www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: Charles Hardy

VHeadline.com commentarist Charles Hardy writes:

A friend once told me that, when she attended a ballet in Moscow, she experienced a different environment from that which she had sensed in New York.  She said that, when the lights went on for the intermission, she realized that the hands of the people in the audience were different.  They were the hands of working people and not the fine-manicured hands that one might see in a New York theater.

I don't know if her observation was valid or not.  I've never been to a ballet in New York or in Moscow.  But I did experience a similar feeling on January 18, in the Caracas Municipal Theater.  It was a free cultural presentation given by a group of actors, musicians, and artists who call themselves 'The Artists and Cultural Workers for the Constitution.'

When I entered the theater, it was already half-full and the line outside still stretched six blocks.  The atmosphere was joyful.  While waiting in line, the people had been entertained by clowns on stilts and a variety of musical groups.  All of a sudden, a woman in the audience stood up and started addressing those in the theater.  She was not part of the presentation.  She had a message.  Gradually everyone quieted down and she spoke.  Someone shouted, "Go up on stage!  Use a microphone."  With a smile on her face, she did.

Then someone shouted, "There is a woman here with a poem."  An elderly woman ... in her seventies or eighties I would guess ... was helped on stage.  She read her poem.  The audience applauded.  Then, before leaving the stage she shouted, "Uh, ah, Chavez no se va!"  (Oh, ah, Chavez isn't leaving!)  Smiling, she was helped off the stage.

The Teatro Municipal de Caracas is a beautiful historic landmark that has been renovated by the present government.  (One of those accomplishments of a government that supposedly hasnt accomplished anything).  It is a wonderful building that, in times past, certainly held the elite of Caracas ... now it is used frequently again, but for conferences and meetings of those who support the government.

When the scheduled act began, there were stilt-walkers and stories, traditional music and contemporary dancing.  I learned afterwards that none of those participating were paid.  It was a act of love, of solidarity with the Constitutional process in Venezuela.

Outside were the masses that couldn't enter the theater for lack of space.  Musicians on the steps of the theater entertained them.

A few days after the performance, I received a copy of a statement from the Artists & Cultural Workers for the Constitution organization.  I didn't pay too much attention to it until I saw a page 3 article in Ultimas Noticias on January 25.  It turns out that there's another group called "The People of Culture" (Gente de la Cultura) that doesn't see things from the same perspective.  They held a press conference at the Hotel Eurobuilding during which Ibeyisse Pacheco spoke and Frank Quintero sang ... their document also appeared as a paid advertisement.

I called the person who gave me the first statement and asked if they had held a news conference since I hadn't see anything in the paper about their statement.  She said that they would have liked to have published it, but they didn't have that kind of money.

One thing that is interesting about this to me, is the fact that I know the people personally who signed these two documents.  I also know other artists who signed neither.  I consider many to be my friends.  I suppose it is simply another manifestation of the divisions that exist within the country.

But there's another dimension that caught my attention.  The presentation of the "Manifesto of The People of Culture" was made at a 5-star hotel.  Why do all the opposition press conferences seem to be in Caracas' luxury hotels (or under their shadow as is the case of the five-star-hotel-generals in Altamira)?  Doesn't the opposition realize what they are saying, and have been saying to the ordinary Venezuelan who only enters such places to clean rooms or to guard their doors?  Or don't they care?

One would almost think that Carlos Ortega and his crew work for the Melia Caracas since that banner is always in the background at their press conferences.  I wouldn't be surprised that, if the opposition reads this editorial, the banner will disappear and that soon they'll all be wearing baseball caps backwards like the governor of Miranda.

As I mentioned, I have friends in both camps ... but to this day I have never been in the Eurobuilding, the Melia Caracas or the Four Seasons.  I suppose they are nice.

• I did enjoy that afternoon at the Municipal Theater, however ... it, too, is nice.

It wasn't the Russian ballet that I watched that Saturday afternoon, but the performance was worthwhile ... and, the hands of the audience were not all manicured, in case that says something.

Charlie A native of Cheyenne, Wyoming (USA), VHeadline.com columnist Charles Hardy has many years experience  as an international correspondent in Venezuela. You may email him at: hardyce2@yahoo.com

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: The Very Reverend Roger Dawson dawson@cantv.net

Second Sunday before Lent sermon by The Very Reverend Roger Dawson Dean of St. Mary's Anglican Cathedral, Caracas

When we first came to Venezuela, we were met off the aeroplane by a young lady who ushered us down to an immigration official who stamped our passports looking at us with curiosity more than anything else, and within a five minutes we were out in the reception area where we collected our bags and were then waived through the security to be taken to a waiting driver. He put the bags in the boot, we climbed into the air-conditioned vehicle and we were on our way to Caracas. The whole operation took less than fifteen minutes and we felt like top VIPs.

