Chavez about to switch off mouthy TV channel
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| Published on Friday, May 25, 2007 |
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By Rafael Noboa
CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP): On Sunday, President Hugo Chavez is set to make good his threat to shut down private Radio Caracas Television, the country's oldest, very popular and defiant TV station he says is conspiring against him.
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Youngsters write slogans on the grafitti-covered of Venezuelan Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) building in Caracas.
AFP PHOTO |
In late 2006 Chavez said he would not renew RCTV's broadcasting license, thus silencing a major voice of the political opposition.
Chavez took the decision despite widespread discontent among viewers, who will miss the channel's cherished soap operas and variety shows. Recent polls show that 70 to 80 percent of the population, many of those who voted for Chavez since 1998, oppose the move.
The decision is also frowned upon across the world: Human Rights Watch, for example, has termed RCTV's imminent shutdown "a serious blow to freedom of expression in Venezuela."
The decision to switch off RCTV after 54 years on the air was taken right after Chavez won his last election. During the campaign, RCTV openly called for Chavez' defeat and gave voice to the opposition, incurring presidential wrath.
Chavez also has never forgiven RCTV for its support of an April 2002 coup that deposed him for two short days.
RCTV owner and director general Marcelo Granier on Wednesday published a letter in several newspapers saying the shutdown would mark Venezuela's passage "from a centralized authoritarian regime to a totalitarian regime."
"Allow other opinions to be voiced in Venezuela," he wrote.
"Are you a leader of the new Latin American left or are you a totalitarian populist? Are you strong because your convictions are strong or are you weak and need to silence all who disagree with you?" he asked Chavez.
"Who is in charge, Mr President, you or your aides who see a business opportunity in canceling contracts?" Granier asked.
The government has decided to replace RCTV with a new government-backed, public-service channel called Tves. With it, the Chavez administration will control two of the four channels with national reach in Venezuela.
Thousands of protesters and soap opera stars on Saturday and hundreds of journalists on Monday marched through Caracas in support of the private channel, accusing Chavez of stifling freedom of expression.
The European Parliament has taken up the RCTV issue and the Washington-based Organization of American States has also voiced its concern over the loss of rights the shutdown implies for all Venezuelans.
To the clamour, Chavez has responded: "The international media, this media dictatorship, have turned a simple act of sovereignty into an international battle."
Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon said withholding the broadcast license was the only way the government could sanction RCTV's "putschist" stance.
He also called on Latin American governments to question "the media's role in a democracy. Are they a counterweight to the state or do they represent the very essence of power?"
With RCTV off the air, a single opposition television station will be left. But Globovision only broadcasts in Caracas and Valencia, the country's third-largest city.
The once-upon-a-time opposition mouthpiece Venevision, of media magnate Gustavo Cisneros, has adopted a more neutral stance since 2005.
We are witnessing "the assassination of a very important voice of the opposition and the strengthening of the master's voice," said university professor and media specialist Antonio Pasquali, referring to RCTV and Chavez.
Aside from depriving viewers of their favorite shows, RCTV's demise will also close off a key source of cultural export for Venezuela.
In the 1980s and 1990s RCTV's "Kassandra" and other "cultural soap-operas" tackling issues from divorce to middle-age crises were widely viewed throughout the world. |
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