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Larry Rohter, the Times reporter who wrote this rather dumb article, was a Times correspondent in Venezuela. He vigorously attacked Oliver Stone's film, South of the Border, about Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. Stone replied in an rebuttal published here: http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/oliver_stone_responds_to_new_york_times_attack_20100628 Among Stone's comments were: "Rohter should have disclosed his own conflict of interest in this review. The film criticizes the New York Times for its editorial board’s endorsement of the military coup of April 11, 2002 against the democratically elected government of Venezuela, which was embarrassing to the Times. Moreover, Rohter himself wrote an article on April 12 that went even further than the Times’ endorsement of the coup: “Neither the overthrow of Mr. Chavez, a former army colonel, nor of Mr. Mahuad two years ago can be classified as a conventional Latin American military coup. The armed forces did not actually take power on Thursday. It was the ousted president’s supporters who appear to have been responsible for deaths that numbered barely 12 rather than hundreds or thousands, and political rights and guarantees were restored rather than suspended.” – Larry Rohter, New York Times, April 12, 2002 These allegations that the coup was not a coup – not only by Rohter — prompted a rebuttal by Rohter’s colleague at the New York Times, Tim Weiner, who wrote a Sunday Week in Review piece two days later entitled “A Coup By Any Other Name.” (New York Times, April 14, 2002) Unlike the NYT editorial board, which issued a grudging retraction of their pro-coup stance a few days later (included in our film), Rohter seems to have clung to the right-wing fantasies about the coup. It is not surprising that someone who supports the military overthrow of a democratically elected government would not like a documentary like this one, which celebrates the triumphs of electoral democracy in South America over the last decade." During our phone conversation, Rohter got more agitated as I steadfastly refused to concede anything about what Open Veins tells us about Latin America's history. He seemed to think that MR Press is obliged to make note of Galiano's remarks, but I said that would be ridiculous. Should we put a blurb on the book, stating that the author has now repudiated his book (which, by the way, he did not)? I asked him, what publisher would do that, especially when we think the book is right on the money. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
