A top diplomat defended Caracas’ investigation into a leading anti-government TV station, rebuffing the concerns of officials from the UN and the Organization of American States that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s government is threatening free speech.
Venezuelan Ambassador to the OAS Roy Chaderton accused the Globovision TV network of “media terrorism” on Saturday and said that foreign observers passing judgment on Venezuela are beholden “to the interests of the private media.”
Regulators are investigating Globovision for allegedly inciting “panic and anxiety” in its coverage of a minor earthquake on May 4. The station couldn’t reach the head of Venezuela’s seismological agency for comment after the quake and criticized the government for its slow response.
Chavez has demanded sanctions against the network. It is the latest of many government complaints against the station and station director Alberto Federico Ravell has said regulators could fine Globovision or shut it down for 72 hours.
A joint statement on Friday by two officials who monitor freedom of speech — Frank La Rue of the UN and Catalina Botero of the OAS — decried government officials’ strong statements against Globovision, warning they “generate an atmosphere of intimidation in which the right to freedom of expression is seriously limited.”
Chavez bristled at the criticism by Botero, saying during a visit to Ecuador on Saturday night: “What’s the OAS for?”
He suggested South America set up its own separate arbiter of rights issues, saying “enough already with them imposing all this on us from the North.”
Chavez has clashed repeatedly with the media. He accuses Globovision and other private channels of backing a short-lived coup against him in 2002 by broadcasting cartoons and movies instead of protests that aided his return to power.
Globovision is now the only stridently anti-Chavez channel left on the open airwaves. Another anti-government channel, RCTV, was booted off the air in 2007 and moved to cable and two other channels toned down their criticism. Venezuela still has a wide variety of newspapers and radio stations that are critical of Chavez.
Chaderton said the government has put a powerful group of private media “in its place” within the framework of the law.
Globovision president Guillermo Zuloaga was at the center of another probe after soldiers and police raided a property belonging to him in Caracas on Thursday. Police said they found 24 Toyota vehicles there belonging to Zuloaga and were investigating why they were stored there instead of being in a dealership to be sold.
Zuloaga said the house where he has his private office was used to store the vehicles because a dealership he owns had been robbed.
Chavez called it a coincidence that the raid affected Globovision’s president and said authorities suspected that “hoarding and speculation” were the real reason for keeping the luxury sport-utility vehicles out of public view.
“They sell those vehicles for three, four, five times more than their real price,” Chavez said.
Importers have recently struggled to obtain precious dollars for auto imports through the government as Venezuela’s oil income has fallen and waiting lists for new cars are often months long in Caracas.
Chavez said there were legitimate reasons for the raid and that Zuloaga and his supporters “put on a show ... saying it’s persecution by the government against a media organization.”
Zuloaga said he thinks the raid “began as something logical: Somebody found out about a bunch of cars on a piece of property and they wanted to investigate if those vehicles had the legal papers.”
But, he said” “Once they found out that property was mine, maybe they saw the opportunity to create a big scandal and try to intimidate me with this. And for that reason it turned into a circus.”
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