Radio Free Venezuela?
July 22, 2005
Please Distribute Widely
The United States Congress is doing its best to outdo the Colombian government in overwrought, overreaching responses to
the new Latin American news station Telesur. The U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment on Wednesday to begin
beaming "the ideals of freedom" into Venezuela via new broadcasts modeled on the Cuba-aimed Radio Marti.
The flimsy justification for force-feeding U.S. government and CIA propaganda onto the airwaves which is used for Cuba –
that the government does not allow opposing views in the media – should be laughable to anyone who has spent one day in
Venezuela. Newsstands and television stations overflow with big-budget anti-Chavista media. Not a single journalist has
been jailed or censured under Hugo Chávez’s presidency, while government censorship was rampant under several previous
rightwing administrations.
But apparently the impending launch of Telesur – which in truth represents more voices, more freedom of information,
instead of less – has the wingnuts that seem to control the House these days in a panic, and they are planning an
electronic attack on Venezuela that is doomed to fail.
Read more here, in the Narcosphere:
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin