Minucioso análisis de la televisora multiestatal latinoamericana
La televisora multiestatal Telesur desmontó, mediante un acucioso análisis, el discurso de manipulación y de desinformación contenido en el informe de la organización Reporteros Sin Fronteras (RSF) presentado este miércoles. El análisis realizado por el equipo de Telesur cuestiona el contenido del referido texto, argumentando con datos reales y corroborables la información tendenciosa con la que esta organización pretende generar una matriz de opinión en la población nacional e internacional.
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A continuación el texto del análisis titulado La consolidación de una mentira mediática a través de 39 embustes:
Diccionario de la Real Academia de la Lengua Española
Embuste. 1. m. Mentira disfrazada con artificio. 2. m. pl. Baratijas, dijes y otras alhajas curiosas, pero de poco valor.
La organización Reporteros Sin Frontera (RSF) adelantó el contenido de un informe que será presentado ante la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Organización de Naciones Unidas. Se trata de “su“ evaluación a la no renovación de concesión a una televisora privada de Caracas.
RSF no estuvo en Venezuela para evaluar un caso específico, mucho menos para defender algún derecho de la población de ese país, simplemente cumplió con una misión encomendada desde Washington: ’defender derechos e intereses corporativos del consorcio 1BC (dueño del canal RCTV), la práctica oligopólica de la comunicación y el comportamiento desestabilizador de la empresa que usufructuó la señal VHF 2.
El periodista e investigador mexicano Mario Méndez Acosta cuestionó el informe, señalando: “RSF realizó un trabajo que constó de nueve días de investigación, durante los que se entrevistaron (únicamente) a periodistas, editores, dueños de medios de comunicación privados, empresarios y políticos de oposición al gobierno del presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez”.
Veamos las mentiras del informe:
1er. embuste: Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) es el más popular medio de comunicación de Venezuela. Por el contrario, los rating han mostrado que el medio televisivo más popular es Venevisión.
2do. embuste: Asegura el informe que las manifestaciones de opositores son más numerosas que las de partidarios de la medida. En realidad, antes de que venciera la concesión, ni el gobierno ni los sectores políticos que apoyan la medida convocaron para manifestar en apoyo a la misma. Sólo el domingo 27 de mayo, último día de la concesión a 1 Broadcasting Caracas, 1BC (corporación mediática que gestiona entre otras empresas mediáticas la empresa RCTV), se produjo una masiva y festiva celebración para dar la bienvenida al nuevo canal de servicio público, Televisora Venezolana Social (TVes).
Esta convocatoria tuvo su continuidad el sábado 2 de junio, cuando centenares de miles de personas acudieron a respaldar la medida junto al Presidente Chávez, en la única concentración verdaderamente masiva que se ha producido en el país en torno a la medida.
3ero. y 4to. embustes: Afirma el informe que según la ley, “se necesita” condena judicial para negar al canal el derecho a emitir durante los próximos veinte años.
(3era.) La Ley de Telecomunicaciones habilita al Presidente de la República a tomar la medida sin necesidad de orden judicial: Artículo 108.- No se otorgará la concesión de uso del espectro radioeléctrico a quienes, a pesar de haber sido escogidos de conformidad con las modalidades establecidas en esta Ley, sin embargo, estén incursos en los supuestos siguientes...: 5. Cuando surjan graves circunstancias atinentes a la seguridad del Estado que, a juicio del Presidente de la República, hagan inconveniente su otorgamiento.
(4to.) No se niega al canal el derecho a seguir emitiendo, que lo seguirá haciendo por Internet, por cable o por satélite, en la medida de su interés. Lo que sucede es que no se renueva la concesión para emitir por el canal abierto VHF 2, que es un patrimonio de todos los venezolanos, administrado por el Estado en su nombre, a través de sus representantes electos.
5to. embuste: Asegura RSF que 70% de la población no está de acuerdo con la medida. Los sondeos de opinión que se citan sin fuente, son elaborados por los propios opositores. Luego, darles crédito no significa más que voluntad de afirmar su posición.
6to. embuste: Se denuncia que “las peticiones de audiencias con miembros del gobierno y representantes de medios de comunicación públicos o progubernamentales, quedaron sin respuesta”. No obstante, distintos organismos y medios del gobierno negaron haber recibido peticiones de la organización para dichas “audiencias”. A su vez, por estos días, recoger en Caracas declaraciones públicas y opiniones de sectores favorables a la medida, es un ejercicio de investigación de estudiantes de secundaria.
7to. embuste: En su afán de caricaturizar al gobierno del Presidente Chávez, RSF señala que se trata de un “peculiar régimen político al que se conoce como chavismo”. Se pretende así equiparar el gobierno de una República a un régimen político, así como asociar despectivamente el adjetivo que se utiliza para señalar a los seguidores del Presidente al régimen político vigente en Venezuela, el cual fue escogido por la abrumadora mayoría de los votantes por medio de un referéndum de aprobación constitucional.
8to. embuste: El “cierre del canal” inaugura una auténtica hegemonía del poder sobre el espacio audiovisual. No obstante, luego de la salida del canal 2 de la empresa RCTV, la mayoría del espectro sigue en manos del capital privado.
Banda VHF: En el año 2000 había 19 canales privados y 1 de propiedad pública; en 2006 apareció un nuevo canal privado en esta banda, pasando de 19 a 20, mientras se mantenía un solo canal estatal. Esto cambió a partir del 28 de mayo, ya que ahora hay 19 canales manejados por el sector privado, un canal del estado (VTV) y un canal de servicio público y social (TVes).
Banda UHF: En el 2000 el sector privado disfrutaba de la concesión de 28 canales y el sector público sólo 2. Esto cambió en el 2006, cuando se incrementó hasta 6 los canales públicos, mientras que los privados pasaron de 28 a 44. En ese periodo nacieron 28 canales de televisión comunitaria, que tienen plena autonomía.
Emisoras de radio: En AM, en el 2000 había 36 emisoras públicas y 143 privadas, al igual que en el 2006. En FM, en el 2000 había 365 emisoras privadas, y el sector público sólo contaba con 3. Para el 2006, el sector privado creció llegando a 440 emisoras, mientras que el sector público pasó a sólo 10 emisoras. A su vez, aparecieron 167 emisoras comunitarias, que tienen un rango de emisión limitado a cada comunidad.
9no. embuste: Asegura el informe que dado que Chávez dio un golpe en 1992, no es el más indicado para acusar a sus detractores de “golpismo”. Es como afirmar que si Robert Menard, el director de la RSF, se pasa por alto un buen día un semáforo, no puede quejarse de que la semana siguiente le atropelle un carro que se saltó la luz roja. En cualquier caso, Chávez es el Presidente constitucional y democrático de la República, lo que ha sido refrendado por una creciente mayoría de la población nacional en cuatro ocasiones (1998, 2000, 2004 y 2006). Es el Jefe de Estado, y al igual que en cualquier otra nación, tiene toda la legitimidad para denunciar cualquier ensayo de golpe de Estado o de atentado contra las instituciones.
10mo. embuste: Reitera la misma mentira que la señalada en primer lugar, pero en este caso presentando cifras sin sustento. Afirma el informe que “El canal, orgulloso de su 42% de audiencia televisiva, muy por delante de la competencia pública y privada…” No obstante, todos los estudios de rating (tanto de AGB como de Intelimedia, las dos empresas que realizan estos estudios en Venezuela) muestran sostenidamente que es la estación de televisión Venevisión la que goza del mayor favor del público.
11avo. embuste: Dice el informe de RSF: “…Las razones administrativas que permiten justificar el no renovar la licencia se mezclan con acusaciones de orden moral y político: RCTV emitiría pornografía y, por encima de todo, habría jugado un papel de motor en el golpe de Estado del 11 de abril de 2002, y en las huelgas petroleras de los años 2003-2004…”. Los cierto es que ese canal ha sido objeto de un cierre en los años 80 por emitir pornografía en horario inconveniente, y en 2006 recibió sentencia del TSJ por el mismo motivo.
12avo. embuste: Asegura uno de los entrevistados, Antonio Pasquali, que “La mayoría de los manifestantes, al contrario que los patrones de la prensa, no conocían a Pedro Carmona”, quien protagonizó el golpe de Estado de abril 2002.
En realidad, durante meses, Carmona fue insistentemente proyectado como el líder de la oposición, y su figura como líder de la “sociedad civil” fue ensalzada hasta la obsesión. Como afirma el Comité para la Protección de los Periodistas (CPJ), en los meses previos al golpe de Estado los medios privados promovieron “sin ningún reparo las agendas de los partidos de oposición, ignorando el profesionalismo y el equilibrio” (CPJ: Ataques a la prensa en el 2002. Las Américas).
De acuerdo con el Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, “los canales privados de televisión... tenían una línea editorial e informativa que estuvo abiertamente a favor de la salida de Hugo Chávez del gobierno y del establecimiento de Carmona Estanga en el poder” (Entre el estruendo y el silencio. La crisis de abril y el derecho a la libertad de expresión e información).
Como afirma la propia organización RSF en su informe de 2003, “la prensa privada se convirtió en la punta de lanza de la oposición... Una toma de partido que se saldó con numerosas faltas a las reglas más elementales de la deontología”. Este comportamiento es señalado por la organización de derechos humanos española Equipo Nizkor como “el más evidente riesgo a las libertades civiles en todo el mundo, porque se enmarcan en el funcionamiento de organizaciones ad hoc, cuyas actividades sobrepujan las instituciones democráticas, y que crean sistemas de control político-social fuera del estado de derecho”.
Mientras los otros canales que lideraron el golpe desistieron de esta actitud antidemocrática, la empresa a la que se le ha denegado la renovación de la concesión de uso del espectro radioeléctrico, RCTV, la ha mantenido en el tiempo, usando el derecho de explotar la señal de servicio público para fines golpistas.
13avo. embuste: Carmona es presentado implícitamente como el único responsable de la operación de ruptura del hilo constitucional. En realidad, medios privados fueron actores principales del mismo, y como reporta el Comité para la Protección de Periodistas (CPJ) “varios ejecutivos de los medios se reunieron el sábado con Pedro Carmona, jefe de la asociación empresarial venezolana Fedecámaras, quien fue colocado en la presidencia por los líderes del golpe.” (CPJ. Periodistas siguen en riesgo. Nueva York, 17 de abril de 2002). En esta reunión, “los empresarios se habrían comprometido a cooperar con la política comunicacional del gobierno de facto” (Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, ídem).
14avo. embuste: “Carlos Correa, director ejecutivo de la asociación Espacio Público, precisa: “El 13 de abril, Pedro Carmona anunció que iba a disolver el Parlamento y revocar los mandatos de gobernadores y alcaldes. El golpe de Estado parecía haberse consumado, pero la población se enfadó y los militares destituyeron a Pedro Carmona. Entonces Hugo Chávez regresó al poder. Los canales privados, excepto el canal de información continua Globovisión, ocultaron el acontecimiento emitiendo programas de ocio y telenovelas. Un silencio que el Presidente no olvidará”…”
En realidad, los sectores golpistas, así como los medios que los auparon, saludaron el golpe y la disolución de poderes como un amanecer democrático, con gran efusión y por medio de múltiples declaraciones públicas y comunicados de prensa. De hecho, los medios silenciaron completamente las protestas, en contraste con el impulso mediático que se ofreció al golpe de Estado: “La ausencia informativa en momentos previos al retorno de Chávez al poder se hizo particularmente notoria debido a que los días precedentes, se le había dado una completa y continúa cobertura al paro general, la marcha del día 11 y la llegada de Carmona al poder...”, asegura el Centro de Derechos Humanos de la UCAB.
15avo. embuste: Señala el informe que “RCTV tenía todo el derecho a pedir, y normalmente a obtener, un nuevo derecho de emisión”. Por una parte, a la empresa que operaba el canal 2 no le fue negado en ningún momento el derecho a pedir. Por otra parte, del derecho de pedir no se desprende en ningún caso como condición ’normal’ el derecho de obtener.
16avo. embuste: Asegura RSF que los otros medios que participaron en la escalada al golpe de abril de 2002, asumieron dos años más tarde la “alineación mediática”. Lo que hicieron fue dejar de jugar al golpismo, convirtiéndose en vehículos de expresión moderada y no de manipulación o alineación con los sectores que han seguido impulsando la desestabilización de la democracia venezolana.
17avo. embuste: Afirma el informe que la jurisprudencia de la OEA prima sobre el derecho nacional y Venezuela, cuando en realidad se trata de un sistema subsidiario a la misma. Además, el sistema no ha emitido ninguna decisión condenatoria que tenga que acatar el Estado, sólo recomendaciones y medidas de protección, que no son de obligatorio cumplimiento.
18avo. embuste: Se refieren unos “recursos” supuestamente resueltos “favorablemente en la Comisión, y después en la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos”, insinuando que ambos organismos habrían emitido decisiones jurisprudenciales contra el gobierno en relación con la empresa 1 Broadcasting Caracas, 1BC. En realidad, sólo hace un mes que la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos presentó un primer caso relacionado con dicha empresa ante la Corte, como parte de la articulación internacional orientada a consolidar la matriz de violación estructural de libertad de expresión. Lo que hasta la fecha se ha concedido son medidas cautelares por parte de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos y medidas provisionales por parte de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, en un número que no llega a la decena.
19avo. embuste: Asegura RSF que “Hugo Chávez no hace caso del derecho internacional”. No obstante, el gobierno actual, y así lo han reconocido en varias ocasiones los organismos del sistema interamericano, no sólo cumple con el derecho internacional que le compete, sino que ha reconocido la responsabilidad del Estado venezolano en casos que se remontan a gobiernos anteriores, y que las respectivas administraciones se negaron a reconocer. Notoriamente, en relación con el reconocimiento de responsabilidad internacional en el caso de la masacre del 27 de febrero de 1989, cuando el gobierno de Carlos Andrés Pérez mandó masacrar indiscriminadamente a la población que se rebelaba contra las medidas neoliberales que impuso; o en el caso de la masacre del Retén de Catia del 27 de noviembre de 1992, cuando fuerzas del orden masacraron a 37 reclusos, en el marco de una rebelión militar.
20avo. embuste: El informe cita al propietario de la empresa 1 Broadcasting Caracas, 1BC, Marcel Granier, quien asegura que “Nosotros hemos ganado en un centenar de casos de agresiones a nuestros periodistas” ante los organismos de la OEA. El informe no matiza esta información, con lo que es evidente que la considera veraz.
21avo. embuste: Se pregunta RSF: “¿Qué pretendía exactamente Hugo Chávez obligando a RCTV a un cierre desaprobado por la opinión pública y la comunidad internacional?”. Así, luego de repetir la mentira de que se trata del cierre de un medio, se señala el supuesto rechazo masivo a la medida y una supuesta desaprobación generalizada de la medida a nivel internacional. No obstante, el exiguo número de pronunciamientos de rechazo no parece conducir a la conclusión que propone el informe.
Se destaca, entre otros, la resolución del Parlamento Europeo, la cual fue aprobada con el 5,4% de los votos favorables de dicho órgano representativo – es decir, los representantes de 1 de cada 20 europeos. Asimismo, se señala la “desaprobación” de varios gobiernos o Parlamentos latinoamericanos, insinuando un vasto arco de países que iría “de Brasil a México, pasando por Chile”. No obstante, tan sólo tres órganos parlamentarios se han pronunciado al respecto (de Brasil, Chile y Nicaragua), mientras que el único mandatario que ha mostrado su rechazo públicamente es Oscar Arias, Presidente de Costa Rica.
El resto de mandatarios que han dado declaraciones al respecto, o bien han afirmado la soberanía del gobierno venezolano en la materia, o bien han señalado su aprobación a la medida, como es el caso del conjunto de países del ALBA (Bolivia, Nicaragua y Cuba), que ha emitido un comunicado conjunto de apoyo al gobierno de Hugo Chávez y de rechazo a la injerencia en los asuntos internos de Venezuela.
22avo. embuste: El informe se adentra en materia no relacionada en absoluto con el caso de la no renovación de la concesión, citando ampliamente a Teodoro Petkof, el coordinador de la campaña del candidato opositor que fue derrotado en las últimas elecciones presidenciales. Entre los señalamientos que recoge, se encuentra la acusación de que Chávez pretende reformar la Constitución para establecer la reelección indefinida del cargo de Presidente – un aspecto habitual de ordenamientos jurídicos de numerosos países occidentales que no se encuentran bajo la lupa de la organización por supuestos riesgos democráticos. Entre ellos, Francia, la nación en la que tiene su sede central RSF.
