Vivanco Attacks Telesur: "The Airwaves Are Falling!"
July 17, 2005
Gary Webb - Presente
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Telesur, the Latin America-wide TV station that is scheduled to begin broadcasting on July 24 with start-up funds from
the governments of Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Cuba, is already worrying the anti-democracy crowd in the region,
including Human Rights Watch "Americas Director" José Miguel Vivanco.
According to today's Chicago Tribune, Vivanco is calling upon a higher power - God herself! - to help him in his battle
to discredit a TV station that he has never even watched. Vivanco said:
"If the shareholders of this company belong to a government like Cuba where they have no basic concept of free speech
and zero tolerance for independent views, God help us."
In his panicked announcement that the airwaves are falling, Vivanco was joined by an old ally: Venezuelan coup plotter
and media baron Alberto Federico Ravell...
Read all about Vivanco's latest anti-human rights tantrum, and the censorious history of his Venezuelan allies, via The
Narcosphere:
Meanwhile. journalist Stephen Peacock pours over more U.S. government documents and finds Washington rushing to send
3,700 packages of riot gear to the Bolivian government by July 31, as well as construction of an "emergency operations
center" in La Paz:
Vivanco and Human Rights Watch, however, remain silent on that and other real threats to human rights and democracy in
the region.
From somewhere in a country called América,
Al Giordano
Correspondent
The Narco News Bulletin