www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: Naomi Klein features@vheadline.com

The Nation columnist Naomi Klein writes: LOOKOUT Venezuela's Media Coup www.thenation.com Posted February 13, 2003

Poor Endy Chávez, outfielder for the Navegantes del Magallanes, one of Venezuela's big baseball teams. Every time he comes up to bat, the local TV sportscasters start in with the jokes. "Here comes Chávez. No, not the pro-Cuban dictator Chávez, the other Chávez." Or "This Chávez hits baseballs, not the Venezuelan people."

In Venezuela, even color commentators are enlisted in the commercial media's open bid to oust the democratically elected government of Hugo Chávez. Andrés Izarra, a Venezuelan television journalist, says that the campaign has done so much violence to truthful information on the national airwaves that the four private TV stations have effectively forfeited their right to broadcast. "I think their licenses should be revoked," he says.

It's the sort of extreme pronouncement one has come to expect from Chávez, known for nicknaming the stations "the four horsemen of the apocalypse." Izarra, however, is harder to dismiss. A squeaky clean made-for-TV type, he worked as assignment editor in charge of Latin America at CNN en Español until he was hired as news production manager for Venezuela's highest-rated newscast, El Observador on RCTV.

On April 13, 2002, the day after business leader Pedro Carmona briefly seized power, Izarra quit that job under what he describes as "extreme emotional stress." Ever since, he has been sounding the alarm about the threat posed to democracy when the media decide to abandon journalism and pour all their persuasive powers into winning a war being waged over oil.

Venezuela's private television stations are owned by wealthy families with serious financial stakes in defeating Chávez. Venevisión, the most-watched network, is owned by Gustavo Cisneros, a mogul dubbed "the joint venture king" by the New York Post. The Cisneros Group has partnered with many top US brands--from AOL and Coca-Cola to Pizza Hut and Playboy--becoming a gatekeeper to the Latin American market.

Cisneros is also a tireless proselytizer for continental free trade, telling the world, as he did in a 1999 profile in LatinCEO magazine, that "Latin America is now fully committed to free trade, and fully committed to globalization.... As a continent it has made a choice." But with Latin American voters choosing politicians like Chávez, that has been looking like false advertising, selling a consensus that doesn't exist.

All this helps explain why, in the days leading up to the April coup, Venevisión, RCTV, Globovisión and Televen replaced regular programming with relentless anti-Chávez speeches, interrupted only for commercials calling on viewers to take to the streets: "Not one step backward. Out! Leave now!" The ads were sponsored by the oil industry, but the stations carried them free, as "public service announcements."

They went further: On the night of the coup, Cisneros's station played host to meetings among the plotters, including Carmona. The president of Venezuela's broadcasting chamber co-signed the decree dissolving the elected National Assembly. And while the stations openly rejoiced at news of Chávez's "resignation," when pro-Chávez forces mobilized for his return a total news blackout was imposed.

Izarra says he received clear instructions: "No information on Chávez, his followers, his ministers, and all others that could in any way be related to him." He watched with horror as his bosses actively suppressed breaking news. Izarra says that on the day of the coup, RCTV had a report from a US affiliate that Chávez had not resigned but had been kidnapped and jailed. It didn't make the news. Mexico, Argentina and France condemned the coup and refused to recognize the new government. RCTV knew but didn't tell.

When Chávez finally returned to the Miraflores Palace, the stations gave up on covering the news entirely. On one of the most important days in Venezuela's history, they aired Pretty Woman and Tom & Jerry cartoons. "We had a reporter in Miraflores and knew that it had been retaken by the Chávistas," Izarra says. "[but] the information blackout stood. That's when it was enough for me, and I decided to leave."

The situation hasn't improved. During the recently ended strike organized by the oil industry, the television stations broadcast an average of 700 pro-strike advertisements every day, according to government estimates. It's in this context that Chávez has decided to go after the TV stations in earnest, not just with fiery rhetoric but with an investigation into violations of broadcast standards and a new set of regulations. "Don't be surprised if we start shutting down television stations," he said at the end of January.

The threat has sparked a flurry of condemnations from the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders. And there is reason for concern: The media war in Venezuela is bloody, with attacks on both pro- and anti-Chávez media outlets. But attempts to regulate the media aren't an "attack on press freedom," as CPJ has claimed--quite the opposite.

Venezuela's media, including state TV, need tough controls to insure diversity, balance and access, enforced at arm's length from political powers. Some of Chávez's proposals (such as an ominous clause banning speech that shows "disrespect" to government officials) overstep these bounds and could easily be used to muzzle critics. That said, it is absurd to treat Chávez as the principal threat to a free press in Venezuela. That honor clearly goes to the media owners themselves. This fact has been entirely lost on the organizations entrusted to defend press freedom around the world, still stuck in a paradigm in which all journalists just want to tell the truth and all threats come from nasty politicians and angry mobs.