23avo. embuste: Otro tema que RSF considera relevante tratar para abordar el tema de la libertad de expresión es la creación de un nuevo partido por los seguidores del gobierno. Al respecto, y como supuesta muestra de rechazo, afirma que la conformación del Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) la “rechazan las formaciones Podemos (centro izquierda), Patria para todos (izquierda) y el Partido Comunista”, partidos que acompañan al presidente Chávez en su gestión. No obstante, ninguno de estos partidos ha señalado su rechazo a la creación del PSUV, sino que han decidido no disolverse para sumarse al mismo.
24avo. embuste: La lista de firmantes de la petición por el referéndum de 2004 no contiene 12 millones de nombres, como asegura Humberto Prado, uno de los activistas opositores citados. En realidad, la cifra es inferior a los 2 millones 400, centenares de miles de las cuales fueron falsificadas, como quedó claramente evidenciado a través de un procedimiento conducido por las autoridades electorales y validado por observadores internacionales de la OEA.
25avo. embuste: Eva Golinger es una prestigiosa abogada e investigadora de nacionalidad venezolana y estadounidense, que ha destapado incisivamente la participación de la CIA y otros organismos de intervención en el proceso de desestabilización del gobierno bolivariano liderado por Hugo Chávez. Golinger no vive en Nueva York como afirma RSF, sino en Caracas.
26avo. embuste: Si Chávez tuviera control total del Estado, como insinúa el informe, el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia habría sentenciado a los autores del golpe, incluyendo a Marcel Granier, lo que a su vez derivaría en que la gran mentira mediática montada por RSF se habría desinflado completamente.
27avo. embuste: En su afán de construir un cuadro de control total del Estado por parte del Presidente Chávez, asegura el informe que “Veintidós gobernadores de estados (de veinticuatro) [están] totalmente entregados”. En realidad, veintidós gobernadores fueron elegidos bajo partidos que acompañaban a Chávez, en condiciones democráticas avaladas por organismos internacionales como la OEA, el PNUD y el Centro Carter. Esto lo que quiere decir es que representan la tendencia de las mayorías democráticas, lo que no parece avalar RSF. En todo caso, para la fecha del informe, al menos 2 de los gobernadores señalados han traicionado el proyecto por el que fueron elegidos, y no acompañan el proyecto de Chávez.
28avo. embuste: Asegura RSF que ahora la “sociedad civil” se verá prácticamente encerrada en una campana de vidrio. No obstante, la “sociedad civil” a la que se refiere, y que equipara con los sectores de la sociedad venezolana que desearían el derrocamiento del gobierno, cuentan con las tribunas de la mayoría de radios de AM y FM del país, de la mayoría de diarios de circulación nacional e internacional, con la divulgación agresiva de sus puntos de vista por parte del canal televisivo Globovisión, y con el apoyo progresivamente incondicional de la inmensa mayoría de agencias de noticias del mundo.
29avo. embuste: La insinuación de que el principal diario nacional, Últimas Noticias (200.000 ejemplares de circulación diaria), así como los canales privados Televen y Venevisión, son del chavismo, evidencia un profundo desprecio por el periodismo independiente. Todos estos medios nada tienen que ver con el chavismo, son de propiedad íntegramente privada y en muchas ocasiones critican al gobierno, sin que eso les cree ningún problema. En concreto, Ultimas Noticias abre sus páginas diariamente a noticias y a columnistas de oposición, entre ellos líderes connotados de partidos de ultraderecha, como el dirigente del Comando Nacional para la Resistencia, Antonio Ledezma. También escriben Pompeyo Márquez, Julio Borges y otros dirigentes de partidos opositores.
30avo. embuste: El informe busca subir la temperatura del supuesto autoritarismo que impregnaría la sociedad venezolana, afirmando un supuesto “control total del Estado, del gobierno, de las fuerzas armadas” por parte del Presidente Hugo Chávez. Llama la atención al respecto, que RSF considere inapropiado que un Presidente controle el gobierno que preside, mientras que le preocupe que las fuerzas armadas estén sometidas al gobierno civil, lo que es un elemento consustancial a todo sistema democrático, y garantía de la defensa de la constitucionalidad.
31avo. embuste: El informe asegura que la reforma constitucional cuenta con “artesanos extranjeros”. No obstante, la Comisión que se ha encargado de proponer la reforma está exclusivamente conformada por representantes de los poderes públicos venezolanos y por intelectuales de nacionalidad venezolana.
32avo. embuste: Entre los supuestos “artesanos extranjeros” de la reforma, RSF señala a Ignacio Ramonet, quien sería “el patrón de Le Monde Diplomatique”. No obstante, el prestigioso periodista francés es presidente de dicha publicación, y no su dueño.
33avo. embuste: Otro supuesto “artesano extranjero” de la reforma sería el argentino Norberto Ceresole, el cual falleció hace cuatro años, por lo que no parece estar en condiciones de participar en la fantasiosa artesanía sobre la que basa RSF uno de sus múltiples embustes.
34avo. embuste: Es cierto que Chávez no necesita una ley para que habilite al Jefe de Estado para transmitir “cadenas” nacionales de radio y televisión, porque ya existe. En efecto, de acuerdo al artículo 192 de la Ley Orgánica de Telecomunicaciones, que fue ampliamente consensuada con el conjunto de operadores de señales de televisión “el Presidente de la República podrá, directamente o a través de la Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones, ordenar a los operadores que presten servicios de televisión por suscripción, a través del canal de información a sus clientes y a las empresas de radiodifusión sonora y televisión abierta, la transmisión gratuita de mensajes o alocuciones oficiales, de la Presidencia o Vicepresidencia de la República o de los Ministros”.
35avo. embuste: Afirma RSF que “el establecimiento jurídico” de la participación de RCTV en el golpe sería “condición imperativa para justificar la no renovación de la licencia del canal”. No obstante, como se ha mostrado anteriormente, el marco legal faculta al Presidente de la República a no renovar una concesión sin ningún condicionamiento de esa naturaleza.
36avo. embuste: El Tribunal Supremo de Justicia no ha ordenado el embargo de los equipos de RCTV en beneficio del nuevo canal Televisora Venezolana Social (Tves), como asegura el informe, sino su cesión temporal a la Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones, como medio para garantizar la continuidad de un servicio publico de comunicación.
37avo. embuste: Asegura RSF que dicho “embargo no sólo priva a RCTV de su salida por las ondas hertzianas, sino que además podría comprometer su emisión por cable”. Aclarado que no se trata de un embargo, conviene señalar que las empresas de cable han declarado públicamente que RCTV puede salir en emisiones por cable en un plazo de un mes, luego de reservar la frecuencia, y de realizar las inversiones en satélite que corresponden.
38avo. embuste: Se acusa al gobierno de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela de violar la Convención Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, “al no aplicar las recomendaciones de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos y de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, respecto a la protección del personal y el material de RCTV”. Se trata de una afirmación de percepción, que no está tomando en cuenta que la protección que recibe la empresa es equiparable a la de cualquier otra empresa de comunicación de propiedad privada.
39avo. embuste: La última mentira del informe repite la contenida en el título, al señalar que “El Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela ha decidido unilateralmente el cierre de RCTV”. En realidad, el Presidente lo que ha decidido es no renovar la concesión de uso del espectro radioeléctrico del canal VHF 2 por parte de la empresa 1 Broadcasting Caracas (1BC), y lo ha hecho efectivamente de manera unilateral, como se deriva de la legislación vigente, y que aplica en la mayoría de democracias del hemisferio occidental.
En síntesis:
1.- El informe de RSF, no cumple el más mínimo criterio de ética periodística. Sólo cita a las personas cuya opinión se usa para demostrar que todos están en contra del fin de la concesión. Decir que les fueron negadas audiencias por parte de representantes del Estado y medios públicos, es falso ¿pidieron audiencia a Telesur?
2.- Qué ética periodística permite calificar en un informe que se pretende equilibrado: “régimen político al que se conoce como chavismo”.
3.- Muchas de las “opiniones” son registradas sin citar la fuente, algo que en periodismo no es ético y se conoce con el nombre de “manipulación” Son ejemplos de éste informe de RSF: “dice un periodista independiente”, “según el parecer de diferentes periodistas e intelectuales”, “la corresponsal venezolana de un periódico extranjero”, o “rechina un periodista”.
4.- RSF asegura que numerosos (recursos resueltos favorablemente para Rctv en la Comisión y después en la Corte Interamericana de DDHH). La única denuncia admitida hasta ahora por la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos data del 25 de mayo de 2007.
5.- La resolución que citan como del Parlamento Europeo, es un documento suscrito por apenas 43 de los 784 eurodiputados que conforman el Parlamento Europeo. Un quórum ridículo.
6.- Es falso que la medida no ha sido apoyada en la región: Agencia EFE.: “De manera unánime, Bolivia, Cuba y Nicaragua, países miembros de la Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA), expresaron su apoyo irrestricto a la decisión soberana del gobierno venezolano de dar nacimiento a la primera experiencia de televisión de servicio público del país, con la Televisora Venezolana Social (TVES)”.
7.- Es falso que el presidente Hugo Chávez puede ser reelegido indefinidamente. La actual constitución venezolana, aprobada en 1999, no lo estipula. Cosa que sí ocurre en Francia, donde un presidente puede postularse las veces que lo desee y continuar, si es elegido, los períodos que sean… Francia, es la sede de Reporteros Sin Frontera.
8.- La abogada Eva Golinger, citada referencialmente por RSF, no vive en Nueva York.
9.- Ignacio Ramonet no es el patrón de Le Monde Diplomatique, es el presidente de ese medio de comunicación internacional.
10.- Según RSF, el argentino Norberto Ceresole es el artesano de la futura gran reforma constitucional. Ceresole Falleció en el año 2003 en Buenos Aires, Argentina, víctima de un infarto al miocardio, por lo tanto no está para artesanías futuras.
11.- Es mentira que el establecimiento jurídico de la participación en el golpe sea ”condición imperativa” para la no renovación. Existe un expediente completo sobre las faltas a la legislación cometidas por RCTV.
# Nota publicada por la agencia ABN (www.abn.info.ve)
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Friday, June 08, 2007
Hundreds of Thousands March in Support of Chavez
Chavez Dismisses International Disapproval of Venezuela’s Media Policy
By: Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com
Caracas, June 4, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— As several hundred thousand Chavez supporters rallied in Venezuela’s largest avenue on Saturday, President Chavez rejected all international interference with his decision not to renew a television station’s broadcast license. Referring to the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, Chavez also spoke at length about how private media maintains a cultural hegemony that must be broken.
“Go to hell, representatives of the global oligarchy, we are a free country!” said Chavez to wild applause, once marchers reached the Avenida Bolivar in the center of Caracas. The demonstration converged on the avenue from two starting points, one in the east of the city and the other towards the city’s south. Unofficial estimates of the number of demonstrators ranged from 300,000 to 500,000.
Chavez said he did not care that the world media was presenting him as a new Hitler or Mussolini. “What I do care about,” said Chavez, “is the sovereignty of the Venezuelan homeland.”
“The international elite are worried, they fear that the example of Venezuela will extend to other countries where they believe that they are the masters of everything,” continued Chavez during his relatively short one and a half hour speech. Every destabilization plan, warned Chavez, will be “responded with a new revolutionary offensive.”
Chavez also said it was sad that university students have been demonstrating in support of RCTV. “It continues to be sad that some students take to the streets – to defend what? … On whose side will they place themselves, on the side of the people or of the oligarchy, of the homeland or of the North American empire?” adding that the vast majority of students are on the side of the people. The images of student protests are just part of a “giant manipulation, a gross media spectacle.”
For Chavez, what is happening in Venezuela is very similar to what the U.S. has helped organize in eastern European countries, in the so-called “colored revolutions,” such as in Ukraine, where demonstrators succeeded in overthrowing the government.
Chavez also reminded his supporters that his reelection on December 3rd was merely the beginning of a new phase in his presidency, of creating socialism and that so far much had been achieved. Chavez mentioned that the “re-nationalization” of the oil industry had been finalized and that the new Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has been launched and announced that until now 4,735,000 Venezuelans have been registered as applicants to be activists in the new party.
Antonio Gramsci as Key for Understanding Events in Venezuela
The thought of the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci is fundamental, according to Chavez, for making sense of what is happening in Venezuela today. “I want to refer to the thought of Gramsci, to use his ideas, using the light of his thought, every day we understand better what is happening here today in Venezuela.”
Thus Chavez launched into one his longest and most detailed talks on the thought of Gramsci, explaining Gamsci’s concept of “historical blocs,” in which a particular class manages to acquire hegemony that is expressed in structures and super-structures. The super-structure, explained Chavez, consists of two levels, of the institutions of the state and of the civil society. The civil society, according to Chavez’s explanation of Gramsci, consists of economic and private institutions, through which the dominant class spreads its ideology.
The conflict in Venezuela can thus be understood as one between the institutions of the state, which used to be controlled by this civil society, but no longer is, and the old civil society. To this old civil society, according to Gramsci, belong the Catholic Church hierarchy, the mass media, and the education system as the principal institutions. The dominant classes use these institutions to disseminate their ideologies, explained Chavez.
This ideology of the dominant classes is disseminated in a variety of levels of abstraction, with philosophy being the most abstract. Below this level are belief systems such a neo-liberalism, the free market, the thesis of freedom of expression, of bourgeois democracy, of division of powers, representation as foundation of democracy. These are “Big lies!” exclaimed Chavez, with which for over a 100 years hegemony has been exercised.
On a third level is common sense, which is “the product of being bathed in the dominant philosophy and of the ideology in different forms, via soap operas, movies, songs, propaganda, billboards…” said Chavez.
The fourth level is “folklore,” whereby people simply express a preference as a result of manipulation, without knowing why.
According to Chavez, the Bolivarian movement has been “liberating” the state, including the judiciary, the legislature, the state-owned enterprises, from the control of this hegemonic “bourgeois civil society.”
Now this civil society is using its last remaining resources to fight for power, the Church, the mass media, and the universities. “From there is the importance of understanding the layout of the battle,” said Chavez.
Chavez also clarified that Venezuela’s oligarchy could live with the Bolivarian Revolution, because “we have no plan to eliminate the oligarchy, Venezuela’s bourgeoisie. We have demonstrated this sufficiently in over eight years,” said Chavez.
“But, if the oligarchy does not understand this, if it does not accept the call to peace, to live with us, that the great revolutionary majority is making, if the Venezuelan bourgeoisie continues to desperately assault, using the refuges it has remaining, well then the Venezuelan bourgeoisie will continue to lose, one by one, the refuges it has remaining,” declared Chavez.
Directed to Venezuela’s bourgeoisie, Chavez said, “We respect you as Venezuelans, you [should] respect Venezuela, respect the homeland, respect our constitution, respect our laws. If you do not, you will regret it, if you do not, we will make you obey Venezuela’s laws.”
The gathered crowd chanted, “This is how one governs!”
By: Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com
Caracas, June 4, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— As several hundred thousand Chavez supporters rallied in Venezuela’s largest avenue on Saturday, President Chavez rejected all international interference with his decision not to renew a television station’s broadcast license. Referring to the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, Chavez also spoke at length about how private media maintains a cultural hegemony that must be broken.
“Go to hell, representatives of the global oligarchy, we are a free country!” said Chavez to wild applause, once marchers reached the Avenida Bolivar in the center of Caracas. The demonstration converged on the avenue from two starting points, one in the east of the city and the other towards the city’s south. Unofficial estimates of the number of demonstrators ranged from 300,000 to 500,000.
Chavez said he did not care that the world media was presenting him as a new Hitler or Mussolini. “What I do care about,” said Chavez, “is the sovereignty of the Venezuelan homeland.”
“The international elite are worried, they fear that the example of Venezuela will extend to other countries where they believe that they are the masters of everything,” continued Chavez during his relatively short one and a half hour speech. Every destabilization plan, warned Chavez, will be “responded with a new revolutionary offensive.”
Chavez also said it was sad that university students have been demonstrating in support of RCTV. “It continues to be sad that some students take to the streets – to defend what? … On whose side will they place themselves, on the side of the people or of the oligarchy, of the homeland or of the North American empire?” adding that the vast majority of students are on the side of the people. The images of student protests are just part of a “giant manipulation, a gross media spectacle.”
For Chavez, what is happening in Venezuela is very similar to what the U.S. has helped organize in eastern European countries, in the so-called “colored revolutions,” such as in Ukraine, where demonstrators succeeded in overthrowing the government.
Chavez also reminded his supporters that his reelection on December 3rd was merely the beginning of a new phase in his presidency, of creating socialism and that so far much had been achieved. Chavez mentioned that the “re-nationalization” of the oil industry had been finalized and that the new Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has been launched and announced that until now 4,735,000 Venezuelans have been registered as applicants to be activists in the new party.
