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Chavez faces fierce opposition to TV network's closure
By Rafael Noboa
AFP
CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com 05 29 07Venezuela's firebrand President Hugo Chavez Monday faced fierce criticism of his move to shut down Venezuela's oldest television network, the last big opposition outlet.
After 54 years on the air, RCTV went black at midnight Sunday after the government refused to renew its license. It was promptly replaced by TVes, a state-backed "Socialist" station.
On Monday morning, hundreds of university students protested against the network's closure under a sizable police presence.
One of the country's leading dailies, El Nacional, denounced the "end of pluralism in Venezuela," and slammed the government's growing "information monopoly."
Archbishop Baltasar Porras Cardoso slammed Chavez's "sectarianism" and compared him to Hitler, Mussolini and Cuban leader Fidel Castro -- who is a close friend of the left-wing Venezuelan president.
"Every day, the sectarianism of this government narrows the room for maneuver of those who don't agree with it completely," the Venezuelan Catholic cleric wrote in Brazilian daily O Estado de Sao Paulo.
The EU's German presidency Monday said it was concerned the government had let the license for Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) expire "without holding an open competition" for a successor station.
"The European Union believes it is important to recall the promises made by the Venezuelan authorities regarding an open competition and a tender process for that same license," a statement from the presidency said.
"Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are essential elements of democracy.
The European Union expects therefore that... Venezuela will uphold these freedoms."
Several international organizations supporting press freedom have also slammed the move.
"The closure of RCTV, which was founded in 1953, is a serious violation of freedom of expression and a major setback to democracy and pluralism," Reporters Without Borders said.
"President Chavez has silenced Venezuela's most popular TV station and the only national station to criticize him, and he has violated all legal norms by seizing RCTV's broadcast equipment for the new public TV station that is replacing it."
As RCTV faded out, network president Marcel Granier told US-based Univision television that Chavez was driven by "a megalomaniacal desire to establish a totalitarian dictatorship."
He told reporters that he was certain that "democracy will return to Venezuela, along with RCTV."
Meanwhile, Chavez supporters held a huge, night-to-dawn public party outside RCTV studios to celebrate the birth of the new "socialist television" and the end of the bitterly anti-Chavez media outlet.
TVes president Lil Rodriguez said the move reflected "our sovereignty."
Chavez announced the decision not to renew RCTV's license soon after he was re-elected in late 2006.
During the campaign, RCTV openly called for the president's defeat, and Chavez never forgave the network for backing an April 2002 coup that deposed him for two days.
"The decision was mine" to close RCTV, Chavez said Saturday, calling its steamy soap operas "a danger for the country, for boys, for girls."
RCTV, which airs soap-opera "telenovelas" and variety shows, had one of the largest audiences in Venezuela and is one of the few stations with national broadcast capabilities.
The government will now control two of the four nationwide broadcasters in Venezuela, one of them state-owned VTV.
Since 1999, Chavez has gradually tightened his grip on power and in January the National Assembly allowed him to rule on most matters by decree, without legislative debate.
AFP 28 1827 GMT 05 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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