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Mark Fitzgerald :
Exclusive on Trip to 'Polarized' Venezuela

"Chavez es un figura satanica," Daniel declared, and then he quickly corrected himself. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wasn't simply satanic -- he was the Devil himself, "Demonio."

Daniel, Julio Munoz, the Inter American Press Association's (IAPA) executive director, and I were stuck in a long line of traffic crawling through the dusty town of La Victoria, 40 miles and seemingly a generation of development away from the high-rises and construction cranes of Caracas. Daniel was going to show us a possible meeting place in an unlikely venue, a settlement at the top of a mountain created more than a century ago in the image of a German village. Whenever he wasn't talking about hotel logistics, he was whacking away at Chavez, a "fascist," a "clown," an "embarrassment."

The only people who supported Chavez, Daniel sternly lectured our driver, are "stupid" people.

Judging just by the evidence of the ubiquitous "Si" graffiti supporting Chavez's sweeping constitutional "reforms," La Victoria and Caracas are full of stupid people. A banner hanging in a park addressed Chavez, Castro-style, as "Comandante," and far up in the mountains, along switchbacks with drop-offs that offered views both breath-taking and harrowing, Chavez supporters had papered roadside markers with Si posters.

I was in Venezuela last week as part of an IAPA delegation -- led by South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editor and Senior Vice President Earl Maucker -- investigating the state of the nation's press and freedom of expression ahead of the Dec. 2 vote on the constitutional changes, which, among other things, would allow Chavez to seek re-election in perpetuity, create new states and appoint their governors, put the central bank under the president's personal control, and abolish the "right to expression" during open-ended "states of exception" that the president could decree on his own.

In an intense series of meetings, newspaper publishers and editors, TV station owners, constitutional lawyers, pollsters, human rights groups, and a pro-Chavez association of journalists, the delegation heard one message repeatedly: Venezuela is a polarized society now, and Chavez is the reason.

Chavez, many journalists and media owners told us, has marginalized the independent press through any number of means, from making newsprint purchases difficult and doling out lucrative government advertising according to a news organization's willingness to swallow the Chavez line to closing down the only independent TV channel that reached the entire nation and sending mobs to "denounce" media outlets.

The constitutional changes to transform Venezuela as a true "Bolivarian socialist" state alarm the press, whose warnings at time take on a Cold War-era rhetoric. "This isn't European socialism, or Chilean-style socialism," one TV station owner told us. "It's completely Communist. It's not in the spirit of socialism -- it's just Communism."

On the streets, though, it appears the constitutional changes are popular.

It isn't just that Chavez has apparently assembled a well-oiled propaganda machine that has festooned Caracas and the countryside with Si posters, banners, and flags. San Francisco Bay Guardian Editor Bruce Brugmann and I stumbled into a pro-Chavez rally getting underway in Caracas. People danced to a catchy "pro-reforma" rumba with lyrics about doing away with the old corruption and changing Venezuela "for good." Kids jumped on inflatable slides colored with the Chavez party red. Hawker did a tidy business selling red t-shirts announcing "Si! I'm socialist!," and, my favorite, a pen that conceals a scroll that can be unwrapped to show a beaming Chavez.

I'm writing in greater detail about the IAPA study mission in the upcoming January print edition of E&P. Suffice it to say now, less than a week until the vote on the constitution, our delegation concluded that, as bad as the situation has been for the press since Chavez took power in 1999, "reforma" could make it much worse.

"As we were gathering information we became more and more concerned at a variety of conditions that will weaken civil liberties," our leader, Earl Maucker, declared at a crowded press conference last Tuesday in a movie theatre. "There are measures in the constitutional reform that raise a real concern that they will undermine freedom of the press and freedom of expression."

This was IAPA's 10th visit to Venezuela since Chavez was first elected, and again we were shunned by every government official we approached to talk. Maucker said the refusal to engage in a dialogue with the press freedom group was emblematic of Chavez's rush to get a vote on the constitutional changes without any real debate.

"We came to Venezuela with the utmost goodwill to listen to representatives of every sector, but the government's unwillingness to talk about issues of press freedom and free speech, so essential to a democratic society, strengthens our belief that there is no real climate of respect, or the tolerance and political will to hold an open and comprehensive dialogue, especially at a time like this when citizens should have the maximum amount of information available to face a referendum process that implies radical changes in the country's political system," Maucker said.

That did prompt a response from the government's spokesman Willian [STET] Lara.

Punning on IAPA's initials in Spanish, SIP, Lara called the group "SIEP" for the "Inter American Society of Exploiters of Journalists." The IAPA delegates, he declared, were "cobas," a word that can mean liars or suck-ups, who work only for the interests of powerful media owners. "The constitutional reform expands and improves liberty of expression to empower community organizations, and give (them) effective access to the media."

Mark Fitzgerald is the editor-at-large of Editor and Publisher, America's oldest journal covering the newspaper industry (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com). Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

Editor's note: This commentary was originally published by Editor and Publisher,
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Petroleumworld News 11/27/07

Copyright© 2007 Mark Fitzgerald. All rights reserved.

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