Antonio Gramsci as Key for Understanding Events in Venezuela
The thought of the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci is fundamental, according to Chavez, for making sense of what is happening in Venezuela today. “I want to refer to the thought of Gramsci, to use his ideas, using the light of his thought, every day we understand better what is happening here today in Venezuela.”
Thus Chavez launched into one his longest and most detailed talks on the thought of Gramsci, explaining Gamsci’s concept of “historical blocs,” in which a particular class manages to acquire hegemony that is expressed in structures and super-structures. The super-structure, explained Chavez, consists of two levels, of the institutions of the state and of the civil society. The civil society, according to Chavez’s explanation of Gramsci, consists of economic and private institutions, through which the dominant class spreads its ideology.
The conflict in Venezuela can thus be understood as one between the institutions of the state, which used to be controlled by this civil society, but no longer is, and the old civil society. To this old civil society, according to Gramsci, belong the Catholic Church hierarchy, the mass media, and the education system as the principal institutions. The dominant classes use these institutions to disseminate their ideologies, explained Chavez.
This ideology of the dominant classes is disseminated in a variety of levels of abstraction, with philosophy being the most abstract. Below this level are belief systems such a neo-liberalism, the free market, the thesis of freedom of expression, of bourgeois democracy, of division of powers, representation as foundation of democracy. These are “Big lies!” exclaimed Chavez, with which for over a 100 years hegemony has been exercised.
On a third level is common sense, which is “the product of being bathed in the dominant philosophy and of the ideology in different forms, via soap operas, movies, songs, propaganda, billboards…” said Chavez.
The fourth level is “folklore,” whereby people simply express a preference as a result of manipulation, without knowing why.
According to Chavez, the Bolivarian movement has been “liberating” the state, including the judiciary, the legislature, the state-owned enterprises, from the control of this hegemonic “bourgeois civil society.”
Now this civil society is using its last remaining resources to fight for power, the Church, the mass media, and the universities. “From there is the importance of understanding the layout of the battle,” said Chavez.
Chavez also clarified that Venezuela’s oligarchy could live with the Bolivarian Revolution, because “we have no plan to eliminate the oligarchy, Venezuela’s bourgeoisie. We have demonstrated this sufficiently in over eight years,” said Chavez.
“But, if the oligarchy does not understand this, if it does not accept the call to peace, to live with us, that the great revolutionary majority is making, if the Venezuelan bourgeoisie continues to desperately assault, using the refuges it has remaining, well then the Venezuelan bourgeoisie will continue to lose, one by one, the refuges it has remaining,” declared Chavez.
Directed to Venezuela’s bourgeoisie, Chavez said, “We respect you as Venezuelans, you [should] respect Venezuela, respect the homeland, respect our constitution, respect our laws. If you do not, you will regret it, if you do not, we will make you obey Venezuela’s laws.”
The gathered crowd chanted, “This is how one governs!”
Venezolanos demuestran su apoyo al proceso revolucionario mediante mega marcha
Caracas, 02 Jun.- El ministro del Poder Popular para la Información y la Comunicación (Minci), Willian Lara, señaló que la marcha de este sábado en la ciudad capital es una demostración más del apoyo de los venezolanos al proceso revolucionario para defender la soberanía.
Asimismo, reiteró que la marcha en apoyo a la decisión soberana tomada por el Gobierno servirá de escenario para demostrar al mundo que la no renovación de la concesión al grupo 1 Broadcasting Caracas (1BC), propietario de Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) es democrática.
Lara, quien se encontraba desde el Parque del Este Generalísimo Francisco de Miranda, aclaró que no es asunto del Estado si RCTV decide salir por cable sino del grupo 1BC y de quienes prestan ese servicio.
'Lo único que exige el Estado venezolano es que cumplan con la Ley de Responsabilidad en Radio y Televisión, con La Ley Orgánica de Protección al Niño, Niña, y Adolescente y con la Constitución nacional', apuntó el titular del Minci.
RCTV fue sancionado seis veces, a lo largo de toda su historia, con lo cual se convirtió en el canal más sancionado de Venezuela.
Lara dijo que el nuevo canal de servicio público, la Televisora Venezolana Social (TVes), abre los espacios para la participación a 'todos los sectores de la sociedad venezolana y no sólo a la élite'.
Por otra parte, hizo referencia a las pruebas que presentó este viernes la vicepresidenta de la Asamblea Nacional (AN), Desirée Santos Amaral, sobre el plan desestabilizador que adelantan factores de la oposición.
Dichas pruebas 'son inapelables y demuestran que los mismos que participaron en la insurrección del 11 de abril son los mismos que ahora están detrás de los grupos de estudiantes que han perturbado la vida de algunos sectores de Caracas en días pasados'.
En rueda de prensa desde la AN, realizada el pasado a jueves, Santos Amaral denunció que el Comando Nacional de la Resistencia, el partido derechista Un Nuevo Tiempo y la Organización de Venezolanos en el Exilio (Orvex), esta último a cargo de Róger Alonso, son financiados por la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA, por sus siglas en inglés) de Estados Unidos, para impulsar las manifestaciones con fines desestabilizadores en el país.
Asimismo, reiteró que la marcha en apoyo a la decisión soberana tomada por el Gobierno servirá de escenario para demostrar al mundo que la no renovación de la concesión al grupo 1 Broadcasting Caracas (1BC), propietario de Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) es democrática.
Lara, quien se encontraba desde el Parque del Este Generalísimo Francisco de Miranda, aclaró que no es asunto del Estado si RCTV decide salir por cable sino del grupo 1BC y de quienes prestan ese servicio.
'Lo único que exige el Estado venezolano es que cumplan con la Ley de Responsabilidad en Radio y Televisión, con La Ley Orgánica de Protección al Niño, Niña, y Adolescente y con la Constitución nacional', apuntó el titular del Minci.
RCTV fue sancionado seis veces, a lo largo de toda su historia, con lo cual se convirtió en el canal más sancionado de Venezuela.
Lara dijo que el nuevo canal de servicio público, la Televisora Venezolana Social (TVes), abre los espacios para la participación a 'todos los sectores de la sociedad venezolana y no sólo a la élite'.
Por otra parte, hizo referencia a las pruebas que presentó este viernes la vicepresidenta de la Asamblea Nacional (AN), Desirée Santos Amaral, sobre el plan desestabilizador que adelantan factores de la oposición.
Dichas pruebas 'son inapelables y demuestran que los mismos que participaron en la insurrección del 11 de abril son los mismos que ahora están detrás de los grupos de estudiantes que han perturbado la vida de algunos sectores de Caracas en días pasados'.
En rueda de prensa desde la AN, realizada el pasado a jueves, Santos Amaral denunció que el Comando Nacional de la Resistencia, el partido derechista Un Nuevo Tiempo y la Organización de Venezolanos en el Exilio (Orvex), esta último a cargo de Róger Alonso, son financiados por la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA, por sus siglas en inglés) de Estados Unidos, para impulsar las manifestaciones con fines desestabilizadores en el país.
¡Cuidado Miami, hay terroristas sueltos!
por Angel Rodríguez Alvarez *, AIN *
Como nunca antes esta voz de alerta es tan necesaria y oportuna para la mayoritaria población pacífica de Miami, sus aeropuertos, medios de prensa independientes, sedes diplomáticas y agencias de viajes a Cuba, entre otros.
_______________________________________________
Y es que esa urbe principal de la Florida, caracterizada como sede preferida desde hace más de 48 años de una mafia inescrupulosa y agresiva, ha completado ahora el equipo de dirección de operaciones violentas, con la llegada de uno de sus más experimentados ejecutores.
Con la plácida instalación en la ciudad de Luis Posada Carriles, ya Orlando Bosch Avila tiene con quien intercambiar ideas, elaborar planes y trasmitir experiencias acerca de lo que les enseñó la CIA para preservar valores y defender la democracia.
Para quienes hayan escuchado o leído declaraciones presentando a Posada y Bosch como dos " viejitos indefensos ", cuya única aspiración es vivir tranquilamente en retiro, resulta necesario recordarles la firme decisión expresada por ambos de continuar ejerciendo su vieja y lucrativa profesión de promotores dinamiteros.
Bosch ha declarado a la televisión miamense, más de una vez, y con no disimulada energía, su deseo de continuar haciendo estallar aviones, embarcaciones y autos, siempre que suponga viajen en ellos" comunistas".
Se trata de un fanático fascista cargado de odio visceral, con un desprecio absoluto por la vida de quienes catalogue como adversarios. Así de sencillo es el asunto para este sujeto con una larga historia criminal no totalmente conocida.
En Bosch la concepción de quiénes son enemigos es tan abarcadora que incluye la raza, evidenciada en una de las entrevistas del canal 41, cuando justificó el derribo del avión cubano con 73 personas a bordo pues, "en definitiva, chico, los que iban allí eran cinco negritas".
Posada, aunque menos locuaz y alardoso, tampoco está dispuesto a ceder su liderazgo criminal como alumno aventajado en explosivos de la CIA y experimentado reclutador de mercenarios.
Imposible constituye olvidar las decenas de páginas de su libro de memorias, llenas de jactanciosos relatos sobre los servicios brindados durante años a esa Agencia y a las organizaciones contrarrevolucionarias del llamado exilio anticastrista.
Como una caracterización magistral de la catadura criminal de este sujeto es la entrevista concedida a la periodista Ana Louise Bardach, del The New York Times.
Interrogado acerca de la cadena de atentados dinamiteros ejecutados contra instalaciones turísticas en La Habana en 1997, en uno de los cuales perdió la vida un joven italiano, la respuesta de Posada quedará como un ejemplo de frío y bien calculado cinismo.
Su tranquila respuesta fue que estaba "en el lugar equivocado y en el momento equivocado", al parecer suficiente razón para merecer su trágico final. Ante la pregunta de cómo se sentía después de causar tanto luto y dolor, aseguró concluyente: "duermo como un bebé".
A las "cualidades" descritas de ambos debe añadirse que debido a tales "proezas" cuentan con la protección de la Casa Blanca, el respaldo financiero de los grupos mafiosos y el reconocimiento social más elevado de la mayoría de los medios de prensa floridanos.
Con tales estímulos no resulta difícil comprender la urgente necesidad de lanzar a los cuatro vientos el alerta que da título a este comentario.
Angel Rodríguez Alvarez
Como nunca antes esta voz de alerta es tan necesaria y oportuna para la mayoritaria población pacífica de Miami, sus aeropuertos, medios de prensa independientes, sedes diplomáticas y agencias de viajes a Cuba, entre otros.
_______________________________________________
Y es que esa urbe principal de la Florida, caracterizada como sede preferida desde hace más de 48 años de una mafia inescrupulosa y agresiva, ha completado ahora el equipo de dirección de operaciones violentas, con la llegada de uno de sus más experimentados ejecutores.
Con la plácida instalación en la ciudad de Luis Posada Carriles, ya Orlando Bosch Avila tiene con quien intercambiar ideas, elaborar planes y trasmitir experiencias acerca de lo que les enseñó la CIA para preservar valores y defender la democracia.
Para quienes hayan escuchado o leído declaraciones presentando a Posada y Bosch como dos " viejitos indefensos ", cuya única aspiración es vivir tranquilamente en retiro, resulta necesario recordarles la firme decisión expresada por ambos de continuar ejerciendo su vieja y lucrativa profesión de promotores dinamiteros.
Bosch ha declarado a la televisión miamense, más de una vez, y con no disimulada energía, su deseo de continuar haciendo estallar aviones, embarcaciones y autos, siempre que suponga viajen en ellos" comunistas".
Se trata de un fanático fascista cargado de odio visceral, con un desprecio absoluto por la vida de quienes catalogue como adversarios. Así de sencillo es el asunto para este sujeto con una larga historia criminal no totalmente conocida.
En Bosch la concepción de quiénes son enemigos es tan abarcadora que incluye la raza, evidenciada en una de las entrevistas del canal 41, cuando justificó el derribo del avión cubano con 73 personas a bordo pues, "en definitiva, chico, los que iban allí eran cinco negritas".
Posada, aunque menos locuaz y alardoso, tampoco está dispuesto a ceder su liderazgo criminal como alumno aventajado en explosivos de la CIA y experimentado reclutador de mercenarios.
Imposible constituye olvidar las decenas de páginas de su libro de memorias, llenas de jactanciosos relatos sobre los servicios brindados durante años a esa Agencia y a las organizaciones contrarrevolucionarias del llamado exilio anticastrista.
Como una caracterización magistral de la catadura criminal de este sujeto es la entrevista concedida a la periodista Ana Louise Bardach, del The New York Times.
Interrogado acerca de la cadena de atentados dinamiteros ejecutados contra instalaciones turísticas en La Habana en 1997, en uno de los cuales perdió la vida un joven italiano, la respuesta de Posada quedará como un ejemplo de frío y bien calculado cinismo.
Su tranquila respuesta fue que estaba "en el lugar equivocado y en el momento equivocado", al parecer suficiente razón para merecer su trágico final. Ante la pregunta de cómo se sentía después de causar tanto luto y dolor, aseguró concluyente: "duermo como un bebé".
A las "cualidades" descritas de ambos debe añadirse que debido a tales "proezas" cuentan con la protección de la Casa Blanca, el respaldo financiero de los grupos mafiosos y el reconocimiento social más elevado de la mayoría de los medios de prensa floridanos.
Con tales estímulos no resulta difícil comprender la urgente necesidad de lanzar a los cuatro vientos el alerta que da título a este comentario.
Angel Rodríguez Alvarez
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Venezuela and freedom of speech – 4 lies, 4 answers
By Alessandro Villari - HOV Italy
Since the Venezuelan president announced a few months ago that the Bolivarian government would not renew the broadcast concession to the TV station RCTV, a ferocious campaign has been unleashed in Italy (as well as in all the Western countries), accusing Hugo Chavez of attacking freedom of information in order to "shut up the Opposition".
Most of the mainstream Italian newspapers have joined the campaign, however the arguments used to back this campaign are definitely groundless and based on false assumptions.
One of the most frequent accusations is that the Venezuelan government has turned off one of the few private Venezuelan TV stations, thus silencing one of the few independent sources of information. This is supposedly because this TV station "was an obstacle to Chavez' populist project". These are utter falsifications and we can easily prove this:
"Hugo Chavez shut down RCTV"
Hugo Chavez has not shut down RCTV. RCTV was allowed to broadcast its programmes through TV frequencies, which are a public good, and which are periodically assigned by the government to one TV station or another. When the licence expires on May 28, the licence will not be renewed to RCTV. Venezuelan law (and it must be noted - the law of any other country) does not say that the government should assign TV frequencies to the same companies all the time, but allows it to choose. We are going to deal in a moment with the reasons why the Bolivarian government decided to deny the renewal of the licence.
"RCTV is one of the few Venezuelan private TV stations"
According to an official June 2006 report from the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications and Information, the vast majority of Venezuelan mass media (TV and Radio channels, newspapers) are today in the hands of private owners. In particular, as far as the television sector is concerned, 90% of the market is in the hands of 4 private TV companies: RCTV, Globovision, Televen and Venevision. The owner of RCTV, Marcel Granier, owns another 40 TV stations throughout Venezuela (most of them of course are local TV channels). To be accurate 79 out of a total of 81 TV channels (or 97%) are private; 706 out of 709 Radio channels (or 99%) and all 118 newspapers are in private hands.
"RCTV was an obstacle for Chavez' populist project"
It is not the purpose of this article to deal with definitions of Hugo Chavez' project. Nevertheless, it is worth noticing that the media owned by our local entrepreneurs, tend to label as "populist" each and every political project that does not base itself on the support or acceptance of the exploitation of labour.
It might be better to spell out what is meant when it is said that RCTV was an obstacle for the policies of the Bolivarian government. The plain truth is that RCTV had been directly and openly involved in the April 11, 2002 coup that attempted to oust the democratically elected president Hugo Chavez. The participation of RCTV in the coup plot was so blatant that the Production Manager f RCTVat the time o, Andres Izarra, who opposed the coup, resigned hastily in order not to be a party to a crime. In an official testimony to the Venezuelan National Assembly, Izarra reported that he was instructed formally by Granier the same day of the coup and during the following days not to broadcast any information on Chavez, his personnel, the ministers or whoever could be related to him.
This is exactly what happened. RCTV only reported that President Chavez had resigned from office (which was a blatant lie - as he had been kidnapped by the coup plotters...). And when two days later millions of Venezuelans took the streets demanding that the legitimate president they elected should come back, RCTV broadcasted just cartoons!