This is unfortunate, because we are in desperate need of courageous defenders of a free press at the moment--and not just in Venezuela. After all, Venezuela isn't the only country where a war is being waged over oil, where media owners have become inseparable from the forces clamoring for "regime change" and where the opposition finds itself routinely erased by the nightly news. But in the United States, unlike in Venezuela, the media and the government are on the same side.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Confederation of Trade Union (CTV) general secretary Manuel Cova has come out in support of Venezuela’s mainstream print & broadcast media and says, “we are ready to negotiate alternatives presented by former US President Jimmy Carter.”

Cova is one of the official opposition negotiators at talks with the government. “The last time negotiators met, we let it be known that we ratify a constitutional amendment as a possible solution but are ready to discuss a recall referendum or an alternative proposal that could arise during negotiations.”

Although Cova did not explain why the opposition would now accept a referendum in August after organizing a national stoppage against the proposal, he did confirm that the opposition is prepared to agree to a unilateral declaration of non-violence, adding that it is up to the government to make a formal reply.

Cova admits differences regarding the role of print & broadcast media … “we agree that they should participate in a campaign to promote tolerance to lower levels of confrontation but I feel that government harassment of the media should be addressed.”

www.charlotte.com Posted on Sun, Feb. 16, 2003 KEVIN G. HALL Knight Ridder

LA PAZ, Bolivia - regime in trouble The Bolivian government Saturday said it would ask the Organization of American States to investigate the presence of snipers in two days of violence that left at least two dozen dead and caused millions of dollars in damage in the poor Andean nation.

Government spokesman Mauricio Antesana said Saturday the OAS would be asked to form a special investigations commission through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. That OAS body, he said, would be seen as neutral and independent and would serve as an honest broker between the government and its opponents.

The OAS has 35 member nations in North and South America, including the United States. This is the latest case of the OAS being drawn into a domestic dispute where local institutions lacked credibility. It has tried to mediate a solution to Venezuela's political and economic stalemate, and was involved in Peru's 2001 transition to democracy.

In Bolivia, the OAS would be asked to address concerns of human-rights groups that said military sharpshooters fired off rooftops at demonstrators and police on Wednesday.

Striking police officers refused to stop demonstrators who attacked the presidential residence and set three government ministries ablaze, as well as city hall in El Alto, a poor suburb of the capital, La Paz. The government continues to investigate who fired first in what became a bloody shootout between police and soldiers.

The government also wants the OAS to investigate what Antesana said may have been a coup attempt. Shots were fired from a high-caliber weapon into the president's bedroom and office in the palace in La Paz, he said.

Bolivia's tumult, in which 29 people died, began when the government on Monday announced a 12 percent income tax hike affecting mainly the middle class. The tax was part of an International Monetary Fund recipe for lowering Bolivia's swelling budget deficit.

President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada's decision to withdraw plans for the tax increase only brought tenuous peace. The roots of the problem, a deepening economic crisis and an energetic opposition, remain ever-present and signal more trouble for a leader who won the presidency with only 22.5 percent of the vote.

"He's got a big, serious problem," said Eduardo Gamarra, an expert on Bolivia at Miami's Florida International University. "He has 4 1/2 years left in his term. How is he going to last 4 1/2 years?"

Bolivia is isolated and poor, with just 8.3 million people, but the ramifications are enormous if Sanchez de Lozada is forced out. He is not the only president in Latin America facing politically destabilizing street protests.

"I think this sets a very disturbing precedent," said Michael Shifter, who tracks Latin American politics for the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. The New York Times contributed to this article.

www.boston.com By Maria Cristina Caballero, 2/16/2003

ON FEB. 7, 12-year-old Camila Garcia was having dinner with her parents, her brother, and her 4-year-old sister at El Nogal, an exclusive club in Bogota. At 8:05 p.m., an explosion from a car bomb abruptly separated them. Sixteen hours later, Camila was rescued from the rubble. Her brother survived, too. But their parents and sister were dead.

Camila became a symbol because all Colombians could identify with the girl's struggle for life. She was mangled in the wreckage, brain injured and bones broken, her leg destroyed, so that doctors had to amputate it. Thirty-two people were killed and 162 injured by the car bomb.

Terrorism. Colombians have seen its tragic faces. This recent bombing, the first that targeted the Colombian business elite, is the country's worst urban terrorist attack in a decade. The Colombian government blamed the FARC, the country's largest guerrilla group; Defense Minister Martha Ramirez stated that it was a sophisticated operation that probably received assistance from foreign terrorists.

This was the latest in a series of bombings launched this year since 70 US Green Berets arrived in Arauca, a Colombian state bordering Venezuela: Five car bombs have terrorized Araucans and killed 14 people there. The US troops arrived to train Colombian troops assigned to protect the Cano Limon oil pipeline, which was bombed by rebels 166 times in 2001 and 34 times last year. The pipeline is partly owned by US-based Occidental Petroleum Co. The Green Berets are barred from participating in Colombian combats. But their captain, Lawrence Ferguson, disagrees with those restrictions. He told Reuters: ''Look at Afghanistan. The reason it was successful is that we worked with local troops, all the way.''

