President Hugo Chávez's government is about to acquire a majority stake in Globovisión, a privately-owned TV station that is critical of his administration. By acquiring the shares of some of the station’s directors, the government says it will be able to control 48.5 per cent of its capital, according to Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF).
Federal Bank chairman Nelson Mezerhane stepped in last month at the government’s request and bought 20 per cent of Globovisión’s shares, plus another 5.8 per cent acquired through another company, Chávez revealed during a televised ceremony on July 20. He also announced that the 20 per cent of shares owned by Luis Teófilo Núñez, one of the station’s founders, who died in 2007, would “pass to the state.” Chávez said, “25.8 per cent plus 20 per cent makes 48.5 per cent, amigo.” This was not an expropriation, he insisted. The government just wanted to “participate in this business.”
The president added that the Federal Bank governors would appoint a representative to the Globovisión board, and that journalists currently working as state television presenters would proposed for the position. The TV station reacted with statement announcing its intention to resist President Chávez’s designs: “Globovisión’s editorial line is not measured in share percentages (...) nor will it be expropriated.”
Globovisión has often been threatened with closure and is currently the target of several legal proceedings initiated by Chávez, including a warrant for the arrest of one of its top executives, Guillermo Zuloaga, who has fled to the United States. But with Chávez insinuating that the government could also recover Zuloaga’s shares because he has left the country, Globovisión now appears to be on the verge of being taken over entirely, RSF said.
In his recent statements, President Chávez also threatened to rescind the Vale TV concession that was granted to the Venezuelan church before he came to power. It should be “given back to the people,” he said. RCTV, a station accused of supporting the 2002 coup attempt against Chávez, was already stripped of its concession in 2007.
Both RCTV and Globovisión did indeed support some of the people involved in the attempted coup, but the suppression of these opposition media has more to do with the government’s inability to tolerate criticism. Eight years after the coup, these coercive measures are motivated by a desire to silence opponents who are drawing attention to intractable economic and social problems.
Venezuela is diverging more and more from other Latin American countries such as Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil which have decriminalised press offences and created the legal bases for more media pluralism. President Chávez’s latest statements signal another disturbing step backwards for Venezuela, RSF alleged.
Inter American Press Association (IAPA) President Alejandro Aguirre, editor of the Miami, Spanish-language newspaper Diario Las Américas, said, "In view of this new controversy surrounding Globovisión, we strongly reject the authoritarian attitude of the government of President Chávez, who is once again blatantly assaulting press freedom and freedom of enterprise."
He added that this episode is part of a "strategy of connected offences against the privately-owned and independent news media, in place for the past decade, in which Chávez has ordered the shutdown of TV and radio stations, and newspapers have been financially strangled merely for criticizing government acts and exercising their right to express an opinion."
Robert Rivard, chairman of the IAPA's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, recalled that for the past four years the IAPA has denounced the Venezuelan government's campaign to malign the television network and its president and owner, Guillermo Zuloaga, who was forced to flee the country under political, presidential and judicial persecution.
Zuloaga, who on July 20 was awarded the IAPA 2010 Grand Prize for Press Freedom - the organisation's highest recognition for defenders of a free press, faces more than 40 lawsuits and administrative actions against Globovisión, as well as a charge brought in April this year of criminal dissemination of false information and offending the head of state, along with another allegation of usury in a case involving another, non-journalistic company.
