ABC's Foreign Correspondent Censors Venezuela's Majority

Press release from the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network

ABC TV's Foreign Correspondent program screened on August 11, titled "Hugo Chavez: Total Control" did nothing to shore up the ABC's reputation for well informed, accurate reporting. Eric Campbell's report from Venezuela was riddled with inaccuracies, half-truths and transparent biases that need to be corrected.

The program's main message - that President Hugo Chavez is "the dominator. aiming for total control" in Venezuela - is the stock-standard propaganda being peddled by a mainstream media that refuses to recognise or reflect the voices of the poor majority in Venezuela.

What "evidence" does Foreign Correspondent present for Chavez's supposed megalomania?

Campbell says, "Millions of poor people see Hugo Chavez as a saint . taking money from the rich and giving it to them". Indeed! Chavez's popularity is based upon his willingness to put the needs of Venezuela's majority - who for hundreds of years have been exploited and disenfranchised - ahead of those of business elites, and to use the country's natural oil wealth to improve living conditions for most, rather than line the pockets of a tiny elite.

Under Chavez's leadership, a 50% increase in social welfare spending in 1999-2005 was accompanied by decreases in infant mortality, an increase in school enrolment (according to the United Nations, illiteracy has been eradicated in Venezuela) and a decrease in poverty.

By 2005, approximately 50% of the Venezuelans enjoyed government health-care and food subsidies. Between 2000 and 2008, enrolments in higher education more than doubled. In the six years to 2009, according to internationally recognized poverty measures, poverty has been reduced from 55.1% to 25.3%. Extreme poverty has been reduced by 72%. (A comprehensive assessment is available in the US Center for Economic and Policy Research's 2009 report, "The Chavez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators".)

In the words of one of the very few ordinary working people interviewed by Foreign Correspondent, "In all ways [Chavez] is a president that worries about his people".

But, Campbell says, after a referendum this year that enabled Venezuelan presidents to be re-elected beyond three terms, Chavez can now "keep running for president until he dies!". Well, so can any Australian prime minister. And if it is the people's will, why not? That's democracy. Foreign Correspondent doesn't even attempt to explain how it is that this supposed dictator can be democratically elected and re-elected in 1998, 2000, 2004 and 2006, in ballots certified as transparent and legitimate by international monitors.

Still not deterred by the facts, Campbell goes on to assert that "managing the message and clobbering the media have become a Chavez obsession".

In fact, there is much more oppositional media in Venezuela than in Australia, and a much greater range of debate in the media. The vast majority of Venezuela's media is privately owned. Before the government acted this month to enforce Venezuela's telecommunications law - handing over the expired licences of 32 privately owned radio stations and two regional television stations to community media ­- just 27 families controlled more than 32% of the radio and television waves; many owned 10 to 20 stations. These rich families ensured that the media is a political player, routinely broadcasting reporting that would not be allowed in Australia (such as calls for violent protests and insurrection, and, as broadcast recently by privately owned Globovision TV, a call for Chavez to be "lynched").

Foreign Correspondent claims that Chavez's "autocratic socialism is jeopardising the benefits of his revolution". This misses the point that it is not Chavez's revolution, but the Venezuelan people's. Beyond Campbell's "beleaguered middle class" (which all the statistics reveal is actually earning more than ever) is a thriving network of "social missions" and communal councils that are creating a new participatory democracy in Venezuela that, for all the problems that persist in a country that for centuries was bled dry by a wealthy, corrupt elite, creates the possibility for genuine majority rule in Venezuela.

We urge the ABC to revisit the Bolivarian revolution with open ears, eyes and mind, and give viewers the opportunity to hear the voices of the majority in Venezuela.

August 12, 2009

Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network

Democracy wins in Venezuelan referendum

A statement from the Australia–Venezuela Solidarity Network

February 17, 2009

On Sunday February 15, Venezuelans voted in a referendum to change the country’s constitution to allow elected officials to re-stand for election without restriction. Previously, Venezuela’s constitution allowed elected officials, including the president, to stand for only two terms.

With 94.2% of the votes counted, the National Electoral Council announced that the “Yes” vote had won with 6,003,584 votes (54.36%). The “No” vote received 5,040,082 votes (45.63%). Dozens of election observers from international bodies such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States verified that the referendum was free and fair.

The constitutional change allows Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez Frias to stand for re-election in 2012. At a media conference soon after the results were released, the US-backed right-wing opposition – which had run a campaign of lies, intimidation and violence in the lead-up to the vote - reluctantly accepted the outcome.

The victory of the “Yes” vote bolsters support for the newly formed United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which played a central role in the “Yes” campaign, and for measures towards establishing Venezuelan sovereignty and social justice. This assertion of the right of Venezuelans to elect whoever they choose to govern the country is also an assertion of the majority of Venezuelans’ desire for the Bolivarian revolution, currently symbolized and led by Chavez, to continue.

Soon after the results where announced, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans gathered in the streets of central Caracas and outside the “Balcony of the People” at the Miraflores Presidential Palace to hear Chavez speak and join the celebrations.

“This victory belongs to all the Latin American peoples, it is our America. It is a really historic victory”, Chavez declared, adding that he had received a message from former Cuban President Fidel Castro saying that the vote “is a victory impossible to measure due to its magnitude”.

