Wary reactions to government-opposition non-aggression pact

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, February 20, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Reactions to the government-opposition negotiating teams’ non-aggression agreement have been skeptical and mute. Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) Political Psychology Unit coordinator, Mireya Lozada says the problem is putting the agreement into concrete actions on different levels of society.

Reflecting growing intuition among analysts that agreements reached at the top are not enough to stem the tide of violence, Lozada says the agreement must be assimilated and carried out on all levels of society.

"Each association, political party and NGO must drop insulting and aggressive language … that means both sides must drop the spin that the other side is responsible for the violence … discourse must favor dialogue and respect and democratic values.”

Lozada insists that print & broadcast media have a special role to play to make the agreement work … “they have to make sure that programs don’t contaminate each other and must avoid sending conflicting signals to viewers and listeners.”