An inspiring account of those days is the documentary made out of the footage shot by an Irish troupe that was "trapped" in the Miraflores presidential palace during the coup. The documentary carries a significant title: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
"Shutting down RCTV means silencing one of the few sources of information which do not depend directly on the state"
As we already explained, this is not the case - at all! The majority of the media in Venezuela side openly with the Opposition to Chavez' government. It's a curious paradox that in a country where the Government is supported by nearly two thirds of the population (according to the December 2006 presidential elections), the vast majority of the media are actively campaigning against it.
In 2002 even Human Rights Watch, which otherwise supports the mainstream campaign against the Venezuelan Government, had to admit that "Far from providing fair and accurate reporting, the media by and large seek to provoke popular discontent and outrage in support of the hard-line opposition" (Venezuela's Political Crisis," Human Rights News, Human Rights Watch, October 9, 2002).
In spite of this, the Venezuelan government has been so tolerant on opposition media that no TV stations, radios or newspapers have been closed, and just now, after five years, the government decided not to renew the frequency licence to RCTV. We ask, which other "democratic" country could accept that a TV channel openly supporting a coup plot would go on broadcasting after the failure of such an attempt? Which other country would accept that the owner of such a TV channel should not face trial for having supported a coup?
In Italy, for example, we had the Prime Minister of a so-called democratic country, Berlusconi, banning through a "diktat" from the TV screens of both the state and private TVs two popular journalists (Biagi and Santoro) and a satirical actor (Luttazzi), just because they were criticising his government!
Simon Bolivar said that a people could never be free if freedom of speech is not granted. That is definitely true. But we should ask ourselves whether this freedom of speech is really granted by a system where the mass media are in the hands of a clique of a few wealthy people and serve the interests of those few against the interests of the majority of the people.
Since the Venezuelan president announced a few months ago that the Bolivarian government would not renew the broadcast concession to the TV station RCTV, a ferocious campaign has been unleashed in Italy (as well as in all the Western countries), accusing Hugo Chavez of attacking freedom of information in order to "shut up the Opposition".
Most of the mainstream Italian newspapers have joined the campaign, however the arguments used to back this campaign are definitely groundless and based on false assumptions.
One of the most frequent accusations is that the Venezuelan government has turned off one of the few private Venezuelan TV stations, thus silencing one of the few independent sources of information. This is supposedly because this TV station "was an obstacle to Chavez' populist project". These are utter falsifications and we can easily prove this:
"Hugo Chavez shut down RCTV"
Hugo Chavez has not shut down RCTV. RCTV was allowed to broadcast its programmes through TV frequencies, which are a public good, and which are periodically assigned by the government to one TV station or another. When the licence expires on May 28, the licence will not be renewed to RCTV. Venezuelan law (and it must be noted - the law of any other country) does not say that the government should assign TV frequencies to the same companies all the time, but allows it to choose. We are going to deal in a moment with the reasons why the Bolivarian government decided to deny the renewal of the licence.
"RCTV is one of the few Venezuelan private TV stations"
According to an official June 2006 report from the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications and Information, the vast majority of Venezuelan mass media (TV and Radio channels, newspapers) are today in the hands of private owners. In particular, as far as the television sector is concerned, 90% of the market is in the hands of 4 private TV companies: RCTV, Globovision, Televen and Venevision. The owner of RCTV, Marcel Granier, owns another 40 TV stations throughout Venezuela (most of them of course are local TV channels). To be accurate 79 out of a total of 81 TV channels (or 97%) are private; 706 out of 709 Radio channels (or 99%) and all 118 newspapers are in private hands.
"RCTV was an obstacle for Chavez' populist project"
It is not the purpose of this article to deal with definitions of Hugo Chavez' project. Nevertheless, it is worth noticing that the media owned by our local entrepreneurs, tend to label as "populist" each and every political project that does not base itself on the support or acceptance of the exploitation of labour.
It might be better to spell out what is meant when it is said that RCTV was an obstacle for the policies of the Bolivarian government. The plain truth is that RCTV had been directly and openly involved in the April 11, 2002 coup that attempted to oust the democratically elected president Hugo Chavez. The participation of RCTV in the coup plot was so blatant that the Production Manager f RCTVat the time o, Andres Izarra, who opposed the coup, resigned hastily in order not to be a party to a crime. In an official testimony to the Venezuelan National Assembly, Izarra reported that he was instructed formally by Granier the same day of the coup and during the following days not to broadcast any information on Chavez, his personnel, the ministers or whoever could be related to him.
This is exactly what happened. RCTV only reported that President Chavez had resigned from office (which was a blatant lie - as he had been kidnapped by the coup plotters...). And when two days later millions of Venezuelans took the streets demanding that the legitimate president they elected should come back, RCTV broadcasted just cartoons!
An inspiring account of those days is the documentary made out of the footage shot by an Irish troupe that was "trapped" in the Miraflores presidential palace during the coup. The documentary carries a significant title: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
"Shutting down RCTV means silencing one of the few sources of information which do not depend directly on the state"
As we already explained, this is not the case - at all! The majority of the media in Venezuela side openly with the Opposition to Chavez' government. It's a curious paradox that in a country where the Government is supported by nearly two thirds of the population (according to the December 2006 presidential elections), the vast majority of the media are actively campaigning against it.
In 2002 even Human Rights Watch, which otherwise supports the mainstream campaign against the Venezuelan Government, had to admit that "Far from providing fair and accurate reporting, the media by and large seek to provoke popular discontent and outrage in support of the hard-line opposition" (Venezuela's Political Crisis," Human Rights News, Human Rights Watch, October 9, 2002).
In spite of this, the Venezuelan government has been so tolerant on opposition media that no TV stations, radios or newspapers have been closed, and just now, after five years, the government decided not to renew the frequency licence to RCTV. We ask, which other "democratic" country could accept that a TV channel openly supporting a coup plot would go on broadcasting after the failure of such an attempt? Which other country would accept that the owner of such a TV channel should not face trial for having supported a coup?
In Italy, for example, we had the Prime Minister of a so-called democratic country, Berlusconi, banning through a "diktat" from the TV screens of both the state and private TVs two popular journalists (Biagi and Santoro) and a satirical actor (Luttazzi), just because they were criticising his government!
Simon Bolivar said that a people could never be free if freedom of speech is not granted. That is definitely true. But we should ask ourselves whether this freedom of speech is really granted by a system where the mass media are in the hands of a clique of a few wealthy people and serve the interests of those few against the interests of the majority of the people.
If You Think Bush Is Evil Now, Wait Until He Nukes Iran By Paul Craig Roberts
The war in Iraq is lost. This fact is widely recognized by American military officers and has been recently expressed forcefully by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq during the first year of the attempted occupation. Winning is no longer an option. Our best hope, Gen. Sanchez says, is “to stave off defeat,” and that requires more intelligence and leadership than Gen. Sanchez sees in the entirety of our national political leadership: “I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time.”
More evidence that the war is lost arrived June 4 with headlines reporting: “U.S.-led soldiers control only about a third of Baghdad, the military said on Monday.” After five years of war the US controls one-third of one city and nothing else.
A host of US commanding generals have said that the Iraq war is destroying the US military. A year ago Colin Powell said that the US Army is “about broken.” Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn says Bush has “piecemealed our force to death.” Gen. Barry McCafrey testified to the US Senate that “the Army will unravel.”
Col. Andy Bacevich, America’s foremost writer on military affairs, documents in the current issue of The American Conservative that Bush’s insane war has depleted and exhausted the US Army and Marine Corps:
“Only a third of the regular Army’s brigades qualify as combat-ready. In the reserve components, none meet that standard. When the last of the units reaches Baghdad as part of the president’s strategy of escalation, the US will be left without a ready-to-deploy land force reserve.”
“The stress of repeated combat tours is sapping the Army’s lifeblood. Especially worrying is the accelerating exodus of experienced leaders. The service is currently short 3,000 commissioned officers. By next year, the number is projected to grow to 3,500. The Guard and reserves are in even worse shape. There the shortage amounts to 7,500 officers. Young West Pointers are bailing out of the Army at a rate not seen in three decades. In an effort to staunch the losses, that service has begun offering a $20,000 bonus to newly promoted captains who agree to stay on for an additional three years. Meanwhile, as more and more officers want out, fewer and fewer want in: ROTC scholarships go unfilled for a lack of qualified applicants.”
Bush has taken every desperate measure. Enlistment ages have been pushed up from 35 to 42. The percentage of high school dropouts and the number of recruits scoring at the bottom end of tests have spiked. The US military is forced to recruit among drug users and convicted criminals. Bacevich reports that wavers “issued to convicted felons jumped by 30 percent.” Combat tours have been extended from 12 to 15 months, and the same troops are being deployed again and again.
There is no equipment for training. Bacevich reports that “some $212 billion worth has been destroyed, damaged, or just plain worn out.” What remains is in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Under these circumstances, “staying the course” means total defeat.
Even the neoconservative warmongers, who deceived Americans with the promise of a “cakewalk war” that would be over in six weeks, believe that the war is lost. But they have not given up. They have a last desperate plan: Bomb Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney is spear- heading the neocon plan, and Norman Podhoretz is the plan’s leading propagandist with his numerous pleas published in the Wall Street Journal and Commentary to bomb Iran. Podhoretz, like every neoconservative, is a total Islamophobe. Podhoretz has written that Islam must be deracinated and the religion destroyed, a genocide for the Muslim people.
The neocons think that by bombing Iran the US will provoke Iran to arm the Shiite militias in Iraq with armor-piercing rocket propelled grenades and with surface to air missiles and unleash the militias against US troops. These weapons would neutralize US tanks and helicopter gunships and destroy the US military edge, leaving divided and isolated US forces subject to being cut off from supplies and retreat routes. With America on the verge of losing most of its troops in Iraq, the cry would go up to “save the troops” by nuking Iran.
Five years of unsuccessful war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel’s recent military defeat in Lebanon have convinced the neocons that America and Israel cannot establish hegemony over the Middle East with conventional forces alone. The neocons have changed US war doctrine, which now permits the US to preemptively strike with nuclear weapons a non-nuclear power. Neocons are forever heard saying, “what’s the use of having nuclear weapons if you can’t use them.”
Neocons have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government. Insurgency and terrorism cannot prevail against nuclear weapons.
Many US military officers are horrified at what they think would be the worst ever orchestrated war crime. There are reports of threatened resignations. But Dick Cheney is resolute. He tells Bush that the plan will save him from the ignominy of losing the war and restore his popularity as the president who saved Americans from Iranian nuclear weapons. With the captive American media providing propaganda cover, the neoconservatives believe that their plan can pull their chestnuts out of the fire and rescue them from the failure that their delusion has wrought.
The American electorate decided last November that they must do something about the failed war and gave the Democrats control of both houses of Congress. However, the Democrats have decided that it is easier to be complicit in war crimes than to represent the wishes of the electorate and hold a rogue president accountable. If Cheney again prevails, America will supplant the Third Reich as the most reviled country in recorded history.
Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National Review. He is author or co-author of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell
Bandar Bush takes 1.978 billion dollars in bribes while he was Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
BAE accused of secretly paying £1bn to Saudi prince (Bandar Bush)
· Money moved via US bank
· £30m payments a quarter
· Sanctioned by MoD
David Leigh and Rob Evans
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian
Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud also known in the Bush family as "Bandar Bush" takes 1.978 billion dollars in bribes while he was Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
The arms company BAE secretly paid Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia more than £1bn in connection with Britain's biggest ever weapons contract, it is alleged today.
A series of payments from the British firm was allegedly channelled through a US bank in Washington to an account controlled by one of the most colourful members of the Saudi ruling clan, who spent 20 years as their ambassador in the US.
It is claimed that payments of £30m were paid to Prince Bandar every quarter for at least 10 years.
It is alleged by insider legal sources that the money was paid to Prince Bandar with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials under the Blair government and its predecessors. For more than 20 years, ministers have claimed they knew nothing of secret commissions, which were outlawed by Britain in 2002.
An inquiry by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the transactions behind the £43bn Al-Yamamah arms deal, which was signed in 1985, is understood to have uncovered details of the payments to Prince Bandar.
But the investigation was halted last December by the SFO after a review by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.
He said it was in Britain's national interest to halt the investigation, and that there was little prospect of achieving convictions.
Tony Blair said he took "full responsibility" for the decision.
However, according to those familiar with the discussions at the time, Lord Goldsmith had warned colleagues that British "government complicity" was in danger of being revealed unless the SFO's corruption inquiries were stopped.
The abandonment of the investigation provoked an outcry from anti-corruption campaigners, and led to the world's official bribery watchdog, the OECD, launching its own investigation.
The fresh allegations may also cause BAE problems in America, where corrupt payments to foreign politicians have been outlawed since 1977.
The allegations of payments to Prince Bandar is bound to ignite fresh controversy over the original deal and the aborted SFO investigation.
The Saudi diplomat is known to have played a key role with Mrs Thatcher in setting up Britain's biggest ever series of weapons deals.
For more than 20 years Al-Yamamah, Arabic for "dove", has involved the sale of 120 Tornado aircraft, Hawk warplanes and other military equipment.
According to legal sources familiar with the records, BAE Systems made cash transfers to Prince Bandar every three months for 10 years or more.
BAE drew the money from a confidential account held at the Bank of England that had been set up to facilitate the Al-Yamamah deal. Up to £2bn a year was deposited in the accounts as part of a complex arrangement allowing Saudi oil to be sold in return for shipments of Tornado aircraft and other arms.
Both BAE and the government's arms sales department, the Defence Export Services Organisation (Deso), allegedly had drawing rights on the funds, which were held in a special Ministry of Defence account run by the government banker, the paymaster general.
Those close to Deso say regular payments were drawn down by BAE and despatched to Prince Bandar's account at Riggs bank in Washington DC.
Under the terms of a previously unknown MoD instruction from the department's permanent secretary, Sir Frank Cooper, the payment deal would have required Deso authorisation.
The money was not characterised as commission, but as quasi-official fees for marketing services. The payments are alleged to have continued for at least 10 years and beyond 2002, when Britain outlawed corrupt payments to overseas officials.
SFO investigators led by assistant director Helen Garlick first stumbled on the alleged payments, according to legal sources, when they unearthed highly classified documents at the MoD during their three-year investigation.
Before the investigation was abandoned, the SFO interviewed Alan Garwood, head of Deso. Sources close to the arms sales unit say that he and Stephen Pollard, the commercial director of the Saudi project, were questioned about the reasons for authorising the payments.
Prince Bandar, currently head of the country's national security council, was asked about the alleged payments by the Guardian this week.
He did not respond.
BAE Systems also would not explain the alleged payments. The company said: "Your approach is in common with that of the least responsible elements of the media - that is to assume BAE Systems' guilt in complete ignorance of the facts."
Its spokesman, John Neilson, added: "We have little doubt that among the reasons the attorney general considered the case was doomed was the fact that we acted in accordance with ... the relevant contracts, with the approval of the government of Saudi Arabia, together with, where relevant, that of the UK MoD."
The attorney general's office would not discuss claims about Lord Goldsmith's concerns of "government complicity" in the payments.
A spokesman said the SFO inquiry had been halted because of the "real and serious threat to national security".
"There were major legal difficulties ... given BAE's claim that the payments were made in accordance with the agreed contractual arrangements". The spokesman added: "None of this is altered by the Guardian story."
The MoD, where minister Paul Drayson runs Britain's government arms sales unit, also refused to elaborate.
"The MoD is unable to respond to the points made ... since to do so would involve disclosing confidential information about Al-Yamamah, and that would cause the damage that ending the investigation was designed to prevent," a spokesman said.
The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Vince Cable, called for an urgent inquiry into the new disclosures last night.
"This is potentially more significant and damaging than anything previously revealed. It is unforgivable if the British government has been actively conniving in under-the-counter payments to a major figure in the Saudi government.
"There must be a full parliamentary inquiry into whether the government has deceived the public and undermined the anti-corruption legislation which it itself passed through parliament."
He added: "It increasingly looks as if the motives behind the decision to pull the SFO inquiry were less to do with UK national interests but more to do with the personal interests of one of two powerful Saudi ministers ... Tony Blair's claims that the government has been motivated by national security considerations look increasingly hollow."
Last month, Dr Cable raised the issue of BAE in the Commons and accused Prince Bandar of benefiting personally from the Al-Yamamah deal.
The new disclosures may also make BAE's attempted takeover of the US-based Armor Holdings more difficult. The deal requires approval from US regulators.
Separately, the state department has protested to the Foreign Office about the ending of the SFO inquiry, saying it undermines global efforts to stamp out corruption by exporters.
