This is a response from the otherside on Venezuela's new channel named Telesur . I request the response from the list members about this critique and abt the fasinating idea of Telesur to counter CNN
~ Regards Anivar From: Antonio Pasquali [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 03 August 2005 19:17 To: Myriam Horngren The English version: CRIS Friends, I appreciate the balanced analysis on Telesur published by Alfonso Daniels in The Guardian and I take notice of the less documented praises in regard to this initiative taken by my country. I beg my friends and CRIS users -who desire to have a well balanced opinion on the matter- to take the following considerations into account: 1, Venezuela is living under the 26th militaristic government in its history, with a legitimately elected military officer as president, but already de-legitimized by his authoritarian control of all public institutions and finances and his systematic undemocratic actions and speech. In the field of communications, his government utilizes, without scruples the results of half a century of investigation and national proposals and programs in the field of Communications - among the most advanced in the continent - completely distorting its true suggestions and putting them to the service of the regime's ideology, without any respect for a democratic opposition that has been insulted and squashed. In 1974 and, more specifically in 1995, political and legislative projects tried to bring to life a new radio and television alternative, sort of a third radioelectric component that, under the figure of a radically non-goverment controlled public broadcasting service, could offer Venezuelans an alternative to the duopoly of the double commercial and governmental manipulation. Both these projects were frustrated. The commercial Venezuelan broadcast television sabotaged the projects and ended up usurping the place and playing the role of political parties in a system in crisis. For such actions they carry heavy responsibilities for which they will have to answer to the country in the future. But the current government has played up this confrontation to the limit, weakening the free media with a deeply undemocratic law and reinforcing the governmental capabilities for emissions with ideological contents which are strictly controlled in the purest Cuban style. 2 - TELESUR is only a segment of this global strategy: it is being presented to the world as an independent instrument of information. It aims to expand to the continent the work of ideological persuasion already exercised domestically, in the same way that the Gag Law (Ley Mordaza), which puts in hands of the State the power to interrupt any type of transmission, was sold to the country and to the world as a moralizing attempt in defense of minorities.The whole government media - providing close to half of the national offer - as well as the policies in the area of the Culture and Public Education are strongly biased today in favor of a Castro-Chavist indoctrination of the population, including the newborn Broadcast for the Youth that teaches children and teenagers to hate the members of other social classes. This is a particularly painful issue for someone who once proposed a radio station for the youth that could reproduce at local level the BBC1 successes. One of the goals of Chavez newly created " Mission Culture " is "to consolidate and accelerate the structuring of the new national military strategy - ". The Minister of Information and Communication has signed eleven agreements of cooperation with Cuban Radio and Television and with many community broadcast services, all of them chavistas (another distortion of a good old idea). Cubans act as political commissaries (Chávez has brought to the country between 40.000 and 50.000 Cubans). The new channel, ANTV, of the Venezuelan National Assembly is an advertising organ of the regime, the best example that the separation of powers between has disappeared in autocratic Venezuela. TELESUR is conceptually a beautiful and important project, analogous to the initiatives one has fought for during decades. It is obviously a project required for pluralism, tolerance and independence from the government. But its current version is an ideological caricature, unidimensional and linked with government. Financing and programming are both chavistas. Its main programs resound with stalinistic, leftist rhetoric which went out of style a half a century ago. After the withdrawal of Brazil, its only supporters are Cuba, Argentina and Uruguay (these last two countries with veto power over the selection of programs). The intentions of the chavista regime are clearly: a)To exercize maximum ideological control over Telesur's contents, originally installing its own Minister of Information and Communication in the Presidency of the station, andb) Providing Fidel Castro with something that he never enjoyed, a satellite signal (Chávez declared few weeks ago " Cuba and Venezuela are one country, one revolution"). The casual convergence of the opposition protests against the abuse of the government's position, and of one of the Advisers of the station, the English writer Tariq Alí, who demanded real independence and pluralism, forced the resignation of the Minister, who was limited to the role of president of the station, a decision that did not alter the heart of the matter.The final position of Argentina and Uruguay remain to be seen, two countries that knew the devastations of ferocious military dictatorships and that are afraid of a resurrection of the untimely and failed ideologies of the 1960's. 3, Since Radio became predominant, in the 1930's, , Venezuela has accumulated, as Mexico and other countries of the region have done, a very long record of unhealthy connivances and mutual support between governments and private media. This has hurt the credibility of the media It has decreased the respect for the listener and the usefulness and quality of the service. It is interesting to observe that - in spite of the extreme maniqueism reigning today in the Venezuelan communications sector, that some believe to be the prelude of a civil war - not even TELESUR constitutes an exception to that historical constant: its signal is spread , for a fee, by "DirectTV", property of those who did much, specially in 2002, to oust president Chávez. _______________________________________________ Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) For more information see http://www.crisinfo.org/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] CRIS Info is a public list for information and questions about the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS). CRIS also has a Latin American regional list at: http://comunica.org/mailman/listinfo/crisal_comunica.org ________________________________________
