was the army's extracting Mr. Ch�vez.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information
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Courtesy of:
The Law Office of Jose Pertierra
1010 Vermont Avenue, NW #620
Washington, DC 20005
202 783 6666
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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April 14, 2002
A Coup by Any Other Name
By TIM WEINER
MEXICO CITY � When is a coup not a coup? When the United States says so, it seems � especially if the fallen leader is no friend to American interests.
What else to call the fall on Friday of Venezuela's president, Hugo Ch�vez? An armed transition of power? By any other name, though its European and Latin American allies deplored it, it was a consummation devoutly wished for by the White House.
"The actions encouraged by the Ch�vez government provoked a crisis," the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said on Friday. That sentence was spring-loaded, given the history of Latin American coups tacitly encouraged or covertly supported by the United States.
For Washington, the real crisis in Caracas was Mr. Ch�vez. It ended with his leaving office at gunpoint. Now 1.5 million barrels of Venezuelan oil a day will keep flowing to the United States. And none will go to Fidel Castro's Cuba � Venezuela's new leader, an oil man, immediately declared that tap shut.
In Latin America, the United States has long preferred friendly faces in presidential palaces, playing reliable roles, whether or not they are wearing uniforms. It supported authoritarian regimes throughout Central and South America during and after the cold war in defense of its economic and political interests.
In tiny Guatemala, the Central Intelligence Agency mounted a coup overthrowing the democratically elected government in 1954, and it backed subsequent right-wing governments against small leftist rebel groups for four decades. Roughly 200,000 civilians died.
In Chile, a C.I.A.-supported coup helped put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power from 1973 to 1990. In Peru, a fragile democratic government is still unraveling the agency's role in a decade of support for the now-deposed and disgraced president, Alberto K. Fujimori, and his disreputable spy chief, Vladimiro L. Montesinos.
The United States had to invade Panama in 1989 to topple its narco-dictator, Manuel A. Noriega, who, for almost 20 years, was a valued informant for American intelligence. And the struggle to mount an armed opposition against Nicaragua's leftists in the 1980's by any means necessary, including selling arms to Iran for cold cash, led to indictments against senior Reagan administration officials.
Among those investigated back then was Otto J. Reich, a veteran of Latin American struggles. No charges were ever filed against Mr. Reich. He later became United States ambassador to Venezuela and now serves as assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs by presidential appointment. The fall of Mr. Ch�vez is a feather in his cap.
THERE is so far no evidence that the United States covertly undermined Mr. Ch�vez. He did a decent job destabilizing himself. But the open White House embrace of his overthrow will not be lost on Latin American leaders who dare thumb their noses at the United States, as did Mr. Ch�vez.
Yes, he was freely and democratically elected, and his starry-eyed visions of a united South America unshackled from the dominance of Washington's power did not bother the administration much. But his selling oil to Mr. Castro? His alliances with his brothers in petroleum production, Saddam Hussein and Muammar el-Qaddafi? His not-so-tacit support for the Colombian rebels? And the potential threat he posed to thousands of American gas stations?
Above all, the United States wants stability in its backyard. Mr. Ch�vez did not fit in with President Bush's vision of "the century of the Americas" in "a hemisphere of liberty."
The Organization of American States, the most venerable alliance in the Americas, has a new Democracy Charter, signed by every one of its members, including the United States, on Sept. 11. It requires strong action against military coups. Yet, in all likelihood, it will be ignored in Venezuela's case, because Washington wanted Mr. Ch�vez gone.
Today, armed dictatorships cannot flourish as easily as they did in the cold war. Ideologies have little power left in Latin America. But civil institutions have less. Laws, legislatures and legal mechanisms have been starved by strong armies and weak democracies. The promised land of political empowerment pledged by free traders still seems far away. And in Venezuela, despite its oil, more than 85 percent of the people are still dirt poor.
"Venezuela has been in and out of crises like this for 50 years, with arrogant elites overthrown by popular uprisings whose leaders become arrogant elites," said David J. Rothkopf, chairman of Intellibridge, a Washington consulting firm run by former senior intelligence and foreign policy officials. "The only cure would be to extract all the oil from Venezuela at once."
The cure for Washington was the army's extracting Mr. Ch�vez.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
Courtesy of:
The Law Office of Jose Pertierra
1010 Vermont Avenue, NW #620
Washington, DC 20005
202 783 6666
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------------------------
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