Story of a £43bn deal
1985 Al-Yamamah agreement signed by Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan and the then defence secretary Michael Heseltine. Saudis agree to buy 72 Tornado and 30 Hawk warplanes. The deal - "the dove" in Arabic - will in time be worth £43bn to BAE
1989 National Audit Office (NAO) starts inquiry into allegations that members of Saudi royal family and middlemen were secretly paid huge bribes to land Al-Yamamah contract
1992 MPs and auditor general Sir John Bourn suppress NAO report after government claims it would upset Saudis. Report never published
2001 Whistleblower alleges BAE operates "slush fund" to keep sweet the Saudi prince in charge of country's air force, but MoD covers up allegations
2004 Second whistleblower discloses to Guardian further details of slush fund. Serious Fraud Office starts investigation into alleged BAE corruption
2006 Government halts SFO inquiry; investigators were about to gain access to Swiss accounts thought to have been linked to Saudi royal family
2007 OECD, the world's anti-bribery watchdog, rebukes Blair government for terminating SFO investigation, and launches own inquiry
· Money moved via US bank
· £30m payments a quarter
· Sanctioned by MoD
David Leigh and Rob Evans
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian
Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud also known in the Bush family as "Bandar Bush" takes 1.978 billion dollars in bribes while he was Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
The arms company BAE secretly paid Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia more than £1bn in connection with Britain's biggest ever weapons contract, it is alleged today.
A series of payments from the British firm was allegedly channelled through a US bank in Washington to an account controlled by one of the most colourful members of the Saudi ruling clan, who spent 20 years as their ambassador in the US.
It is claimed that payments of £30m were paid to Prince Bandar every quarter for at least 10 years.
It is alleged by insider legal sources that the money was paid to Prince Bandar with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials under the Blair government and its predecessors. For more than 20 years, ministers have claimed they knew nothing of secret commissions, which were outlawed by Britain in 2002.
An inquiry by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the transactions behind the £43bn Al-Yamamah arms deal, which was signed in 1985, is understood to have uncovered details of the payments to Prince Bandar.
But the investigation was halted last December by the SFO after a review by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.
He said it was in Britain's national interest to halt the investigation, and that there was little prospect of achieving convictions.
Tony Blair said he took "full responsibility" for the decision.
However, according to those familiar with the discussions at the time, Lord Goldsmith had warned colleagues that British "government complicity" was in danger of being revealed unless the SFO's corruption inquiries were stopped.
The abandonment of the investigation provoked an outcry from anti-corruption campaigners, and led to the world's official bribery watchdog, the OECD, launching its own investigation.
The fresh allegations may also cause BAE problems in America, where corrupt payments to foreign politicians have been outlawed since 1977.
The allegations of payments to Prince Bandar is bound to ignite fresh controversy over the original deal and the aborted SFO investigation.
The Saudi diplomat is known to have played a key role with Mrs Thatcher in setting up Britain's biggest ever series of weapons deals.
For more than 20 years Al-Yamamah, Arabic for "dove", has involved the sale of 120 Tornado aircraft, Hawk warplanes and other military equipment.
According to legal sources familiar with the records, BAE Systems made cash transfers to Prince Bandar every three months for 10 years or more.
BAE drew the money from a confidential account held at the Bank of England that had been set up to facilitate the Al-Yamamah deal. Up to £2bn a year was deposited in the accounts as part of a complex arrangement allowing Saudi oil to be sold in return for shipments of Tornado aircraft and other arms.
Both BAE and the government's arms sales department, the Defence Export Services Organisation (Deso), allegedly had drawing rights on the funds, which were held in a special Ministry of Defence account run by the government banker, the paymaster general.
Those close to Deso say regular payments were drawn down by BAE and despatched to Prince Bandar's account at Riggs bank in Washington DC.
Under the terms of a previously unknown MoD instruction from the department's permanent secretary, Sir Frank Cooper, the payment deal would have required Deso authorisation.
The money was not characterised as commission, but as quasi-official fees for marketing services. The payments are alleged to have continued for at least 10 years and beyond 2002, when Britain outlawed corrupt payments to overseas officials.
SFO investigators led by assistant director Helen Garlick first stumbled on the alleged payments, according to legal sources, when they unearthed highly classified documents at the MoD during their three-year investigation.
Before the investigation was abandoned, the SFO interviewed Alan Garwood, head of Deso. Sources close to the arms sales unit say that he and Stephen Pollard, the commercial director of the Saudi project, were questioned about the reasons for authorising the payments.
Prince Bandar, currently head of the country's national security council, was asked about the alleged payments by the Guardian this week.
He did not respond.
BAE Systems also would not explain the alleged payments. The company said: "Your approach is in common with that of the least responsible elements of the media - that is to assume BAE Systems' guilt in complete ignorance of the facts."
Its spokesman, John Neilson, added: "We have little doubt that among the reasons the attorney general considered the case was doomed was the fact that we acted in accordance with ... the relevant contracts, with the approval of the government of Saudi Arabia, together with, where relevant, that of the UK MoD."
The attorney general's office would not discuss claims about Lord Goldsmith's concerns of "government complicity" in the payments.
A spokesman said the SFO inquiry had been halted because of the "real and serious threat to national security".
"There were major legal difficulties ... given BAE's claim that the payments were made in accordance with the agreed contractual arrangements". The spokesman added: "None of this is altered by the Guardian story."
The MoD, where minister Paul Drayson runs Britain's government arms sales unit, also refused to elaborate.
"The MoD is unable to respond to the points made ... since to do so would involve disclosing confidential information about Al-Yamamah, and that would cause the damage that ending the investigation was designed to prevent," a spokesman said.
The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Vince Cable, called for an urgent inquiry into the new disclosures last night.
"This is potentially more significant and damaging than anything previously revealed. It is unforgivable if the British government has been actively conniving in under-the-counter payments to a major figure in the Saudi government.
"There must be a full parliamentary inquiry into whether the government has deceived the public and undermined the anti-corruption legislation which it itself passed through parliament."
He added: "It increasingly looks as if the motives behind the decision to pull the SFO inquiry were less to do with UK national interests but more to do with the personal interests of one of two powerful Saudi ministers ... Tony Blair's claims that the government has been motivated by national security considerations look increasingly hollow."
Last month, Dr Cable raised the issue of BAE in the Commons and accused Prince Bandar of benefiting personally from the Al-Yamamah deal.
The new disclosures may also make BAE's attempted takeover of the US-based Armor Holdings more difficult. The deal requires approval from US regulators.
Separately, the state department has protested to the Foreign Office about the ending of the SFO inquiry, saying it undermines global efforts to stamp out corruption by exporters.
Story of a £43bn deal
1985 Al-Yamamah agreement signed by Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan and the then defence secretary Michael Heseltine. Saudis agree to buy 72 Tornado and 30 Hawk warplanes. The deal - "the dove" in Arabic - will in time be worth £43bn to BAE
1989 National Audit Office (NAO) starts inquiry into allegations that members of Saudi royal family and middlemen were secretly paid huge bribes to land Al-Yamamah contract
1992 MPs and auditor general Sir John Bourn suppress NAO report after government claims it would upset Saudis. Report never published
2001 Whistleblower alleges BAE operates "slush fund" to keep sweet the Saudi prince in charge of country's air force, but MoD covers up allegations
2004 Second whistleblower discloses to Guardian further details of slush fund. Serious Fraud Office starts investigation into alleged BAE corruption
2006 Government halts SFO inquiry; investigators were about to gain access to Swiss accounts thought to have been linked to Saudi royal family
2007 OECD, the world's anti-bribery watchdog, rebukes Blair government for terminating SFO investigation, and launches own inquiry
Hugo Chávez recomienda la lectura de las investigaciones de Thierry Meyssan
Video: Hugo Chávez recomienda la lectura de las investigaciones de Thierry Meyssan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMvLWM2z4x4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Evoltairenet%2Eorg%2Farticle148905%2Ehtml
Hugo Chávez, presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, siempre ha denunciado las tentativas de Golpe de Estado del tipo “revoluciones de colores”, técnica que últimamente la CIA ha desarrollado en el mundo, para derribar gobiernos que no le son sumisos, dicha técnica utilizada sobre todo contra su gobierno bolivariano y social. Estas operaciones de inteligencia fueron dadas a conocer a la opinión pública por el periodista francés Thierry Meyssan, director de la Red Voltaire, con sede en París, Francia.
El presidente de Venezuela hablando en presencia de Daniel Ortega, recientemente elegido presidente de la República de Nicaragua, y del ministro de la Cooperación Económica de Cuba, Marta Lomas a la ocasión de la firma del convenio Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA), el nuevo tratado económico y político Latinoamericano, el 3 de junio de 2007. La ceremonia se llevaba a cabo en una de las salas del palacio de Miraflores, sede de la presidencia de la República, bajo el retrato de Simón Bolivar, libertador de las Américas. Esta ceremonia fue trasmitida en directo por los canales televisivos y radiales nacionales de estos países firmantes.
Alertando a los pueblos a los cuales el presidente se dirigía, Hugo Chávez citó los trabajos del periodista francés Thierry Meyssan, director de la Red Voltaire, autor del libro La Gran Impostura, ningún avión se estrelló en el Pentágono y del Pentagate. En su alocución el presidente leyó durante doce minutos, un artículo del intelectual francés señalando las técnicas desarrolladas por el instituto Albert Einstein Institution, una oficina común de la CIA y de la OTAN. También añadió darle una tribuna a Thierry Meyssan para que pueda hacer conocer mejor a la opinión publica sus análisis.
Los trabajos de Thierry Meyssan habían servido anteriormente de base a la investigación del fiscal venezolano Danilo Anderson acerca de la organización del fracasado Golpe de Estado contra el presidente Chávez en abril 2002. Este magistrado fue asesinado posteriormente por la CIA en noviembre de 2004. En septiembre de 2006, el mismo presidente Hugo Chávez apoyó los análisis de Thierry Meyssan sobre la preparación y organización de los atentados del 11 de septiembre 2001 por una facción del complejo militaro-industrial estadounidense, posteriormente el Parlamento venezolano había formulado un pedido de explicación al presidente George W. Bush respecto a las incoherencias de la versión oficial de estos atentados.
Considerado como uno de los mejores intelectuales y pensadores anti-imperialistas actuales, Thierry Meyssan preside la conferencia Axis for Peace , aconseja y apoya a una decena de gobiernoss del Movimiento de Países no Alineados. Acaba de publicar su nuevo libro acerca de las influencias políticas imperiales para la confección y nacimiento de un nuevo Medio Oriente, L’Effroyable imposture 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMvLWM2z4x4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Evoltairenet%2Eorg%2Farticle148905%2Ehtml
Hugo Chávez, presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, siempre ha denunciado las tentativas de Golpe de Estado del tipo “revoluciones de colores”, técnica que últimamente la CIA ha desarrollado en el mundo, para derribar gobiernos que no le son sumisos, dicha técnica utilizada sobre todo contra su gobierno bolivariano y social. Estas operaciones de inteligencia fueron dadas a conocer a la opinión pública por el periodista francés Thierry Meyssan, director de la Red Voltaire, con sede en París, Francia.
El presidente de Venezuela hablando en presencia de Daniel Ortega, recientemente elegido presidente de la República de Nicaragua, y del ministro de la Cooperación Económica de Cuba, Marta Lomas a la ocasión de la firma del convenio Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA), el nuevo tratado económico y político Latinoamericano, el 3 de junio de 2007. La ceremonia se llevaba a cabo en una de las salas del palacio de Miraflores, sede de la presidencia de la República, bajo el retrato de Simón Bolivar, libertador de las Américas. Esta ceremonia fue trasmitida en directo por los canales televisivos y radiales nacionales de estos países firmantes.
Alertando a los pueblos a los cuales el presidente se dirigía, Hugo Chávez citó los trabajos del periodista francés Thierry Meyssan, director de la Red Voltaire, autor del libro La Gran Impostura, ningún avión se estrelló en el Pentágono y del Pentagate. En su alocución el presidente leyó durante doce minutos, un artículo del intelectual francés señalando las técnicas desarrolladas por el instituto Albert Einstein Institution, una oficina común de la CIA y de la OTAN. También añadió darle una tribuna a Thierry Meyssan para que pueda hacer conocer mejor a la opinión publica sus análisis.
Los trabajos de Thierry Meyssan habían servido anteriormente de base a la investigación del fiscal venezolano Danilo Anderson acerca de la organización del fracasado Golpe de Estado contra el presidente Chávez en abril 2002. Este magistrado fue asesinado posteriormente por la CIA en noviembre de 2004. En septiembre de 2006, el mismo presidente Hugo Chávez apoyó los análisis de Thierry Meyssan sobre la preparación y organización de los atentados del 11 de septiembre 2001 por una facción del complejo militaro-industrial estadounidense, posteriormente el Parlamento venezolano había formulado un pedido de explicación al presidente George W. Bush respecto a las incoherencias de la versión oficial de estos atentados.
Considerado como uno de los mejores intelectuales y pensadores anti-imperialistas actuales, Thierry Meyssan preside la conferencia Axis for Peace , aconseja y apoya a una decena de gobiernoss del Movimiento de Países no Alineados. Acaba de publicar su nuevo libro acerca de las influencias políticas imperiales para la confección y nacimiento de un nuevo Medio Oriente, L’Effroyable imposture 2.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
CIA-assisted plot to overthrow Laos foiled - Former Air America/CIA asset Vang Pao arrested
by Larry Chin
Global Research, June 6, 2007
Vang Pao, prominent Laotian exile leader and legendary CIA asset during the CIA’s clandestine Indochinese wars of the 1960s and 1970s was among 10 men arrested on June 4, 2007, and accused of plotting a catastrophic military strike against the Laotian government using mercenary forces. According to US attorney Bob Twiss, the ten individuals are the plot leaders, but “thousands of co-conspirators remain at large, many in other countries.”
The other leading co-conspirator arrested was Harrison Ulrich Jack, a member of the California National Guard, and a retired Army officer who was a CIA covert operative in Southeast Asia before leaving active duty in 1977. According to the ATF agent, Jack quoted Lo Cha Thao, the president of the nonprofit organization United Hmong International, and one of the other Hmong co-conspirators, as saying that “the CIA was preparing to assist the Hmong insurgency once the takeover of Laos had begun”.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle report, “the complaint says Jack was hired as an arms broker and organizer by the other men because of his ‘contacts in the American defense, homeland security and defense contractor community”.
An arsenal, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, AK-47 machine guns, C-4 explosives, Claymore land mines, night-vision goggles, and other automatic weapons had already been purchased. The weapons, which were seized by undercover agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF), were to be used against military and civilian targets in Laos, including “an attack on the nation’s capital intended to reduce government targets to rubble, and make them look like the results of the attack upon the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001”, federal authorities said. The group had agents in the Laotian capital of Vientiane.
Back to the future: General Vang Pao and Air America redux The return of Vang Pao (in any active political capacity whatsoever), and any CIA role whatsoever behind the aborted coup, is yet another ominous sign that the Bush administration is hellbent on imposing its geopolitical will, through criminal covert operations and manufactured holocausts, which include violent black operations in Asia that are not only reminiscent of the most brutal operations of the Vietnam War era, but far worse.
General Vang Pao, a CIA “cutout”, led a guerrilla army of CIA-backed Hmong tribesmen in the secret Laos proxy wars in the 1960s, and in the 1970s as a general in the Royal Army of Laos. When the US finally left Vietnam in 1975, Pao, with assistance from the American intelligence community, fled to the United States, with many of his associates in a mass exodus. The former general, 77, has been a resident of Orange County, California, but has reportedly “never given up the fight” to retake Laos. Pao heads various Hmong “liberation” groups, such as Neo Hom and the United Laotian Liberation Front, which have been recipients of money from Hmong expatriates and exiles, designated for guerrilla activities, and the eventual overthrow of the communist government in Laos.
The CIA’s Air America military/intelligence/narco-trafficking operation, and Vang Pao, are richly detailed in two definitive histories, Alfred McCoy’s The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade and Peter Dale Scott’s Drugs, Oil and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia and Indochina.
Air America was one of the most notorious of CIA proprietary airlines and a key component in the US government’s notorious Golden Triangle heroin trafficking operations in the 1960s and 1970s. Air America began in 1950 as CAT (Civil Air Transport), and was the largest CIA proprietary in Asia. CAT itself was a proprietary with roots to the OSS-China and joint US-Kuomintang operations during World War II. According to Scott, “the CIA owned 40 percent of the company; the KMT bankers owned 60 percent. The planes had been supplying the KMT opium bases continuously since 1951.
The CIA, primarily through Air America, owned a monopoly over this traffic until 1960 (after which an expansion took place, behind many CIA proprietary fronts, including Air America, and, according to Scott “the opium-based economy of Laos continued to be protected by a coalition of opium-growing CIA mercenaries, Air America planes and Thai troops.”). Air America was involved in various aspects of the Indochinese war and clandestine operations, including (but not limited to) narcotics trafficking, false flag operations, logistics, tactical support, troop (guerrilla) transport and defoliation.