Anne Paterson, US ambassador to Colombia, warned in October: ''Sooner or later, official Americans will be killed in Colombia carrying out their duties; when that happens, it will be big news.'' Indeed, last Thursday, a US government plane carrying four Americans and a Colombian crashed in rebel territory in southern Colombia. Two bodies were found; three men were kidnapped by rebels.

Meanwhile, the battles in Arauca have been intensifying as different factions seek to control this oil-rich region. Colombia is the ninth largest provider of oil to the United States. About 6,500 local soldiers will be trained by the Americans, marking the first time the United States is openly training Colombians to fight rebels rather than for eradicating coca crops.

The Bush administration's 2003 foreign aid request to Congress included the first significant nondrug military aid to Colombia since the Cold War: $98 million to protect the pipeline, including 10 helicopters and weapons. While the 2003 foreign aid bill awaits debate, the Bush administration released $6 million to start the pipeline program. If all the aid is approved, Colombia's security forces will get more than $100 million more in 2003 than they did in 2002, and the pipeline program accounts for most of that increase. Democratic US Representative Gene Taylor of Mississippi said, ''It is insane for this nation to spend $98 million to protect a pipeline that Occidental owns with American lives.'' Newsweek has noted that this might be what liberals call ''corporate welfare.''

As the United States worries about Colombian oil and other ''strategic points,'' there is still the matter of what to do about Colombia's crumbling democracy. Plan Colombia - a $2 billion US package aimed mainly at eradicating coca crops - has not achieved its goal. The overall amount of coca grown in Colombia is about 150,000 hectares: three times as much as it was when the US began large-scale crop-spraying in 1996. And, as Minister Ramirez points out, ''The massive consumption of cocaine in the United States and Europe finances the attacks against innocents by Colombian illegal groups.''

So Colombia's terrorism problem is intertwined with US interests. Oil and drugs are two of the most volatile commodities on the planet, causing endless conflicts. As the United States tries to keep one flowing and stop the flow of the other, more tragedies are certain. It is time to evaluate the US policies toward Colombia, to see how the United States can do more to strengthen all institutions, which ultimately should undermine the growing threat from violent groups. In the meantime, in the new age of warfare, casualties are more likely to be civilians like 12-year-old Camila Garcia, an orphaned child struggling to survive in a world gone mad.

Maria Cristina Caballero is a Colombian journalist and a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

This story ran on page E11 of the Boston Globe on 2/16/2003.

www.staugustine.com By DULUE MBACHU Associated Press

MANAMA, Bahrain -- Bahraini authorities have broken up an alleged terrorist ring suspected of planning attacks in this Gulf kingdom, home of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, officials said Saturday.

Five Bahraini men aged 31-41 were arrested for plotting terrorist acts against the island's "national interests and endangering the lives of innocent people," the official Bahrain News Agency reported.

Police also seized weapons and ammunition that the detainees were planning to use "for carrying out acts of terrorism targeting the security of the country and the people," the agency reported.

Afghan president asks compatriots to help U.S. forces

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai on Saturday urged his countrymen to help U.S. soldiers track down suspected terrorists in southern Afghanistan, and asked American forces to take special care to avoid civilian casualties in their operations.

Karzai made the remarks to a group of village elders from the southern Baghran district of Helmand province, the scene of U.S. air and ground assaults on suspected Taliban hide-outs in the mountainous area this week, a statement from his office said.

Dolly co-creator says her death reveals cloning dangers

SINGAPORE -- A Singapore-based scientist who was part of the team that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, said Saturday her premature death was proof of the many dangers of cloning.

Dolly was put to death Friday, after premature aging and disease raised questions about the practicality of cloning.

"I think it highlights more than ever the foolishness of those who want to legalize (human) reproductive cloning," said Alan Colman, one of the scientists behind Dolly's birth in 1996.

North Korea marks Kim's birthday with vows of loyalty

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Koreans on Saturday celebrated leader Kim Jong Il's upcoming birthday with vows to defend him at a time of "stern and harsh hardship" -- a reference to the dispute over the country's nuclear weapons program.

Kim, who rules his country with a personality cult, turns 61 on Sunday. On the eve of his birthday, senior party and military officials gathered in Pyongyang in an annual "national meeting" to renew their loyalty.

Nigeria oil workers launch indefinite strike over pay

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Nigerian oil workers on Saturday launched an indefinite strike that could shut down crude exports in the world's sixth largest oil exporter.

The strike over pay and working conditions comes as the threat of war in Iraq and a prolonged strike in Venezuela have pushed oil prices to two-year highs.

The action was launched by workers of the Department of Petroleum Resources, a key government unit overseeing operations of oil multinationals like ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, Royal Dutch/Shell and TotalFinaElf. It is backed by the country's powerful Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, or PENGASSAN.

The strike aims to paralyze the loading of crude oil at export terminals, but PENGASSAN is threatening to shut down operations across the industry if the government does not meet its demands by the middle of next week.