Chavez told the people, “Here I stand firm. Send me the people, as I shall obey them. I am a soldier of the people, you are my bosses.” He added: “We must dedicate ourselves to consolidating what we have achieved in the past 10 years of revolution... [this] will include revision, rectification, adjusting and strengthening the gains of the Venezuelan people... We need to strengthen the social missions and soon we will be in a better situation from 2010 to open up new horizons and new spaces.”

Chavez emphasised that the people must lead in this process: “This democracy must be more and more revolutionary, authentic, participative and popular.”

The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network congratulates the people and government of Venezuela on this victory for democracy, and reaffirms our solidarity with the struggles for sovereignty, justice and socialism of the 21st century that the referendum result has mandated.


Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network

PO Box 5421 CC, Melbourne 3001

info@venezuelasolidarity.org

Venezuela’s regional elections: Another vote for the revolution and Chavez

Red: PSUV win; Blue: oppositon win; White: no election; Arrows: gain for the opposition (AFP)

Statement by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network

November 25, 2008 - The results of the elections for local mayors and state governors held in Venezuela on November 23 underlined the continuing mass support for the Bolivarian revolution led by President Hugo Chavez.

In a clear vote of confidence in the project to build socialism of the 21st century in Venezuela, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) -- formed just six months ago with Chavez as its president -- won 17 of the 22 states in which governors were elected. The United States-backed right-wing opposition won five states with a total of about 4 million votes, compared to the 5.5 million votes for the PSUV candidates.

The elections were also a victory for democracy in Venezuela. The voter turn-out was the highest ever in regional elections, with 65.45% of those eligible casting their vote (compared to 45% in the last regional elections in 2004). Despite some opposition leaders threatening not to recognise the results if voting hours were extended, polling centres were kept open until 10.30pm in some places to ensure that everyone waiting in the long queues was able to vote, and international observers report that it was a completely free and fair ballot.

Jim McIlroy, a participant in the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network brigade currently in Venezuela who observed the voting at polling booths in Caracas, said: “There was a festive atmosphere at the booths, but it was also highly politicised: the people were taking their democratic right to vote very seriously.

“The computerised voting sytem is far more advanced than that used in Australia, and its ability to guarantee the accuracy of the whole process clearly has the confidence of the people.”

After the close of polls, Chavez congratulated the Venezuelan people for participating in the elections in a “civic and joyful” manner, saying that the process ratified Venezuelan democracy, but not the “democracy of before”, which “belonged to the elites”.

Overall, the November 23 vote for the PSUV – for the revolution and socialism -- increased by about 1.3 million on the pro-revolution vote in the constitutional reforms referendum last December. In contrast, the anti-revolution opposition’s comparative vote declined by about 300,000. As well, the Chavez suporters won back three states (Aragua, Guarico and Sucre) in which the incumbent governors had, over the last 18 months, defected to the opposition.

However, the sharp polarisation of Venezuelan society and the hard struggle still facing the poor majority to defend the gains of the revolution and realise their dream of a new socialist Venezuela is evident in the fact that the opposition, which won only two states in 2004 (oil-rich Zulia and Nueva Esparta), this time won three more from Chavez supporters (Miranda, Tachira, Carabobo). The opposition also won the position of mayor of Greater Caracas and now controls four of Caracas’s five municipalities, although the largest and poorest municipality, Libertador, was re-won by the pro-revolution candidate.

Already in control of 95% of the media in Venezuela, the right wing will without a doubt use these victories to escalate their ongoing campaign to overthrow Chavez, and undermine the Bolivarian revolution. As was exposed just a month before the regional elections, they will stop at nothing to halt the revolutionary process, including another military coup and the assassination of Chavez.

Capitalist media around the world, including in Australia, are supporting their campaign to discredit and destabilise Venezuela’s revolutionary government. An AFP report by Sophie Nicholson, for example, which was uncritically regurgitated in the Melbourne Age newspaper on November 24, pedalled blatant lies about the regional elections.

“Mr Chavez”, it stated, “has threatened to imprison opponents, or even send tanks onto the streets, if his party loses in the populous northwestern state of Carabobo”. In fact, Chavez said that the government would mobilise the military if there were destablisation attempts around the elections: a scenario that was not out of the question given the opposition’s constant public calls in national media for the violent overthrow of Chavez and his government.

The Melbourne Age article also claimed that “about 300 candidates, mainly from the opposition, have been prevented from running in the elections”. In fact, those barred from contesting were not mostly opposition candidates, and all were disqualified after investigations found them guilty of corruption.

Demolishing these and the numerous other efforts to paint him as some sort of “dictator”, Chavez immediately acknowledged the opposition’s victory in Carabobo, and the other four states. In doing so, however, he urged the opposition to behave democratically: “I hope you devote yourself to understand the people, govern with transparency, honesty and respect for the national government and the institutions of those states and municipalities. If you do so, you will deserve our acknowledgement; if you do not, the Constitution of the Republic will be imposed on you.”

Of the 17 governorships won by the PSUV, eight were won with at least 60% of the vote and most of the others were won with a more than 10% margin on the closest rival. In the local municipalty elections, which were held at the same time, the average vote for Chavista candidates was even stronger.

Despite the many difficulties and contradictions confronting the revolution, it is clear that the great majority of Venezuelans want the process of transferring resources and power to the poor majority to continue.

Chavez summed it up when he said that these election results ratify that “the path is the construction of socialism, and we have to deepen it”.

[Visit the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network website at www.venezuelasolidarity.org.]