Investor's Business Daily, May 25th, 2007
Freedom: If Hugo Chavez's order to shut down a Venezuelan TV station can unite even the U.S. Senate in condemnation, it's clear he's gone bonkers. The free speech at stake here is a universal right, not a dictator's whim.
As of Sunday, Venezuela's equivalent of NBC will be shut down by order of Hugo Chavez, the communist dictator who is using ersatz legalism in refusing to renew the broadcasting license it has held for 53 years.
If Chavez didn't rule by decree, the shutdown would be politically impossible. RCTV is Venezuela's biggest and most popular TV station.
But it has also been a thorn in Chavez's side, and he wants revenge. He claims RCTV soap operas offend public decency. But that isn't the public's verdict as it keeps watching RCTV over Chavez's own dull and low-rated government stations.
Chavez is calling the shutdown a move against oligarchy. But that, too, is false, given that just about everyone opposes the move.
In the U.S., Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who once championed Nicaragua's Marxist Sandinistas, co-sponsored a Foreign Relations Committee resolution condemning Chavez's move and urging the Organization of American States to intervene.
"President Chavez's efforts to crack down on freedom of thought and expression are inconsistent with the rights and values that all democratic nations should embrace and protect," said Dodd. "It also raises concerns about a much larger threat to human rights in Venezuela, one that we in the United States must not ignore."
Then every other senator running for president piled on as a co-sponsor -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain -- signalling consensus, and concern, about credibility with voters.
The European Union's parliament condemned the RCTV shutdown as did Chile's senate. Pope Benedict XVI called for a reprieve. Every news-media watchdog group blasted it.
In Caracas on Friday, students blocked highways and shut down a university. Last weekend, impoverished Chavez supporters for the first time came to the realization they now live in a dictatorship. Five hundred thousand marched, representing the 80% of Venezuelans against this destruction of free speech. More are expected this weekend.
Chavez's few supporters say it's just one station, and that there are plenty of others. But the fact that the station singled out is the one most opposed to Chavez is a message in itself: Oppose Chavez, and it's lights out. That will cast a chill on all media, because they're smaller than RCTV and have few resources if they come under attack for any critical reporting of the news.
It's significant that the two other big stations, Televen and Venevision, have already caved into Chavez's party line, removing all opinion coverage. RCTV's demise leaves only Globovision, Venezuela's small private Fox News-like upstart, to speak truth to power.
The chill is happening. A protest by civil servants in Maracay Tuesday was ignored by all stations except RCTV and Globovision.
What does it mean for the U.S.? Broadly, it will diminish the reliability of news from Venezuela, which has been very good. As Chavez grows more dictatorial, his increasingly questionable acts will stay outside the media spotlight.
Chavez already has lost the public opinion war in the U.S. as a result of good coverage. Chavez has moved on to less objective media to get his message across. He's now bankrolling leftist actor Danny Glover to make movies for $18 million. He recently sent Venezuela's ambassador and Chavista shills like author Eva Golinger on a U.S. and Canada tour of civic groups to present the Chavez "logic."
An end of trustworthy news coming out of Venezuela will have implications for the U.S., too.
Venezuela is America's fourth-biggest oil supplier, and prospects for production problems are growing real as investment plummets and communist worker collectives replace professional structures. If we get cut off, we might not know it until it happens.
Venezuela's armed forces are bulking up and menacing the U.S. and Venezuela's neighbors. Chavez has bought $4 billion in advanced weaponry it doesn't need. The Venezuelan press was the first to report the secret arrival of Cuban soldiers into Venezuela's military structure in 2002, exposing Chavez's denials as lies. We don't need military surprises.
Venezuela is rapidly falling apart as the effects of Chavez's policies work through the system. Food has disappeared from store shelves, and the countryside is overrun by drug lords. The currency is collapsing, and the flight of both capital and humans has accelerated. The potential for revolt is growing, and the absence of a free press raises the potential for chaos.
In fact, under Chavez's one-man rule the only force for change is a free press. The U.S. Senate has acted correctly by calling a halt to the shutdown. But the OAS must also act swiftly. Nowhere is democracy more delicate than in its last bulwark, the free press.
