[News] Letter from Venezuela's Communications Minister to the Washington Post
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Mar 28 12:52:19 EDT 2008
Letter from Venezuela's Communications Minister to the Washington Post
March 26th 2008, by Andrés Izarra
Jackson Diehl
Deputy Editor, Editorial Page
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20071
March 25, 2008
Dear Mr. Diehl,
Over the past several years, we have informed you
of our concerns regarding the hostile, distorted
and inaccurate coverage of Venezuela in your
newspaper, and particularly on the Editorial
Page. Previously, we communicated our alarm at
the unbalanced reporting and writing on Venezuela
during the period 2000-2006, which evidenced
one-sided analyses and false claims regarding
President Chávez's tendencies and events within
the country. Since then, however, the Post
coverage has gotten worse. More editorials and
OpEds have been written this past year about
Venezuela than ever before, 98% of which are
negative, critical, and aggressive and contain
false or manipulated information. We are
therefore led to believe that the Washington Post
is promoting an anti-Venezuela, anti-Chávez agenda.
President Chávez has been referred to in
Washington Post editorials and OpEds during the
past year as a "strongman", "crude populist",
"autocrat", "clownish", "increasingly erratic",
"despot" and "dictator" on 8 separate occasions
and his government has been referred to 7 times
as a "dictatorship", a "repressive regime" or a
form of "authoritarianism". Such claims are not
only false, but they are also extremely
dangerous. The U.S. government has used such
classifications to justify wars, military
interventions, coup d'etats and other regime
change techniques over the past several decades.
Far from a dictatorship, President Chávez's
government has the highest popularity rating in
the Venezuela's contemporary history and Chávez
has won three presidential elections with
landslide victories and several other important
elections, including a recall referendum against
his mandate in August 2004, which he won with a
clear 60-40 majority. Hugo Chávez is the first
president in Venezuela's history to include the
country's majority poor population in key
decision and policy-making. The creation of
community councils that govern locally and the
increase in voter participation are clear signs
of a vibrant, open democracy, demonstrating that
Venezuela is far from a dictatorship.
The Editorial Page inaccuracies and distortions
extend beyond the mere labeling of President
Chávez. On more than 11 occasions, editorials and
OpEds have falsely claimed that President Chávez
"controls the courts and the television media".
Venezuela has five branches of government - all
of which are autonomous from one other by
Constitutional mandate: the Executive, the
Legislative, the Judiciary, the Electoral and the
People's Power. Unlike the United States, which
allows for the Executive to appoint supreme court
justices, in Venezuela, the high court
magistrates are determined through a selection
process and a vote in the National Assembly. The
Executive branch in Venezuela plays no role in
the assignment of judges to the courts.
Communications media in Venezuela continues to be
majority controlled by the private sector,
despite what the Post Editorial Page claims.
Post editorials and OpEds also erroneously
referred to the constitutional reform package
last December on more than 8 occasions as
enabling President Chávez to "rule indefinitely"
or become a "de facto president-for-life". The
Constitutional reform did seek to abolish term
limits, but not elections. Venezuelans would
still have the right and duty to nominate
candidates and vote for them in transparent
electoral processes. Interestingly, the Post made
no similar accusations against President Alvaro
Uribe of Colombia when he twice made moves to
change constitutional law to permit reelection to
a second term. Uribe succeded in 2004 and is now
again seeking to amend that law so he can run for
a third term. Where are the Post's cries about
dictatorship and de facto president-for-life in Colombia?
The Post has also severely manipulated and
outrighted censored information about economic
growth in Venezuela. Twice, recent publications
on the editorial page described the Venezuelan
government economic measures as "disastrous,
crackpot economic policies". Under Chávez's
economic policies, extreme poverty has diminished
to an all-time low of 9.4% (2007) from a high of
42.5% in 1996. Unemployment has been reduced to
6.9% (2007) from 16.6% in 1998. Minimum wage has
been raised substantially during the Chávez
government to become one of the highest in the
developing world, and there has been a
significant reduction in Venezuela's public debt.
Chávez also paid off Venezuela's loans to the
World Bank and International Monetary Fund and
has increased investment in the nation's agricultural production industry.
Nevertheless, the Post fails to reflect any of
these positive, progressive advances in its
coverage and statements on Venezuela. Instead,
Post editorials are dedicated to accusing
President Chávez of engaging in an "arms race" (4
occasions), "violating human rights" (3 times),
"facilitating/endorsing drug-trafficking" (6
times) and "promoting an anti-American agenda" (6
times). Worst of all, despite Chávez's own
statements to the contrary, the Post continues to
perpetuate the dangerous myth that Chávez is an
"anti-semite" "aligned with terrorist nations or groups" (9 times).
Mr. Diehl, you should certainly know that the
United States is currently waging an
international war against terrorism. Within that
framework, the Bush administration has clearly
stated that those nations associated with or
friendly to terrorist states or groups can be
subject to preemptive invasion or intervention.
Are you seeking such an end in Venezuela?
Your editorial on February 15, 2008, "Mr.
Chávez's Bluff", goes one step too far. The piece
is an outright call for a boycott of Venezuelan
oil, an act that would irreparably harm both the
peoples of Venezuela and the United States. As
the Post applauds the mafia tactics of one of the
world's wealthiest corporations, ExxonMobil, it's
evident that its allegiance lies with corporate profits over people's rights.
And your latest editorial on March 5, 2008,
"Allies of Terrorism" is well beyond a mere
criticism of President Chávez's policies; it's a
direct threat to the people of Venezuela. By
accepting at face value - with absolutely no
investigation or verification - the documents
alleged to have been found on a computer
belonging to Rául Reyes from the FARC, the Post
recklessly condemns both Venezuela and Ecuador as
nations that promote and harbor terrorism and
justifies the most violating, reviled and
dangerous Bush doctrine of modern times:
Preventive War. By comparing Colombia's violation
of Ecuador's sovereignty to a US attack against
al-Qaeda, the Post shamelessly validates the most
irrational war in history and calls for its
expansion into Latin America. We find the Post's
defense of the violation of Ecuador's sovereignty
and its satisfaction with such aggressive - and
illegal - tactics, together with the warning that
Venezuela is in "danger", extremely disturbing.
We are outraged with the Washington Post's
editorial coverage of Venezuela. The Post was
once the bastion of genuine investigative
reporting and truth-seeking. Those days are well
gone and the Washington Post has now become
nothing more than a tabloid serving special
interests. The noble principles Eugene Meyer
envisioned for the Washington Post in 1935,
including "telling the truth as nearly as the
truth can be ascertained", "telling ALL the truth
so far as it can be learned, concerning the
important affairs of America and the world and
"the newspaper shall not be the ally of any
special interest, but shall be fair and free and
wholesome in its outlook on public affairs and
public persons," have been violated by editors
like you, Mr. Diehl, who have chosen to promote a
harmful personal agenda instead of ensure the
ongoing greatness of your newspaper.
Sincerely,
Andrés Izarra
Journalist
Minister of Communication and Information
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Source URL: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/
Printed: March 28th 2008
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