It has all changed now, and we are herded along with every other passenger into the overcrowded immigration passage and, more often than not, there is at least one other plane load of passengers who have disembarked five minutes before us.

• Thirty minutes later, if you are lucky, we enter the luggage area and wait while we get shunted up and down as someone decides which luggage terminal they are going to use.

My luggage has a special tag that says, please put me on the conveyor belt last of all. We then run the gauntlet of security. They are in two minds as to who should be next to have all their luggage inspected. We have devised a system that if we get the red light we are on our own, but if we get a green light we are together. We try and hover around and go in directly after a red light.

It isn't that we mind the security that much, in principle, and certainly we have had all our carefully-packed belongings sorted through, creased and crumpled and then stuffed back into our cases on plenty of occasions during the past few years.

I guess it is the inconvenience of it all ... the idea that someone should think that we were potential terrorists, but worse than that that we are people of no consequence who are a threat to humanity ... that we are people who can be ordered around and all our underwear put out for everyone to view.

We are no longer VIPs and no one treats us as such. We are simply Mr. and Mrs. Nobody -- travellers with few rights; no privacy and frankly, we are something of a nuisance wanting to travel at this time and spoiling everyone's pleasure.

We ... all of us ... consider that we are people of dignity, who deserve not just reasonable deference but respect of the highest order.

It was not always like this ... at one time respect was given only to the wealthy and the aristocracy and the rest of us were nobodies ... everyone knew which category they were in, and everyone followed the conventions.

Change came through war and revolution.

In Europe it happened slowly over a period of three hundred years, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and two world wars.

By the end of all that, actors ... who were a despised race in earlier times ... suddenly found themselves the heroes, and top of the social heap, with more VIP treatment than kings had ever been afforded.

The world had been turned upside down but not in the way that Jesus had preached.

In Jesus' day the VIPs were high-ranking soldiers, wealthy aristocrats and priests. It had been like that for many a day and looked set to remain so for many years to come. Naaman was a soldier-diplomat and he knew what VIP treatment was all about. He was so used to it that he expected everyone to give him the respect to which he was accustomed, and which he felt he deserved.

To find that he had a skin disorder that may or may not have been leprosy was a shock to his dignity ... he felt worse than having to have his luggage opened in a public place.

High officials hold their positions by playing the part of high officials, and assuming airs and graces that are not natural to them as people, but are part and parcel of their believed position in life.

Now film stars who actually are nobody, and have come from nowhere, but who have vast bank accounts, play the part of shocked and distressed gentlefolk because a magazine shows pictures of their wedding from which they did not benefit by a million dollars.

Naaman was equal to the act. When he arrived at Elisha's house, after first admitting to the humiliation of not having Elisha coming to him, he was furious to find no reception committee waiting to give him the honor due to his person and his position.

Hearing that he was to wash in the river, out came his best acting ability and he threw a tantrum in front of everyone. I thought that for me, he said, he would come out and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot and cure my disease.

No matter that Elisha was already doing him a favor, he wanted his position as the member of a foreign government to be also taken into account. He lived too many years before Jesus to know that God is not interested in the hierarchies that men create.

The hierarchy that we should be looking to enter is one in which we can be leaders, and that leadership is achieved through service to others.

Ironically, one part of that service is to give due deference to others by generously affirming them. However we are to treat all people the same ... President or pauper ... they equally deserve our respect and help.

What about our dignity you ask? Well other people's dignity matters more than our own, but our's will be enhanced if we put others before ourselves.

That is one of the strange facts of life ... the more we put ourselves at the service of others, the greater other people's respect for us grows. In this modern world, we are all too swift to believe that our dignity has been affronted, but please, let us not wallow in mock hurt and instead share something worthwhile with those who are nearest to us.

I think that our hardest days in Venezuela are yet to come, and, as the days grow more difficult, there will be plenty who will show little regard for us, thus it will be easy to slip into the Naaman tantrums of hurt pride.

We must be on our guard and avoid all kinds of conflict and spend our time in devising ways of healing rather than revenge or displays of pride good enough to win an Oscar.

If there is to be a solution between the people of this country, it will not come because we have put them in their place and made them feel worthless, but because we have healed each others infirmities and affirmed each others dignity and worth.

