After shutting down RCTV, Venezuela’s longest running broadcaster, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is threatening action against another local station.
Thousands demonstrated in the streets in Caracas, Venezuela this week, when President Hugo Chavez shut down Radio Caracas TV, the oldest TV network in the country. Among them, employees of the station, which did not get its license renewed, shouted chants of “freedom” and protested that Chavez is reducing freedom of expression. About 180 protesters, including many students, have been jailed since Sunday. Chavez supporters danced in the streets and threw fireworks to celebrate the end of the station.
On Radio Caracas TV, presenter Nelson Bustamente proclaimed “Long live Venezuela. We will return soon.” The national anthem was sung and TV screens went blank. A few seconds later, the insignia for TVES, a new state-sponsored channel, appeared. Chavez promises that this new broadcaster will better represent his socialist revolution. A concert of traditional melodies started off the new station’s broadcast, interspersed with government trailers. After the concert, the channel showed a film about 19th-century commander Simon Bolivar, Chavez’s hero, who freed much of South America from Spain.
RCTV will still be available on cable, but its audience will be reduced significantly. Broadcasting for 53 years, it had the largest audience, with 10 of Venezuela’s 26 million people watching its news programs as well as its soap operas. A poll by Datanalisis found that almost 70 percent of Venezuelans opposed the shutdown, but that more were concerned about losing their favorite soap operas than about losing freedom of expression.
Chavez claims that RCTV is among the private stations that were implicated in a coup against him that nearly brought him down five years ago. During the 2002 coup, RCTV reported falsely that Chavez supporters had fired at demonstrators. When the tide began turning in Chavez’s favor, RCTV showed movies and cartoons rather than the huge crowds of the president’s supporters rallying against the coup leaders.
Chavez’s government has now opened an investigation against Globovision, the remaining opposition station, claiming that it has acted as an “enemy of the state.” More demonstrations, in support of freedom of speech, have been called for Friday.
This article was published Friday, June 1, 2007.
