Venezuela: Military Relations with the Media in Times of Peace and War

Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies REDES 2001 Research and Education in Defense and Security Studies May 22-25, 2001, Washington D.C. Panel on Media-Military Relations

By Everett Bauman E., U.S. Correspondent for El Universal Caracas, Venezuela Abstract

      The development of military/media relations in Venezuela has closely paralleled the political history of the country.  The Liberator, Simon Bolivar, was very aware of the need for close relations and personally penned statements for the infant press of the republic. However, the subsequent political chaos and military conflict during much of the l9th century severely limited the role of the media. It was not until the death of the last great caudillo, Juan Vicente Gomez in 1936, that the media acquired a moderate voice.  In the brief democracy that came with the 1945 revolution, civilian politicians—notably Romulo Betancourt—initiated a new policy of close media collaboration, but this was cut short with the military counter-revolution of 1948, lasting until 1958, when a joint civic-military movement unseated the last dictator, Perez Jiménez, and opened up a new period of military/press relations.  Major popular newspapers, however, were under strong communist influence and distrusted by the military for the nearly 35 years of functioning representative democracy, although younger officers themselves acquired liberal ideas as a result of the major emphasis given to education by the military authorities. Their group conducted several unsuccessful coups against a constitutional government which they and many Venezuelans regarded as increasingly corrupt, and unrepresentative. Their leader, Commandant Hugo Chavez, was jailed for several years but ran for the presidency in the election of l998 and won fairly.

      A new chapter is now being written as the new government of the charismatic ex-military president provokes and allows unprecedented press criticism but violently attacks and threatens it rhetorically with growing frequency.  The president has unsuccessfully sought to mount his own media machine but has failed to obtained credibility, although he is personally highly popular with the lower income population.  The Venezuelan Press Bloc has just brought a formal complaint before the Inter-American Press Association, which has been scorned by the president, who can claim with certain veracity that he has allowed media freedom.  The emboldened media has undoubtedly acted to criticize and probably check government excesses.  But will this uneasy situation persist?