Furthermore, Air America was not just a CIA front, but a complex apparatus with deep intelligence roots, as noted by Scott:
“Underlying Southeast Asian history in these years was the politically significant narcotics traffic. The CIA was intimately connected to this traffic, chiefly through its proprietary Air America. But it was not securely in control of this traffic and probably did not even seek to be. What it desired was ‘deniability’, achieved by the legal nicety that Air America, which the CIA wholly owned, was a corporation that hired pilots and owned an aircraft maintenance facility in Taiwan. Most of its planes, which often carried drugs, were 60 percent owned and frequently operated by Kuomintang (KMT) Chinese.
“The CIA was comfortable in this deniable relationship with people it knew were reorganizing the postwar drug traffic in Southeast Asia. The US government was determined to ensure that drug-trafficking networks and triads in the region remained under KMT control, even if this meant logistic and air support to armies in postwar Burma whose chief activity was expanding the local supply of opium. The complex legal structure of the airline CAT---known earlier as Civil Air Transport and later as Air America---was the ideal vehicle for this support.”
“…Air America, whose managers overlapped with those of the CIA in one direction and Pan Am [the airline-LC] in another, was thrust into an escalating role in Laos that was contrary to US interests but supplied Pan Am with the needed military airlift business to survive in the Far East.
Scott also noted that Air America and its personnel “did contract work in Southeast Asia for the large oil companies, many of which maintain their own ‘intelligence’ networks recruited largely from veterans of the CIA”.
“Air America itself had a private stake in Southeast Asia’s burgeoning oil economy, for it flew ‘prospectors looking for copper and geologists searching for oil in Indonesia, and provided pilots for commercial airlines such as Air Vietnam and Thai Airways, and took over CAT’s passenger services.’
McCoy summarizes the Air America/Vang Pao relationship in the following excerpt [my emphasis in bold-LC]:
“The CIA ran a series of covert warfare operations along the China border that were instrumental in the creation of the Golden Triangle heroin complex…in Laos from 1960 to 1975, the CIA created a secret army of Hmong tribesmen to battle Laotian Communists near the border with North Vietnam. Since Hmong’s main cash crop was opium, the CIA adopted a complicitous posture toward the traffic, allowing the Hmong commander General Vang Pao, to use the CIA’s Air America to collect opium from his scattered highland villages. In late 1969, the CIA’s various covert action clients opened a network of heroin laboratories in the Golden Triangle. In their first years of operation, these laboratories exported high grade no. 4 heroin to US troops fighting in Vietnam. After their withdrawal, the Golden Triangle laboratories exported directly to the United States, capturing one-third of the American heroin market.”
Factoring in the military-intelligence aspect, Scott noted:
“In the 1960s, the largest of these operations was the supply of the fortified hilltop positions of the 45,000 Hmong tribesmen fighting against Pathet Lao behind their lines in northeast Laos…Air America’s planes also served to transport the Hmong’s main cash crop, opium.
“The Hmong units, originally organized and trained by the French, provided a good indigenous army for the Americans in Laos. Together with their CIA and US Special Forces ‘advisors’, the Hmong were used to harass Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese supply lines. In the later 1960s, they engaged in conventional battles in which they were transported by Air America’s planes and helicopters. The Hmong also defended, until its capture in 1968, the key US radar installation at Pathi near the North Vietnamese border; the station had been used in the bombing of North Vietnam….Farther south in Laos, Air America flew out of the CIA operations headquarters at Pakse…Originally the chief purpose of these activities was to observe and harass the Ho Chi Minh trail, but ultimately the fighting in the Laotian panhandle, as elsewhere in the country, expanded into a general air and ground war. Air America’s planes were reported to be flying arms, supplies and reinforcements into this larger campaign as well.”
Vang Pao: CIA murderer Vang Pao was not only a CIA favorite, but a ruthless killer. McCoy wrote:
“With his flair for such cost-effective combat, Vang Pao would become a hero to agency bureaucrats in Washington. ‘CIA had identified an officer…originally trained by the French, who had not only the courage but also the political acumen…for leadership in such a conflict…,’ recalled retired CIA director William Colby. ‘His name was Vang Pao, and he had the enthusiastic admiration of the CIA officers, who knew him…as a man who… knew how to say no as well as yes to Americans.’ Many CIA field operatives admired his ruthlessness. When agent Thomas Clines, commander of the CIA’s secret base at Long Tieng, demanded an immediate interrogation of six prisoners, Vang Pao ordered them executed on the spot. Clines was impressed.” [Clines was both a legendary CIA operative and a lifelong friend and political associate of the Bush family.—LC]
“For ‘several years’”, according to Scott, “seven hundred members of the ‘civilian’ USAID mission (working out of the mission’s ‘rural development annex’ had been former Special Forces and US Army servicemen responsible to the CIA station chief and working in northeast Laos with CIA-supported Hmong guerrillas of General Vang Pao. Vang Pao’s Armee Clandestine was not even answerable to the Royal Lao government or the army, being entirely financed and supported by the CIA.”
“(Hmong commander) Touby Lyfoung had once remarked of Vang Pao, ‘He is a pure military officer who doesn’t understand that after the war there is peace. And one must be strong to win the peace.’”
It appears that today, decades later, the general still does not understand the need for peace.
Towards new warfare and instability in Asia In addition to questions about the return of Golden Triangle/CIA cutout Vang Pao, this development raises new and disturbing questions about the Bush administration’s Pacific-Southeast Asia geostrategy.
Initial reports suggest that this aborted coup was not simply a rogue operation, but one that was supported by CIA and other US agencies, and US defense contractors. Who would have benefited from this pure Cold War/Vietnam War-era insurrection and coup? What interests would have been served by a 9/11-type catastrophe in Vientiane, and the installation of a regime headed by CIA-supported military-intelligence figures and narco-trafficking expatriates?
Does the agenda involve Golden Triangle narco-trafficking, and new attempts to revitalize or restructure heroin traffic, and laundered funds into a fragile world economy?
Does the control of oil and oil transport routes, a perennial US objective in Southeast Asia, play a role? How about the “war on terrorism”? Southeast Asia has been the target of numerous real and fabricated “terror” operations (such as the bombing of Bali). A major event in Laos would have triggered similar political effects.
Then there is the larger agenda aimed at containing or competing with nearby China---a return to the same confrontational politics of the Cold War era. In Drugs, Oil, and War, Scott wrote that the CIA’s role in deliberately fomenting conflict in Laos in the 1960s may have been aimed at provoking a war with China, and polarizing the various factions. “What made the Pentagon, CIA and Air America hang on in Laos with such tenacity? …at least as late as 1962, there were those in the Pentagon and the CIA ‘who believed that a direct confrontation with Communist China was inevitable’” and the expectation that “Laos was sooner or later to become a major battleground in a military sense between the East and the West”. The aim, according to Scott, “was achieved” the country became a battlefield where U.S. bombings, with between four hundred and five hundred sorties a day in 1970, generated 600,000 refugees.”
Is the US looking to create a similar conflict again, this time against a new emerging Chinese superpower threat?
“Vietnam, in other words, was not an isolated event”, as emphasized by Scott. “It was the product of ongoing war-creating energies located chiefly in this country, which to this day have not yet been properly identified and countered. Of these forces, none is deeper and more mysterious than the involvement yet again of the CIA, and airlines working for it, with major drug traffickers…Such forces will continue to haunt us until they are better understood.”
While the details of this case continue to be revealed, what is abundantly clear and obvious is that the CIA’s many criminal operations, directly authorized and/or tacitly endorsed by a Bush administration, continue to intensify, in every corner of the world.
Larry Chin is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Larry Chin
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow
Global Research, June 6, 2007
Vang Pao, prominent Laotian exile leader and legendary CIA asset during the CIA’s clandestine Indochinese wars of the 1960s and 1970s was among 10 men arrested on June 4, 2007, and accused of plotting a catastrophic military strike against the Laotian government using mercenary forces. According to US attorney Bob Twiss, the ten individuals are the plot leaders, but “thousands of co-conspirators remain at large, many in other countries.”
The other leading co-conspirator arrested was Harrison Ulrich Jack, a member of the California National Guard, and a retired Army officer who was a CIA covert operative in Southeast Asia before leaving active duty in 1977. According to the ATF agent, Jack quoted Lo Cha Thao, the president of the nonprofit organization United Hmong International, and one of the other Hmong co-conspirators, as saying that “the CIA was preparing to assist the Hmong insurgency once the takeover of Laos had begun”.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle report, “the complaint says Jack was hired as an arms broker and organizer by the other men because of his ‘contacts in the American defense, homeland security and defense contractor community”.
An arsenal, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, AK-47 machine guns, C-4 explosives, Claymore land mines, night-vision goggles, and other automatic weapons had already been purchased. The weapons, which were seized by undercover agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF), were to be used against military and civilian targets in Laos, including “an attack on the nation’s capital intended to reduce government targets to rubble, and make them look like the results of the attack upon the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001”, federal authorities said. The group had agents in the Laotian capital of Vientiane.
Back to the future: General Vang Pao and Air America redux The return of Vang Pao (in any active political capacity whatsoever), and any CIA role whatsoever behind the aborted coup, is yet another ominous sign that the Bush administration is hellbent on imposing its geopolitical will, through criminal covert operations and manufactured holocausts, which include violent black operations in Asia that are not only reminiscent of the most brutal operations of the Vietnam War era, but far worse.
General Vang Pao, a CIA “cutout”, led a guerrilla army of CIA-backed Hmong tribesmen in the secret Laos proxy wars in the 1960s, and in the 1970s as a general in the Royal Army of Laos. When the US finally left Vietnam in 1975, Pao, with assistance from the American intelligence community, fled to the United States, with many of his associates in a mass exodus. The former general, 77, has been a resident of Orange County, California, but has reportedly “never given up the fight” to retake Laos. Pao heads various Hmong “liberation” groups, such as Neo Hom and the United Laotian Liberation Front, which have been recipients of money from Hmong expatriates and exiles, designated for guerrilla activities, and the eventual overthrow of the communist government in Laos.
The CIA’s Air America military/intelligence/narco-trafficking operation, and Vang Pao, are richly detailed in two definitive histories, Alfred McCoy’s The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade and Peter Dale Scott’s Drugs, Oil and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia and Indochina.
Air America was one of the most notorious of CIA proprietary airlines and a key component in the US government’s notorious Golden Triangle heroin trafficking operations in the 1960s and 1970s. Air America began in 1950 as CAT (Civil Air Transport), and was the largest CIA proprietary in Asia. CAT itself was a proprietary with roots to the OSS-China and joint US-Kuomintang operations during World War II. According to Scott, “the CIA owned 40 percent of the company; the KMT bankers owned 60 percent. The planes had been supplying the KMT opium bases continuously since 1951.
The CIA, primarily through Air America, owned a monopoly over this traffic until 1960 (after which an expansion took place, behind many CIA proprietary fronts, including Air America, and, according to Scott “the opium-based economy of Laos continued to be protected by a coalition of opium-growing CIA mercenaries, Air America planes and Thai troops.”). Air America was involved in various aspects of the Indochinese war and clandestine operations, including (but not limited to) narcotics trafficking, false flag operations, logistics, tactical support, troop (guerrilla) transport and defoliation.
Furthermore, Air America was not just a CIA front, but a complex apparatus with deep intelligence roots, as noted by Scott:
“Underlying Southeast Asian history in these years was the politically significant narcotics traffic. The CIA was intimately connected to this traffic, chiefly through its proprietary Air America. But it was not securely in control of this traffic and probably did not even seek to be. What it desired was ‘deniability’, achieved by the legal nicety that Air America, which the CIA wholly owned, was a corporation that hired pilots and owned an aircraft maintenance facility in Taiwan. Most of its planes, which often carried drugs, were 60 percent owned and frequently operated by Kuomintang (KMT) Chinese.
“The CIA was comfortable in this deniable relationship with people it knew were reorganizing the postwar drug traffic in Southeast Asia. The US government was determined to ensure that drug-trafficking networks and triads in the region remained under KMT control, even if this meant logistic and air support to armies in postwar Burma whose chief activity was expanding the local supply of opium. The complex legal structure of the airline CAT---known earlier as Civil Air Transport and later as Air America---was the ideal vehicle for this support.”
“…Air America, whose managers overlapped with those of the CIA in one direction and Pan Am [the airline-LC] in another, was thrust into an escalating role in Laos that was contrary to US interests but supplied Pan Am with the needed military airlift business to survive in the Far East.
Scott also noted that Air America and its personnel “did contract work in Southeast Asia for the large oil companies, many of which maintain their own ‘intelligence’ networks recruited largely from veterans of the CIA”.
“Air America itself had a private stake in Southeast Asia’s burgeoning oil economy, for it flew ‘prospectors looking for copper and geologists searching for oil in Indonesia, and provided pilots for commercial airlines such as Air Vietnam and Thai Airways, and took over CAT’s passenger services.’
McCoy summarizes the Air America/Vang Pao relationship in the following excerpt [my emphasis in bold-LC]:
“The CIA ran a series of covert warfare operations along the China border that were instrumental in the creation of the Golden Triangle heroin complex…in Laos from 1960 to 1975, the CIA created a secret army of Hmong tribesmen to battle Laotian Communists near the border with North Vietnam. Since Hmong’s main cash crop was opium, the CIA adopted a complicitous posture toward the traffic, allowing the Hmong commander General Vang Pao, to use the CIA’s Air America to collect opium from his scattered highland villages. In late 1969, the CIA’s various covert action clients opened a network of heroin laboratories in the Golden Triangle. In their first years of operation, these laboratories exported high grade no. 4 heroin to US troops fighting in Vietnam. After their withdrawal, the Golden Triangle laboratories exported directly to the United States, capturing one-third of the American heroin market.”
Factoring in the military-intelligence aspect, Scott noted:
“In the 1960s, the largest of these operations was the supply of the fortified hilltop positions of the 45,000 Hmong tribesmen fighting against Pathet Lao behind their lines in northeast Laos…Air America’s planes also served to transport the Hmong’s main cash crop, opium.
“The Hmong units, originally organized and trained by the French, provided a good indigenous army for the Americans in Laos. Together with their CIA and US Special Forces ‘advisors’, the Hmong were used to harass Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese supply lines. In the later 1960s, they engaged in conventional battles in which they were transported by Air America’s planes and helicopters. The Hmong also defended, until its capture in 1968, the key US radar installation at Pathi near the North Vietnamese border; the station had been used in the bombing of North Vietnam….Farther south in Laos, Air America flew out of the CIA operations headquarters at Pakse…Originally the chief purpose of these activities was to observe and harass the Ho Chi Minh trail, but ultimately the fighting in the Laotian panhandle, as elsewhere in the country, expanded into a general air and ground war. Air America’s planes were reported to be flying arms, supplies and reinforcements into this larger campaign as well.”
Vang Pao: CIA murderer Vang Pao was not only a CIA favorite, but a ruthless killer. McCoy wrote:
“With his flair for such cost-effective combat, Vang Pao would become a hero to agency bureaucrats in Washington. ‘CIA had identified an officer…originally trained by the French, who had not only the courage but also the political acumen…for leadership in such a conflict…,’ recalled retired CIA director William Colby. ‘His name was Vang Pao, and he had the enthusiastic admiration of the CIA officers, who knew him…as a man who… knew how to say no as well as yes to Americans.’ Many CIA field operatives admired his ruthlessness. When agent Thomas Clines, commander of the CIA’s secret base at Long Tieng, demanded an immediate interrogation of six prisoners, Vang Pao ordered them executed on the spot. Clines was impressed.” [Clines was both a legendary CIA operative and a lifelong friend and political associate of the Bush family.—LC]
“For ‘several years’”, according to Scott, “seven hundred members of the ‘civilian’ USAID mission (working out of the mission’s ‘rural development annex’ had been former Special Forces and US Army servicemen responsible to the CIA station chief and working in northeast Laos with CIA-supported Hmong guerrillas of General Vang Pao. Vang Pao’s Armee Clandestine was not even answerable to the Royal Lao government or the army, being entirely financed and supported by the CIA.”
“(Hmong commander) Touby Lyfoung had once remarked of Vang Pao, ‘He is a pure military officer who doesn’t understand that after the war there is peace. And one must be strong to win the peace.’”
It appears that today, decades later, the general still does not understand the need for peace.
Towards new warfare and instability in Asia In addition to questions about the return of Golden Triangle/CIA cutout Vang Pao, this development raises new and disturbing questions about the Bush administration’s Pacific-Southeast Asia geostrategy.
