Hugo Chavez all out attack against Venezuela's media
By Aleksander Boyd
London 30.03.07 | One of the most ridiculous claims that dictator Chavez has ever made is that his wretched revolution is based on love. Observers may remember that late last year, during the presidential campaign, an almost sobbing Chavez appeared in Venezuelan TV sets and newspaper, wearing a blue shirt, basically begging people to vote for him for his life actions -undiscriminated killings included- had been driven by nothing but love. Chavez, stripped of all legal pretences, decided earlier this year that the broadcasting license of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest TV channel, was to be ended without further ado. RCTV is yet to be informed by the prosecution about the reasons that prompted this decision, which was taken not by a tribunal dealing with the case or any member of the judiciary but by Hugo Chavez. As there is no open case, RCTV has been unable to defend itself in Chavez's kangaroo courts.
Earlier this week, Aporrea posted a banner on its main site calling people to go protest against RCTV. In keeping with the presidential bleeding heart the protest was aptly called "Vigilia del Amor" or the "Love Vigil." Aporrea, let us not forget, is Chavez's most potent e-propaganda organ, it is officially funded, it operates in offices located in Miraflores, it provides servers and bandwidth to Venezuelanalysis.com (its English language branch), its founder -Martin Sanchez- is currently Venezuela's General Consul to Chicago, in sum it can be concluded that incitements to vandalism acts posted in Aporrea -if not directly ordered- count with official approval, or are we to believe that Hugo Chavez is a pacifist?
The above is but one of the very many expressions of chavista love. On Tuesday night RCTV headquarters in Caracas were covered with graffiti allusive to the termination of the license, racist and homophobic slurs, baseless accusations, in sum RCTV's walls were turned into a canvas showing a good compendium of Chavez's trademark loving jargon.
However the all out attack on any media daring to contradict the official line did not stop there. In a rather surprising turn of events Eleazar Diaz Rangel, chief editor of rag Ultimas Noticias, has been threatened by the Minister for the Popular Economy, Pedro Morejón, who 'warned' that they could be guilty of an "international conspiracy" and "campaigning to harm companies, institutions and individuals." The threat of course did not stop just there. Curiously enough that very same propaganda mouth was used by the thugs behind the North American Opinion Research to publish a communiqué a while ago which made remarkably similar accusations against me. Unfortunately neither Makarem nor Valbuena accepted my invitation to levy such charges in a British, read serious, court of law. But what are the chances for a fair trial for creepy Diaz Rangel should Morejón be ordered to take matters further in Venezuela? How will RCTV see justice be made considering that no court in the land has been instructed to open a case against it?
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