Reply #74: El Universal?? Golpista! ROFL --owner met with Dictator-for-a-Day Carmona [View All]

[Say_What]

I wouldn't put too much stock in anything they print. El Universal!! ROTFLMA

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...After Chávez came to power in 1998, the five main privately owned channels - Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), Globovisión and CMT - and nine of the 10 major national newspapers, including El Universal, El Nacional, Tal Cual, El Impulso, El Nuevo País, and El Mundo, have taken over the role of the traditional political parties, which were damaged by the president’s electoral victories. Their monopoly on information has put them in a strong position. They give the opposition support, only rarely reporting government statements and never mentioning its large majority, despite that majority’s confirmation at the ballot box. They have always described the working class districts as a red zone inhabited by dangerous classes of ignorant people and delinquents. No doubt considering them unphotogenic, they ignore working class leaders and organisations.

Their investigations, interviews and commentaries all pursue the same objective: to undermine the legitimacy of the government and to destroy the president’s popular support. "In aesthetic terms, this revolutionary government is a cesspit," was the delicate phrase used by the evening paper Tal Cual. Its editor, Teodoro Petkoff, is a keen opponent of Chávez. Petkoff is a former Marxist guerrilla who became a neo-liberal and a pro-privatisation minister in the government of rightwing president Rafael Caldera. The Chávez government is not, of course, above criticism. It makes mistakes, and the civilian and military personnel who surround it are tainted by corruption. But the government was democratically elected and still has the backing of the majority. It can also be credited with successes, nationally and internationally.

...."One step forward" was the triumphant headline in El Universal. Journalist Rafael Poleo, who had filed the account of the first meeting of the rebel leaders, took responsibility (with others) for the document setting up the new government. During the afternoon "President" Carmona offered Poleo’s daughter, Patricia, the post of head of the central information bureau. The decree establishing a dictatorship was countersigned by the employers, the church and the representatives of a pseudo "civil society", and also by Miguel Angel Martínez, on behalf of the media. Daniel Romero, private secretary of the former social-democrat president Carlos Andrés Pérez, and an employee of the Cisneros group, read it out.

http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela

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...Led by Cisneros, the media group, which also included Andrews Mata, owner of El Universal, Venezuela's other major daily, met with self-proclaimed interim President and big business mouthpiece Pedro Carmona on Saturday April 14, as demonstrators were pouring out on the streets of Caracas demanding Chávez' return. Flanked by one of the generals who had installed him in the presidential palace only a day earlier, Carmona asked the media bosses for help.

They obliged: shortly thereafter, the news blackout, which had started the night before, became total. Neither El Universal nor El Nacional published their Sunday editions. Globovisión's Ravell reportedly even called CNN's Atlanta headquarters to ask, in vain, that the U.S. network join the news blackout.

http://www.thegully.com/essays/venezuela/020421_venezuel_media_coup.html

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Acting Leader Of Venezuela Steps Down;
Term Ends After One Day As Pro-Chavez Protests Grow

By Scott Wilson
Sunday, April 14, 2002

...The events surrounding Chavez's removal are being studied by a divided international community, now deciding whether what happened in Venezuela is a military coup or an expression of popular will. The United States has tacitly endorsed the new government by pointedly blaming Chavez for provoking the violence that brought about his removal. But Latin American leaders have condemned "the constitutional interruption" in Venezuela, and many have refused to recognize the interim government. The Organization of American States, whose members agreed last year to punish countries determined to be undemocratic through trade embargoes and other sanctions, is sending a delegation to Venezuela on Sunday.


"Even as we speak, a case is being prepared to be filed at the transnational level to show how he repeatedly violated the constitution," said Andrews Mata, owner of the El Universal newspaper, a Caracas daily, who along with other media leaders met with the new government today. "In the meantime, there is a willingness to hold legislative elections within 90 days and hold presidential elections on December 8. For those who criticize this government for being improvisational, it isn't acting that way."


http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/coup.htm