“In the end”, said Martin Luther King, “we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.” His words are relevant to every social struggle and are especially pertinent to the ongoing fight for social justice in Latin America, where media manipulation and forces hostile to the positive changes of the last decade conspire to return nations such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Honduras to an imposed neo-liberal economic model.
The survival of Hugo Chávez’ government in Venezuela, the popular elections of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and the campaign to restore Manuel Zelaya, the democratically-elected leader of Honduras, to power following a right-wing coup, have all relied on solidarity at home and abroad.
The British labour movement has always played its part. From the Spanish Civil War, to the coup in Chile and the apartheid struggle in South Africa, and now the solidarity campaigns around Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela and Honduras, the British left has stood up for democracy and justice. This makes the present media manipulation around Venezuela even harder to stomach.
Against a background of anti-Chávez propaganda – almost to the frenzied extent of that at the time of the 2002 coup against him – an attack on the British left’s support of Venezuela’s revolution has emanated from Labour’s benches in the House of Commons. Denis MacShane’s critique in The Guardian of August 3 must be challenged.
The Rotherham MP began with a call for all “Hooray Hugos”, presumably including more than 50 Labour MPs and many in the trade unions, to rethink their support for Venezuela’s leader.
According to MacShane: “While the left in Spain, France, Italy and Latin America has always had doubts about the populist, demagogic style of Chavez, he has had a free run in Britain. Ken Livingstone organised meetings to worship him and got involved in a bizarre oil deal. The National Union of Journalists and Labour MPs have made pilgrimages to Caracas to buy the Chávez line.”
It was a risible attempt to belittle the work of the solidarity movement which arose in response to the CIA-backed coup against a democratically-elected leader who has made the alleviation of poverty a priority.
However, MacShane’s attack was ostensibly in defence of free speech and independent journalists under threat because: “Chávez has put before the Venezuelan parliament a proposed law that would impose prison sentences of up to four years for journalists whose writings might divulge information against ‘the stability of the institutions of the state’.”
In fact, no such law is in operation in Venezuela and Chávez has not said there should be.
As the AFP Spanish language news agency has confirmed, no such legislative proposal is being officially discussed. What actually happened was that, on July 30, Venezuela’s public prosecutor made a number of proposals to the country’s MPs that she thought should become law. The proposals are literally no more than her suggestions. The public prosecutor is not a legislator and cannot implement legislation.
Manuel Villalba, president of the media commission in Venezuela’s parliament said: “We want to reiterate that it is not true that in this house there is or was [such] a bill”. There was merely “the contributions of the prosecutor”. He insisted there is no consensus on her proposals and different ideas will also be debated. Further, senior representatives of the Chavez-led PSUV have said the party does not endorse the prosecutor’s suggestions.
As Washington academic Mark Weisbrot explained: Venezuela’s media “routinely broadcasts reporting and commentary that would not be allowed under FCC rules in the US. And the vast majority of the media in Venezuela is still controlled by the right-wing opposition” .
By any rational standards, the actions of elements of Venezuela’s media – such as its orchestration of a military coup – are outside the normal role of the press and should be subject to regulation. There is now an open discussion on how to do this. The interpretation of this offered by various corporate media sources, which has been amplified by the misinformed MP for Rotherham, has nothing to do with the labour movement’s tradition of informed and intelligent analysis.
What is more frustrating is that a Labour MP who purports to have an interest in Latin America and speak up for journalists is silent on the murder and intimidation of journalists and trade unionists in Colombia. In the past decade, according to the International Federation of Journalists, “54 Colombian journalists have been murdered for their work”. And 606 trade unionists have been murdered since incumbent President Alvaro Uribe came to power.
In Honduras, the military seized power in a coup on June 28. Since then, peaceful protests have been brutally repressed. There have been killings and many people have been wounded. Independent radio and television stations have been shut down.
Yet MacShane and others say nothing about this, choosing instead to aim their fire at Venezuela’s elected government. Given
the availability of credible information on Latin America, is this part of a politically-motivated campaign with a broader, ideological agenda? l
Colin Burgon is Labour MP for Elmet, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Venezuela and Chair of Labour Friends of Venezuela. He will be a speaker at the TUC fringe meeting “Solidarity with Venezuela” on Monday September 14 at 12.45pm, Room 11a, BT Convention Centre, Liverpool
“In the end”, said Martin Luther King, “we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.” His words are relevant to every social struggle and are especially pertinent to the ongoing fight for social justice in Latin America, where media manipulation and forces hostile to the positive changes of the last decade conspire to return nations such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Honduras to an imposed neo-liberal economic model.