Initial reports suggest that this aborted coup was not simply a rogue operation, but one that was supported by CIA and other US agencies, and US defense contractors. Who would have benefited from this pure Cold War/Vietnam War-era insurrection and coup? What interests would have been served by a 9/11-type catastrophe in Vientiane, and the installation of a regime headed by CIA-supported military-intelligence figures and narco-trafficking expatriates?
Does the agenda involve Golden Triangle narco-trafficking, and new attempts to revitalize or restructure heroin traffic, and laundered funds into a fragile world economy?
Does the control of oil and oil transport routes, a perennial US objective in Southeast Asia, play a role? How about the “war on terrorism”? Southeast Asia has been the target of numerous real and fabricated “terror” operations (such as the bombing of Bali). A major event in Laos would have triggered similar political effects.
Then there is the larger agenda aimed at containing or competing with nearby China---a return to the same confrontational politics of the Cold War era. In Drugs, Oil, and War, Scott wrote that the CIA’s role in deliberately fomenting conflict in Laos in the 1960s may have been aimed at provoking a war with China, and polarizing the various factions. “What made the Pentagon, CIA and Air America hang on in Laos with such tenacity? …at least as late as 1962, there were those in the Pentagon and the CIA ‘who believed that a direct confrontation with Communist China was inevitable’” and the expectation that “Laos was sooner or later to become a major battleground in a military sense between the East and the West”. The aim, according to Scott, “was achieved” the country became a battlefield where U.S. bombings, with between four hundred and five hundred sorties a day in 1970, generated 600,000 refugees.”
Is the US looking to create a similar conflict again, this time against a new emerging Chinese superpower threat?
“Vietnam, in other words, was not an isolated event”, as emphasized by Scott. “It was the product of ongoing war-creating energies located chiefly in this country, which to this day have not yet been properly identified and countered. Of these forces, none is deeper and more mysterious than the involvement yet again of the CIA, and airlines working for it, with major drug traffickers…Such forces will continue to haunt us until they are better understood.”
While the details of this case continue to be revealed, what is abundantly clear and obvious is that the CIA’s many criminal operations, directly authorized and/or tacitly endorsed by a Bush administration, continue to intensify, in every corner of the world.
Larry Chin is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Larry Chin
"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow
Venezuela and freedom of speech – 4 lies, 4 answers
Since the Venezuelan president announced a few months ago that the Bolivarian government would not renew the broadcast concession to the TV station RCTV, a ferocious campaign has been unleashed in Italy (as well as in all the Western countries), accusing Hugo Chavez of attacking freedom of information in order to "shut up the Opposition".
Most of the mainstream Italian newspapers have joined the campaign, however the arguments used to back this campaign are definitely groundless and based on false assumptions.
One of the most frequent accusations is that the Venezuelan government has turned off one of the few private Venezuelan TV stations, thus silencing one of the few independent sources of information. This is supposedly because this TV station "was an obstacle to Chavez' populist project". These are utter falsifications and we can easily prove this:
"Hugo Chavez shut down RCTV"
Hugo Chavez has not shut down RCTV. RCTV was allowed to broadcast its programmes through TV frequencies, which are a public good, and which are periodically assigned by the government to one TV station or another. When the licence expires on May 28, the licence will not be renewed to RCTV. Venezuelan law (and it must be noted - the law of any other country) does not say that the government should assign TV frequencies to the same companies all the time, but allows it to choose. We are going to deal in a moment with the reasons why the Bolivarian government decided to deny the renewal of the licence.
"RCTV is one of the few Venezuelan private TV stations"
According to an official June 2006 report from the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications and Information, the vast majority of Venezuelan mass media (TV and Radio channels, newspapers) are today in the hands of private owners. In particular, as far as the television sector is concerned, 90% of the market is in the hands of 4 private TV companies: RCTV, Globovision, Televen and Venevision. The owner of RCTV, Marcel Granier, owns another 40 TV stations throughout Venezuela (most of them of course are local TV channels). To be accurate 79 out of a total of 81 TV channels (or 97%) are private; 706 out of 709 Radio channels (or 99%) and all 118 newspapers are in private hands.
"RCTV was an obstacle for Chavez' populist project"
It is not the purpose of this article to deal with definitions of Hugo Chavez' project. Nevertheless, it is worth noticing that the media owned by our local entrepreneurs, tend to label as "populist" each and every political project that does not base itself on the support or acceptance of the exploitation of labour.
It might be better to spell out what is meant when it is said that RCTV was an obstacle for the policies of the Bolivarian government. The plain truth is that RCTV had been directly and openly involved in the April 11, 2002 coup that attempted to oust the democratically elected president Hugo Chavez. The participation of RCTV in the coup plot was so blatant that the Production Manager f RCTVat the time o, Andres Izarra, who opposed the coup, resigned hastily in order not to be a party to a crime. In an official testimony to the Venezuelan National Assembly, Izarra reported that he was instructed formally by Granier the same day of the coup and during the following days not to broadcast any information on Chavez, his personnel, the ministers or whoever could be related to him.
This is exactly what happened. RCTV only reported that President Chavez had resigned from office (which was a blatant lie - as he had been kidnapped by the coup plotters...). And when two days later millions of Venezuelans took the streets demanding that the legitimate president they elected should come back, RCTV broadcasted just cartoons!
An inspiring account of those days is the documentary made out of the footage shot by an Irish troupe that was "trapped" in the Miraflores presidential palace during the coup. The documentary carries a significant title: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
"Shutting down RCTV means silencing one of the few sources of information which do not depend directly on the state"
As we already explained, this is not the case - at all! The majority of the media in Venezuela side openly with the Opposition to Chavez' government. It's a curious paradox that in a country where the Government is supported by nearly two thirds of the population (according to the December 2006 presidential elections), the vast majority of the media are actively campaigning against it.
In 2002 even Human Rights Watch, which otherwise supports the mainstream campaign against the Venezuelan Government, had to admit that "Far from providing fair and accurate reporting, the media by and large seek to provoke popular discontent and outrage in support of the hard-line opposition" (Venezuela's Political Crisis," Human Rights News, Human Rights Watch, October 9, 2002).
In spite of this, the Venezuelan government has been so tolerant on opposition media that no TV stations, radios or newspapers have been closed, and just now, after five years, the government decided not to renew the frequency licence to RCTV. We ask, which other "democratic" country could accept that a TV channel openly supporting a coup plot would go on broadcasting after the failure of such an attempt? Which other country would accept that the owner of such a TV channel should not face trial for having supported a coup?
In Italy, for example, we had the Prime Minister of a so-called democratic country, Berlusconi, banning through a "diktat" from the TV screens of both the state and private TVs two popular journalists (Biagi and Santoro) and a satirical actor (Luttazzi), just because they were criticising his government!
Simon Bolivar said that a people could never be free if freedom of speech is not granted. That is definitely true. But we should ask ourselves whether this freedom of speech is really granted by a system where the mass media are in the hands of a clique of a few wealthy people and serve the interests of those few against the interests of the majority of the people.
Most of the mainstream Italian newspapers have joined the campaign, however the arguments used to back this campaign are definitely groundless and based on false assumptions.
One of the most frequent accusations is that the Venezuelan government has turned off one of the few private Venezuelan TV stations, thus silencing one of the few independent sources of information. This is supposedly because this TV station "was an obstacle to Chavez' populist project". These are utter falsifications and we can easily prove this:
"Hugo Chavez shut down RCTV"
Hugo Chavez has not shut down RCTV. RCTV was allowed to broadcast its programmes through TV frequencies, which are a public good, and which are periodically assigned by the government to one TV station or another. When the licence expires on May 28, the licence will not be renewed to RCTV. Venezuelan law (and it must be noted - the law of any other country) does not say that the government should assign TV frequencies to the same companies all the time, but allows it to choose. We are going to deal in a moment with the reasons why the Bolivarian government decided to deny the renewal of the licence.
"RCTV is one of the few Venezuelan private TV stations"
According to an official June 2006 report from the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications and Information, the vast majority of Venezuelan mass media (TV and Radio channels, newspapers) are today in the hands of private owners. In particular, as far as the television sector is concerned, 90% of the market is in the hands of 4 private TV companies: RCTV, Globovision, Televen and Venevision. The owner of RCTV, Marcel Granier, owns another 40 TV stations throughout Venezuela (most of them of course are local TV channels). To be accurate 79 out of a total of 81 TV channels (or 97%) are private; 706 out of 709 Radio channels (or 99%) and all 118 newspapers are in private hands.
"RCTV was an obstacle for Chavez' populist project"
It is not the purpose of this article to deal with definitions of Hugo Chavez' project. Nevertheless, it is worth noticing that the media owned by our local entrepreneurs, tend to label as "populist" each and every political project that does not base itself on the support or acceptance of the exploitation of labour.
It might be better to spell out what is meant when it is said that RCTV was an obstacle for the policies of the Bolivarian government. The plain truth is that RCTV had been directly and openly involved in the April 11, 2002 coup that attempted to oust the democratically elected president Hugo Chavez. The participation of RCTV in the coup plot was so blatant that the Production Manager f RCTVat the time o, Andres Izarra, who opposed the coup, resigned hastily in order not to be a party to a crime. In an official testimony to the Venezuelan National Assembly, Izarra reported that he was instructed formally by Granier the same day of the coup and during the following days not to broadcast any information on Chavez, his personnel, the ministers or whoever could be related to him.
This is exactly what happened. RCTV only reported that President Chavez had resigned from office (which was a blatant lie - as he had been kidnapped by the coup plotters...). And when two days later millions of Venezuelans took the streets demanding that the legitimate president they elected should come back, RCTV broadcasted just cartoons!
An inspiring account of those days is the documentary made out of the footage shot by an Irish troupe that was "trapped" in the Miraflores presidential palace during the coup. The documentary carries a significant title: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
"Shutting down RCTV means silencing one of the few sources of information which do not depend directly on the state"
As we already explained, this is not the case - at all! The majority of the media in Venezuela side openly with the Opposition to Chavez' government. It's a curious paradox that in a country where the Government is supported by nearly two thirds of the population (according to the December 2006 presidential elections), the vast majority of the media are actively campaigning against it.
In 2002 even Human Rights Watch, which otherwise supports the mainstream campaign against the Venezuelan Government, had to admit that "Far from providing fair and accurate reporting, the media by and large seek to provoke popular discontent and outrage in support of the hard-line opposition" (Venezuela's Political Crisis," Human Rights News, Human Rights Watch, October 9, 2002).
In spite of this, the Venezuelan government has been so tolerant on opposition media that no TV stations, radios or newspapers have been closed, and just now, after five years, the government decided not to renew the frequency licence to RCTV. We ask, which other "democratic" country could accept that a TV channel openly supporting a coup plot would go on broadcasting after the failure of such an attempt? Which other country would accept that the owner of such a TV channel should not face trial for having supported a coup?
In Italy, for example, we had the Prime Minister of a so-called democratic country, Berlusconi, banning through a "diktat" from the TV screens of both the state and private TVs two popular journalists (Biagi and Santoro) and a satirical actor (Luttazzi), just because they were criticising his government!
Simon Bolivar said that a people could never be free if freedom of speech is not granted. That is definitely true. But we should ask ourselves whether this freedom of speech is really granted by a system where the mass media are in the hands of a clique of a few wealthy people and serve the interests of those few against the interests of the majority of the people.
Manifiesto de entidades y movimientos brasileños: Solidaridad con Chávez y el pueblo venezolano
Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales
---------------------------------------------
Manifiesto de entidades y movimientos brasileños:
Solidaridad con Chávez y el pueblo venezolano
Al pueblo de Venezuela
Al pueblo brasileño
El Senado chileno aprobó recientemente una resolución, pidiendo que la Organización de Estados Americanos – OEA, interviniese en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, para impedir la no renovación de la concesión de funcionamiento de la RCTV. El presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, respondió, denunciando al Senado chileno como una institución pinochetista. La razón estriba en que, el Senado de Chile, todavía esta compuesto por senadores biónicos (no elegidos), prefijados por los moldes de la Constitución chilena, impuesta por el general-presidente Augusto Pinochet, durante el estado de sitio. El gobierno chileno y la empresa privada chilena – monocordemente de derecha – acusaron al presidente Hugo Chávez de inmiscuirse en los asuntos internos de Chile.
En los últimos nueve años, desde 1998, el pueblo venezolano participó en ocho elecciones y/o plebiscitos, en los cuales se garantizaron siempre victorias abrumadoras al presidente Chávez.
Ahora, la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado brasilero decidió repetir la dosis de sus colegas chilenos, al aprobar la moción presentada por el senador del PSDB Eduardo Azeredo y apoyada por el ex-presidente José Sarney que implica la intervención en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, al criticar de modo grosero y arrogante la decisión del Gobierno de Chávez de no renovar la concesión de RCTV, canal privado que, en 2002, abierta y comprobadamente incitó, promovió y participó, al lado de la élite local y de la CIA, en el golpe contra el gobierno electo y reelecto por el pueblo venezolano.
Haciéndose porta-voz de su colega Eduardo Azeredo, el senador José Sarney trata, así, de erigirse en el gran acusador del Gobierno de Caracas. Luego, el senador José Sarney, que fue presidente biónico (electo no por el voto del pueblo, sino por un Colegio Electoral organizado por la dictadura), y que tuvo durante los cinco años de su mandato, a su colega del senado – Antônio Carlos Magalhães (que no necesita presentaciones), como su Ministro de Comunicaciones. Un ministro que distribuyó por todo el país concesiones de canales de radio y televisión para conseguir que el entonces presidente José Sarney, nominado por el colegio electoral para presidir el país por cuatro años, tuviese un año mas de mandato en la Presidencia. Un ex-presidente que, además de estar envuelto, en su estado de origen – o Maranhão, en graves denuncias de corrupción, mantiene allí el control absoluto de todos los medios de comunicación: una red de televisión ligada a Globo y de su propiedad y la otra, que concedió a su amigo, el senador Lobão. Y, a pesar de todo su poder en Maranhão, el señor José Sarney es senador por Amapá, estado donde jamás residió, donde jamás vivió.
Con esas credenciales, ¿qué moral tiene el senador José Sarney para acusar al Gobierno del presidente Chávez?
¿Que moral tienen esos señores para hablar de democracia y de pluralismo en los medios de comunicación?
¿Que moral tienen los señores Eduardo Azeredo, José Sarney y los demás senadores de la derecha brasileña que, en 2002, no se pronunciaron o manifestaron indignación ante el golpe patrocinado por la CIA y por RCTV contra el gobierno legítimamente electo de Hugo Chávez, para venir ahora a inmiscuirse en los asuntos internos da Venezuela?
¿Es que acaso esos señores se pronunciaron sobre el proceso fraudulento que eligió a George Bush presidente de los EUA?
¿Demostraron alguna preocupación con el comportamiento vergonzoso de la gran media mercantil de los EUA y del Gobierno Bush, escondiendo del pueblo estadounidense, la verdad sobre las razones de la invasión de Iraq y sobre las masacres allí practicadas?
¿Por casualidad esos señores manifestaron cualquier tipo de preocupación frente a las graves violaciones de los derechos humanos practicadas por el Gobierno de Bush en la base de Guantánamo?
Sin embargo esos señores, que forman la actual Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado y que trata se inmiscuirse en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, ¡son los mismos senadores que aprobaron el envío de tropas brasileñas para intervenir en Haití, sin que hubiese petición alguna en este sentido de alguna institución del pueblo haitiano!
Frente a la grosería, la arrogancia y la tentativa de interferir de los senadores brasileños en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, el presidente Chávez reaccionó duramente, como ya hiciera antes en relación al Senado de Chile. Ejercía así, más que un derecho, un deber de respuesta del jefe de Gobierno de un Estado soberano.
Mientras tanto, la gran media privada del Brasil, conjuntamente con toda la derecha de nuestro país, desencadenó una bien orquestada ofensiva, con la cual, escondían el real temor y el sentido de la moción de los señores senadores, tratando de invertir los papeles y crear intrigas entre los pueblos y gobiernos venezolano y brasileño: de acuerdo con esa media hubiera sido Chávez (por responder a la agresión de los senadores) quien estaría inmiscuyéndose en las cuestiones internas de Brasil. También aquí copiaban a los pinochetistas chilenos.
El Presidente Lula, en su primer paso, afirmó correctamente, que el Presidente Hugo Chávez debía ocuparse de los asuntos de Venezuela, y él, Lula, de los asuntos de Brasil. Faltó sin embargo claridad a nuestro presidente, sólo un paso – que insistimos en esperar: decir, con todas sus letras, a los senadores de la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado brasileño, que se ocupen, primero, de los asuntos del Brasil, y que eviten crear incidentes diplomáticos artificiales con naciones tradicionalmente amigas.