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.

sf.indymedia.org by tristan Friday February 14, 2003 at 01:47 PM Ive been in South America for five months and it is beginning to really oppose the US. Almost every activist Ive talked to has been an anti-capitalist. No matter how extreme of a slogan I write here in Argentina some older middle class person runs up and demands that I spraypaint 'Close Congress' on a government building or 'I am going to kill you' on a bank. The more reformist minded see the Recent election of left-wing presidents 'Lula' in Brazil and Lucio in Ecuador as signs of change. That is also combined with the near victory of Evo Morales in Bolivia with Castro in Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela and the FTAA may not be as easy to pass as the US first thought. Argentina is set for massive boycott of the elections as all the parties are terrible. In Ecuador even at the Business Forum business men from Latin America expressed grave reservations about the FTAA. So the US is pushing CAFTA for Central America. Many businesses and industries and especiall the agricultural sector opose or want to be left out of the deal. The next meeting was scheduled for El Salvador. El Salvador is in the middle of huge social mobilizations versus the privatization of healthcare so the meeting had to be moved to Cincinatti, Ohio. On the theme of the US war with Iraq, virtually the whole world opposes this stupid war. In Buenos Aires there were Women in Black and Arab-Argentinian protests yesterday and the big protest is tomorrow. I was at a Popular Nieghborhood asembly of 50 people and the big argument was weather to include, on thier flier, the UN as a force that shouldnt be in Iraq. When Powel presented his 'New information' the center-right newspaper quoted the Iraqi representative to the UN more than Powell and talked about how frustrated Powell got that no one seemed to believe him. Latin America has fought battles against the IMF/World Bank for two decades, but now it is a war. In Argentina everyone sees the IMF as a problem, if not the direct cause of most of what is wrong in Argentina now. All the newspapers have economists talking about the problems with the IMF, the WTO and why the FTAA is a danger for the country. Themes of strengthening regional trade blocks in South America is on the agenda of almost all governments, as they see it as a counter ballence to the US. Two days ago huge protests started in Bolivia. Even the police went on strike as the government said wages would be cut up to 12%. The army was sent in to deal with the police and protestors and killed at least 25. Protestors looted a Coca-Cola plant and burned the privatized water company and varios government ministries. The Clarin sensationalist newspaper here had an excellent economic analysis of how IMF policies l! ead to the 'pulverizing' of governments and how Bolivia can not possibly meet IMF demands. One might alsa remember the Bolivian people that are the poorest in South America and make aroud $70 a month, if they are employed. 80% live in poverty, how do they pay four billion plus to the IMF? A 12% pay cut means they die. The same issue of Clarin had an article on the arrest of an ex-government minister from Peru. He was arrested in Buenos Aires by Interpol on an international warrant . He had been part of Fujimori's corrupt and brutal dictatorship. Where did Interpol find him? He was amoung the official IMF delegation to adjust the economy. Sometimes I feel that things can not be clearer and I think that especially with Bush this is becoming clear to millions around the world. We still have so much to do but I think there is hope.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 1:58:52 AM By: Patricia Stewart

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 00:54:07 -0400 From: Patricia Stewart Circe009@hotmail.com To:  Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: I remember something I once said to my son...

Dear Editor: Listening to Channel 8 and the aggressions in Sta. Rosa de Lima as devolved humans vented their anger ... believing it to be caused by another ... I remember something I once said to my son ...

"Your emotions are yours, not mine. I don't want the reins that control your emotions. That is too much power to give away to anyone."

Something else I want to put into words and send out into the ethers to stick on the Grid, is this:  Inspired by Spain's "golpista" decision to judge Chavez and ignore blatant truth, we can see that South America needs its own "International Court" similar to The Hague, where trials against humanity can be held, and where North America has no say in its judgements, but where crimes against South American people and countries can be tried and sentenced.

Venezuela needs such a court to internationally air the truth about the "Golpistas" ... even if its own Supreme Court were not a disgrace.

I am also addressing the Bush crowd, the never-ending CIA plots to overthrow South American governments with their cover-up Presidents, and present Spain.

It's time the true traitors to humanity itself were judged ... and the evidence is there.

South America must put this Tribunal into place. Nicaragua should never be forgotten.

Do you have the text of Chaderton's remark just before the installation of the "Friends of Venezuela"? It seemed he was comparing them to the international group that tried to make peace between Colombia's government and ... the FARC!

• I heard his mention of the "FARC" ... an excellent comparison!

Perhaps that's why they got short shrift for quick burial ... as did that interview. Huh!

Patricia Stewart Circe009@hotmail.com