The survival of Hugo Chávez’ government in Venezuela, the popular elections of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and the campaign to restore Manuel Zelaya, the democratically-elected leader of Honduras, to power following a right-wing coup, have all relied on solidarity at home and abroad.
The British labour movement has always played its part. From the Spanish Civil War, to the coup in Chile and the apartheid struggle in South Africa, and now the solidarity campaigns around Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela and Honduras, the British left has stood up for democracy and justice. This makes the present media manipulation around Venezuela even harder to stomach.
Against a background of anti-Chávez propaganda – almost to the frenzied extent of that at the time of the 2002 coup against him – an attack on the British left’s support of Venezuela’s revolution has emanated from Labour’s benches in the House of Commons. Denis MacShane’s critique in The Guardian of August 3 must be challenged.
The Rotherham MP began with a call for all “Hooray Hugos”, presumably including more than 50 Labour MPs and many in the trade unions, to rethink their support for Venezuela’s leader.
According to MacShane: “While the left in Spain, France, Italy and Latin America has always had doubts about the populist, demagogic style of Chavez, he has had a free run in Britain. Ken Livingstone organised meetings to worship him and got involved in a bizarre oil deal. The National Union of Journalists and Labour MPs have made pilgrimages to Caracas to buy the Chávez line.”
It was a risible attempt to belittle the work of the solidarity movement which arose in response to the CIA-backed coup against a democratically-elected leader who has made the alleviation of poverty a priority.
However, MacShane’s attack was ostensibly in defence of free speech and independent journalists under threat because: “Chávez has put before the Venezuelan parliament a proposed law that would impose prison sentences of up to four years for journalists whose writings might divulge information against ‘the stability of the institutions of the state’.”
In fact, no such law is in operation in Venezuela and Chávez has not said there should be.
As the AFP Spanish language news agency has confirmed, no such legislative proposal is being officially discussed. What actually happened was that, on July 30, Venezuela’s public prosecutor made a number of proposals to the country’s MPs that she thought should become law. The proposals are literally no more than her suggestions. The public prosecutor is not a legislator and cannot implement legislation.
Manuel Villalba, president of the media commission in Venezuela’s parliament said: “We want to reiterate that it is not true that in this house there is or was [such] a bill”. There was merely “the contributions of the prosecutor”. He insisted there is no consensus on her proposals and different ideas will also be debated. Further, senior representatives of the Chavez-led PSUV have said the party does not endorse the prosecutor’s suggestions.
As Washington academic Mark Weisbrot explained: Venezuela’s media “routinely broadcasts reporting and commentary that would not be allowed under FCC rules
in the US. And the vast majority of the
media in Venezuela is still controlled by the right-wing opposition” .
By any rational standards, the actions of elements of Venezuela’s media – such as its orchestration of a military coup – are outside the normal role of the press and should be subject to regulation. There is now an open discussion on how to do this. The interpretation of this offered by various corporate media sources, which has been amplified by the misinformed MP for Rotherham, has nothing to do with the labour movement’s tradition of informed and intelligent analysis.
What is more frustrating is that a Labour MP who purports to have an interest in Latin America and speak up for journalists is silent on the murder and intimidation of journalists and trade unionists in Colombia. In the past decade, according to the International Federation of Journalists, “54 Colombian journalists have been murdered for their work”. And 606 trade unionists have been murdered since incumbent President Alvaro Uribe came to power.
In Honduras, the military seized power in a coup on June 28. Since then, peaceful protests have been brutally repressed. There have been killings and many people have been wounded. Independent radio and television stations have been shut down.
Yet MacShane and others say nothing about this, choosing instead to aim their fire at Venezuela’s elected government. Given
the availability of credible information on Latin America, is this part of a politically-motivated campaign with a broader, ideological agenda?
Colin Burgon is Labour MP for Elmet, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Venezuela and Chair of Labour Friends of Venezuela. He will be a speaker at the TUC fringe meeting “Solidarity with Venezuela” on Monday September 14 at 12.45pm, Room 11a, BT Convention Centre, Liverpool