Es más: si el Senado brasileño está preocupado con la democratización de los medios de comunicación, tienen en Brasil un excelente campo donde ejercer su preocupación: deberían constituir una comisión que investigue ese tema entre nosotros, el oligopolio privado de los medios de comunicación, sus vínculos con los organismos internacionales que definen sus pautas, sus financiamientos, su situación financiera en relación con los financiamientos publicitarios – especialmente con los estatales, con el pago de los impuestos – incluidos los de la seguridad social (de cuyo “déficit” acostumbran reclamar tanto a pesar de las astronómicas deudas que mantiene ese sector).
En suma, los senadores y el Gobierno brasileño deberían respetar el derecho de los venezolanos a decidir libre y democráticamente sobre su destino. Y preocuparse de los golpistas que actúan allá y que tienen sus socios y defensores también por aquí.
Nosotros, los abajo firmantes, no reconocemos legitimidad popular en la actitud de esos senadores, ni en la campaña abierta por los medios de comunicación, oligopolios privados de la media brasileña, cuyos intereses se sienten afectados porque sus congéneres golpistas venezolanos perdieron espacio en favor de los medios públicos y democráticos de comunicación.
Así, enviamos nuestra solidaridad y apoyo al gobierno y al pueblo venezolanos, felicitándolos por el valor en la lucha por la democratización de los medios de comunicación, sin los cuales nunca tendremos verdaderas democracias populares en América Latina.
Brasil, 4 de junio de 2007.
Firman 30 organizaciones sociales y 131 personalidades.
Vea el texto completo en: http://movimientos.org/show_text.php3?key=10082
---------------------------------------------
Manifiesto de entidades y movimientos brasileños:
Solidaridad con Chávez y el pueblo venezolano
Al pueblo de Venezuela
Al pueblo brasileño
El Senado chileno aprobó recientemente una resolución, pidiendo que la Organización de Estados Americanos – OEA, interviniese en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, para impedir la no renovación de la concesión de funcionamiento de la RCTV. El presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, respondió, denunciando al Senado chileno como una institución pinochetista. La razón estriba en que, el Senado de Chile, todavía esta compuesto por senadores biónicos (no elegidos), prefijados por los moldes de la Constitución chilena, impuesta por el general-presidente Augusto Pinochet, durante el estado de sitio. El gobierno chileno y la empresa privada chilena – monocordemente de derecha – acusaron al presidente Hugo Chávez de inmiscuirse en los asuntos internos de Chile.
En los últimos nueve años, desde 1998, el pueblo venezolano participó en ocho elecciones y/o plebiscitos, en los cuales se garantizaron siempre victorias abrumadoras al presidente Chávez.
Ahora, la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado brasilero decidió repetir la dosis de sus colegas chilenos, al aprobar la moción presentada por el senador del PSDB Eduardo Azeredo y apoyada por el ex-presidente José Sarney que implica la intervención en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, al criticar de modo grosero y arrogante la decisión del Gobierno de Chávez de no renovar la concesión de RCTV, canal privado que, en 2002, abierta y comprobadamente incitó, promovió y participó, al lado de la élite local y de la CIA, en el golpe contra el gobierno electo y reelecto por el pueblo venezolano.
Haciéndose porta-voz de su colega Eduardo Azeredo, el senador José Sarney trata, así, de erigirse en el gran acusador del Gobierno de Caracas. Luego, el senador José Sarney, que fue presidente biónico (electo no por el voto del pueblo, sino por un Colegio Electoral organizado por la dictadura), y que tuvo durante los cinco años de su mandato, a su colega del senado – Antônio Carlos Magalhães (que no necesita presentaciones), como su Ministro de Comunicaciones. Un ministro que distribuyó por todo el país concesiones de canales de radio y televisión para conseguir que el entonces presidente José Sarney, nominado por el colegio electoral para presidir el país por cuatro años, tuviese un año mas de mandato en la Presidencia. Un ex-presidente que, además de estar envuelto, en su estado de origen – o Maranhão, en graves denuncias de corrupción, mantiene allí el control absoluto de todos los medios de comunicación: una red de televisión ligada a Globo y de su propiedad y la otra, que concedió a su amigo, el senador Lobão. Y, a pesar de todo su poder en Maranhão, el señor José Sarney es senador por Amapá, estado donde jamás residió, donde jamás vivió.
Con esas credenciales, ¿qué moral tiene el senador José Sarney para acusar al Gobierno del presidente Chávez?
¿Que moral tienen esos señores para hablar de democracia y de pluralismo en los medios de comunicación?
¿Que moral tienen los señores Eduardo Azeredo, José Sarney y los demás senadores de la derecha brasileña que, en 2002, no se pronunciaron o manifestaron indignación ante el golpe patrocinado por la CIA y por RCTV contra el gobierno legítimamente electo de Hugo Chávez, para venir ahora a inmiscuirse en los asuntos internos da Venezuela?
¿Es que acaso esos señores se pronunciaron sobre el proceso fraudulento que eligió a George Bush presidente de los EUA?
¿Demostraron alguna preocupación con el comportamiento vergonzoso de la gran media mercantil de los EUA y del Gobierno Bush, escondiendo del pueblo estadounidense, la verdad sobre las razones de la invasión de Iraq y sobre las masacres allí practicadas?
¿Por casualidad esos señores manifestaron cualquier tipo de preocupación frente a las graves violaciones de los derechos humanos practicadas por el Gobierno de Bush en la base de Guantánamo?
Sin embargo esos señores, que forman la actual Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado y que trata se inmiscuirse en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, ¡son los mismos senadores que aprobaron el envío de tropas brasileñas para intervenir en Haití, sin que hubiese petición alguna en este sentido de alguna institución del pueblo haitiano!
Frente a la grosería, la arrogancia y la tentativa de interferir de los senadores brasileños en los asuntos internos de Venezuela, el presidente Chávez reaccionó duramente, como ya hiciera antes en relación al Senado de Chile. Ejercía así, más que un derecho, un deber de respuesta del jefe de Gobierno de un Estado soberano.
Mientras tanto, la gran media privada del Brasil, conjuntamente con toda la derecha de nuestro país, desencadenó una bien orquestada ofensiva, con la cual, escondían el real temor y el sentido de la moción de los señores senadores, tratando de invertir los papeles y crear intrigas entre los pueblos y gobiernos venezolano y brasileño: de acuerdo con esa media hubiera sido Chávez (por responder a la agresión de los senadores) quien estaría inmiscuyéndose en las cuestiones internas de Brasil. También aquí copiaban a los pinochetistas chilenos.
El Presidente Lula, en su primer paso, afirmó correctamente, que el Presidente Hugo Chávez debía ocuparse de los asuntos de Venezuela, y él, Lula, de los asuntos de Brasil. Faltó sin embargo claridad a nuestro presidente, sólo un paso – que insistimos en esperar: decir, con todas sus letras, a los senadores de la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado brasileño, que se ocupen, primero, de los asuntos del Brasil, y que eviten crear incidentes diplomáticos artificiales con naciones tradicionalmente amigas.
Es más: si el Senado brasileño está preocupado con la democratización de los medios de comunicación, tienen en Brasil un excelente campo donde ejercer su preocupación: deberían constituir una comisión que investigue ese tema entre nosotros, el oligopolio privado de los medios de comunicación, sus vínculos con los organismos internacionales que definen sus pautas, sus financiamientos, su situación financiera en relación con los financiamientos publicitarios – especialmente con los estatales, con el pago de los impuestos – incluidos los de la seguridad social (de cuyo “déficit” acostumbran reclamar tanto a pesar de las astronómicas deudas que mantiene ese sector).
En suma, los senadores y el Gobierno brasileño deberían respetar el derecho de los venezolanos a decidir libre y democráticamente sobre su destino. Y preocuparse de los golpistas que actúan allá y que tienen sus socios y defensores también por aquí.
Nosotros, los abajo firmantes, no reconocemos legitimidad popular en la actitud de esos senadores, ni en la campaña abierta por los medios de comunicación, oligopolios privados de la media brasileña, cuyos intereses se sienten afectados porque sus congéneres golpistas venezolanos perdieron espacio en favor de los medios públicos y democráticos de comunicación.
Así, enviamos nuestra solidaridad y apoyo al gobierno y al pueblo venezolanos, felicitándolos por el valor en la lucha por la democratización de los medios de comunicación, sin los cuales nunca tendremos verdaderas democracias populares en América Latina.
Brasil, 4 de junio de 2007.
Firman 30 organizaciones sociales y 131 personalidades.
Vea el texto completo en: http://movimientos.org/show_text.php3?key=10082
EEUU: Arrestado periodista por hacer pregunta incómoda sobre el 11 S a personal de candidato Rudolph Giuliani
Mientras tanto EEUU critica medidas de Venezuela contra TV golpista RCTV
Mientras EEUU critica a Venzuela por el caso de la televisora golpista RCTV, en EEUU, periodistas son arrestados en pleno ejercicio de sus funciones si hacen preguntas incómodas a políticos poderosos.
6 de junio de 2007.- En clara violación de la libertad de expresión, el reportero estadounidense Matt Lepacek fue arrestado por la policía de Manchester, New Hamshire, luego de preguntarle de manera insistente a miembros del entorno político del candidato a la presidencia por el partido republicano, Rudolph Giuliani, en relación a su supuesto conocimiento previo del colapso de las torres gemelas y el edificio 7 en Nueva York, luego del impacto de los dos aviones durante los hechos del 11 de septiembre de 2002.
Los periodistas preguntaron igualmente en relación al supuesto desconocimiento del candidato Giuliani del reporte de la comisión especial para estudiar los hechos.
El derechista Giuliani se posiciona como el candidato con más experiencia en llamada "lucha contra el terrorismo," debido a que para el momento de los hechos del 11S, era alcalde de la ciudad de Nueva York.
El arresto tuvo lugar durante el debate entre los pre-candidatos republicanos a la presidencia de EE.UU. La información fue dada a conocer por Aaron Dykes y Alex Jones del sitio web alternativo Jonesreport.com, medio de izquierda creado en oposición al derechista Drudgereport.com.
Según otro periodista, Jason Bermas, de Infowars.com, el reportero arrestado poseía una credencial oficial de CNN para estar presente en el debate. A pesar de esto, unos vigilantes le confiscaron su cámara, de acuerdo a Luke Rudkowski, otro reportero de Infowars.com quien estaba allí presente. Personal de CNN presente, trató de evitar el arresto. El arresto se produjo a petición del secretario de prensa del candidato.
De acuerdo a Bermas, la policía atacó físicamente a ambos periodistas después de que Rudkowski les reafirmara que ellos eran miembros acreditados de la prensa y que no había sucedido nada ilegal.
Una de las cámaras de Infowars resultó dañada en el forcejeo con la policía.
Según afirmó Lepacek telefónicamente desde la cárcel, se le acusaría de "espionaje" por portar una cámara web (webcam) en el recinto, la cual fue usada para transmitir en vivo por internet.
El reportero alternativo Samuel Ettaro del sitio web Freedom to Fascism, fue también removido del recinto por personal de seguridad.
El incidente en ningún momento interrumpió los debates, ya que éstos se realizaban en un recinto adyacente.
Preguntas dolorosas
Según estudiosos de teorías alternativas a la versión oficial de los hechos del 11S, las torres gemelas y el edificio 7 (WTC 7) colapsaron producto de una demolición controlada, no como consecuencia del impacto de los aviones. Según reportes, altos oficiales de la ciudad ordenaron dejar de intentar apagar los incendios en el edificio 7 y evacuar el área adyacente de manera anticipada. Esto, aunado al hecho de que los tres edificios colapsaron en si mismos de manera perfecta, ha hecho a muchos pensar que el edificio fue demolido con explosivos de manera controlada. En el edificio 7 estaban localizadas varias oficinas de la Agencia Nacional de Seguridad (NSA), cuerpo secreto mucho más poderoso que la CIA.
Las teorías alternativas a la versión oficial fueron dadas a conocer en Venezuela por el periodista Carlos Sicilia.
No es la primera vez que periodistas con preguntas incómodas son arrestados en los EE.UU. Alex Jones fue arrestado en un evento del entonces gobernador de Texas, George W. Bush, luego de preguntarle al gobernador si él pensaba eliminar la reserva federal estadounidense. Tal como puede apreciarse en el siguiente video.
Los hechos se producen en momentos en que el gobierno de EE.UU. lidera una campaña internacional en contra del gobierno venezolano en relación a la no-renovación de la concesión para transmitir en señal abierta a la televisora RCTV, la cual participó de manera activa en el golpe de estado de 2002 en contra del gobierno democráticamente electo del Presidente Hugo Chávez.
Vea también:
Carlos Sicilia: El 11-S las torres gemelas cayeron por efecto de explosivos
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/StevenJonesMs_Espa.html
Mientras EEUU critica a Venzuela por el caso de la televisora golpista RCTV, en EEUU, periodistas son arrestados en pleno ejercicio de sus funciones si hacen preguntas incómodas a políticos poderosos.
6 de junio de 2007.- En clara violación de la libertad de expresión, el reportero estadounidense Matt Lepacek fue arrestado por la policía de Manchester, New Hamshire, luego de preguntarle de manera insistente a miembros del entorno político del candidato a la presidencia por el partido republicano, Rudolph Giuliani, en relación a su supuesto conocimiento previo del colapso de las torres gemelas y el edificio 7 en Nueva York, luego del impacto de los dos aviones durante los hechos del 11 de septiembre de 2002.
Los periodistas preguntaron igualmente en relación al supuesto desconocimiento del candidato Giuliani del reporte de la comisión especial para estudiar los hechos.
El derechista Giuliani se posiciona como el candidato con más experiencia en llamada "lucha contra el terrorismo," debido a que para el momento de los hechos del 11S, era alcalde de la ciudad de Nueva York.
El arresto tuvo lugar durante el debate entre los pre-candidatos republicanos a la presidencia de EE.UU. La información fue dada a conocer por Aaron Dykes y Alex Jones del sitio web alternativo Jonesreport.com, medio de izquierda creado en oposición al derechista Drudgereport.com.
Según otro periodista, Jason Bermas, de Infowars.com, el reportero arrestado poseía una credencial oficial de CNN para estar presente en el debate. A pesar de esto, unos vigilantes le confiscaron su cámara, de acuerdo a Luke Rudkowski, otro reportero de Infowars.com quien estaba allí presente. Personal de CNN presente, trató de evitar el arresto. El arresto se produjo a petición del secretario de prensa del candidato.
De acuerdo a Bermas, la policía atacó físicamente a ambos periodistas después de que Rudkowski les reafirmara que ellos eran miembros acreditados de la prensa y que no había sucedido nada ilegal.
Una de las cámaras de Infowars resultó dañada en el forcejeo con la policía.
Según afirmó Lepacek telefónicamente desde la cárcel, se le acusaría de "espionaje" por portar una cámara web (webcam) en el recinto, la cual fue usada para transmitir en vivo por internet.
El reportero alternativo Samuel Ettaro del sitio web Freedom to Fascism, fue también removido del recinto por personal de seguridad.
El incidente en ningún momento interrumpió los debates, ya que éstos se realizaban en un recinto adyacente.
Preguntas dolorosas
Según estudiosos de teorías alternativas a la versión oficial de los hechos del 11S, las torres gemelas y el edificio 7 (WTC 7) colapsaron producto de una demolición controlada, no como consecuencia del impacto de los aviones. Según reportes, altos oficiales de la ciudad ordenaron dejar de intentar apagar los incendios en el edificio 7 y evacuar el área adyacente de manera anticipada. Esto, aunado al hecho de que los tres edificios colapsaron en si mismos de manera perfecta, ha hecho a muchos pensar que el edificio fue demolido con explosivos de manera controlada. En el edificio 7 estaban localizadas varias oficinas de la Agencia Nacional de Seguridad (NSA), cuerpo secreto mucho más poderoso que la CIA.
Las teorías alternativas a la versión oficial fueron dadas a conocer en Venezuela por el periodista Carlos Sicilia.
No es la primera vez que periodistas con preguntas incómodas son arrestados en los EE.UU. Alex Jones fue arrestado en un evento del entonces gobernador de Texas, George W. Bush, luego de preguntarle al gobernador si él pensaba eliminar la reserva federal estadounidense. Tal como puede apreciarse en el siguiente video.
Los hechos se producen en momentos en que el gobierno de EE.UU. lidera una campaña internacional en contra del gobierno venezolano en relación a la no-renovación de la concesión para transmitir en señal abierta a la televisora RCTV, la cual participó de manera activa en el golpe de estado de 2002 en contra del gobierno democráticamente electo del Presidente Hugo Chávez.
Vea también:
Carlos Sicilia: El 11-S las torres gemelas cayeron por efecto de explosivos
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/StevenJonesMs_Espa.html
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