[Peace-discuss] Venezuela and the Washington Post

[Brussel Morton K.]

Letter to the Washington Post…

Letter from Venezuela’s Communications Minister to the Washington Post
Andrés Izarra

Jackson Diehl
Deputy Editor, Editorial Page
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20071
March 25, 2008


Dear Mr. Diehl,

Over the past several years, we have informed you of our concerns  
regarding the hostile, distorted and inaccurate coverage of Venezuela  
in your newspaper, and particularly on the Editorial Page.  
Previously, we communicated our alarm at the unbalanced reporting and  
writing on Venezuela during the period 2000-2006, which evidenced one- 
sided analyses and false claims regarding President Chávez’s  
tendencies and events within the country. Since then, however, the  
Post coverage has gotten worse. More editorials and OpEds have been  
written this past year about Venezuela than ever before, 98% of which  
are negative, critical, and aggressive and contain false or  
manipulated information. We are therefore led to believe that the  
Washington Post is promoting an anti-Venezuela, anti-Chávez agenda.

President Chávez has been referred to in Washington Post editorials  
and OpEds during the past year as a “strongman”, “crude populist”,  
“autocrat”, “clownish”, “increasingly erratic”, “despot” and  
“dictator” on 8 separate occasions and his government has been  
referred to 7 times as a “dictatorship”, a “repressive regime” or a  
form of “authoritarianism”. Such claims are not only false, but they  
are also extremely dangerous. The U.S. government has used such  
classifications to justify wars, military interventions, coup d’etats  
and other regime change techniques over the past several decades.

Far from a dictatorship, President Chávez’s government has the  
highest popularity rating in the Venezuela’s contemporary history and  
Chávez has won three presidential elections with landslide victories  
and several other important elections, including a recall referendum  
against his mandate in August 2004, which he won with a clear 60-40  
majority. Hugo Chávez is the first president in Venezuela’s history  
to include the country’s majority poor population in key decision and  
policy-making. The creation of community councils that govern locally  
and the increase in voter participation are clear signs of a vibrant,  
open democracy, demonstrating that Venezuela is far from a dictatorship.

The Editorial Page inaccuracies and distortions extend beyond the  
mere labeling of President Chávez. On more than 11 occasions,  
editorials and OpEds have falsely claimed that President Chávez  
“controls the courts and the television media”. Venezuela has five  
branches of government - all of which are autonomous from one other  
by Constitutional mandate: the Executive, the Legislative, the  
Judiciary, the Electoral and the People’s Power. Unlike the United  
States, which allows for the Executive to appoint supreme court  
justices, in Venezuela, the high court magistrates are determined  
through a selection process and a vote in the National Assembly. The  
Executive branch in Venezuela plays no role in the assignment of  
judges to the courts. Communications media in Venezuela continues to  
be majority controlled by the private sector, despite what the Post  
Editorial Page claims.

Post editorials and OpEds also erroneously referred to the  
constitutional reform package last December on more than 8 occasions  
as enabling President Chávez to “rule indefinitely” or become a “de  
facto president-for-life”. The Constitutional reform did seek to  
abolish term limits, but not elections. Venezuelans would still have  
the right and duty to nominate candidates and vote for them in  
transparent electoral processes. Interestingly, the Post made no  
similar accusations against President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia when  
he twice made moves to change constitutional law to permit reelection  
to a second term. Uribe succeded in 2004 and is now again seeking to  
amend that law so he can run for a third term. Where are the Post’s  
cries about dictatorship and de facto president-for-life in Colombia?

The Post has also severely manipulated and outrighted censored  
information about economic growth in Venezuela. Twice, recent  
publications on the editorial page described the Venezuelan  
government economic measures as “disastrous, crackpot economic  
policies”. Under Chávez’s economic policies, extreme poverty has  
diminished to an all-time low of 9.4% (2007) from a high of 42.5% in  
1996. Unemployment has been reduced to 6.9% (2007) from 16.6% in  
1998. Minimum wage has been raised substantially during the Chávez  
government to become one of the highest in the developing world, and  
there has been a significant reduction in Venezuela’s public debt.  
Chávez also paid off Venezuela’s loans to the World Bank and  
International Monetary Fund and has increased investment in the  
nation’s agricultural production industry.

Nevertheless, the Post fails to reflect any of these positive,  
progressive advances in its coverage and statements on Venezuela.  
Instead, Post editorials are dedicated to accusing President Chávez  
of engaging in an “arms race” (4 occasions), “violating human  
rights” (3 times), “facilitating/endorsing drug-trafficking” (6  
times) and “promoting an anti-American agenda” (6 times). Worst of  
all, despite Chávez’s own statements to the contrary, the Post  
continues to perpetuate the dangerous myth that Chávez is an “anti- 
semite” “aligned with terrorist nations or groups” (9 times).

Mr. Diehl, you should certainly know that the United States is  
currently waging an international war against terrorism. Within that  
framework, the Bush administration has clearly stated that those  
nations associated with or friendly to terrorist states or groups can  
be subject to preemptive invasion or intervention. Are you seeking  
such an end in Venezuela?

Your editorial on February 15, 2008, “Mr. Chávez’s Bluff”, goes one  
step too far. The piece is an outright call for a boycott of  
Venezuelan oil, an act that would irreparably harm both the peoples  
of Venezuela and the United States. As the Post applauds the mafia  
tactics of one of the world’s wealthiest corporations, ExxonMobil,  
it’s evident that its allegiance lies with corporate profits over  
people’s rights.

And your latest editorial on March 5, 2008, “Allies of Terrorism” is  
well beyond a mere criticism of President Chávez’s policies; it’s a  
direct threat to the people of Venezuela. By accepting at face value  
- with absolutely no investigation or verification - the documents  
alleged to have been found on a computer belonging to Rául Reyes from  
the FARC, the Post recklessly condemns both Venezuela and Ecuador as  
nations that promote and harbor terrorism and justifies the most  
violating, reviled and dangerous Bush doctrine of modern times:  
Preventive War. By comparing Colombia’s violation of Ecuador’s  
sovereignty to a US attack against al-Qaeda, the Post shamelessly  
validates the most irrational war in history and calls for its  
expansion into Latin America. We find the Post’s defense of the  
violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty and its satisfaction with such  
aggressive - and illegal - tactics, together with the warning that  
Venezuela is in “danger”, extremely disturbing.

We are outraged with the Washington Post’s editorial coverage of  
Venezuela. The Post was once the bastion of genuine investigative  
reporting and truth-seeking. Those days are well gone and the  
Washington Post has now become nothing more than a tabloid serving  
special interests. The noble principles Eugene Meyer envisioned for  
the Washington Post in 1935, including “telling the truth as nearly  
as the truth can be ascertained”, “telling ALL the truth so far as it  
can be learned, concerning the important affairs of America and the  
world and “the newspaper shall not be the ally of any special  
interest, but shall be fair and free and wholesome in its outlook on  
public affairs and public persons,” have been violated by editors  
like you, Mr. Diehl, who have chosen to promote a harmful personal  
agenda instead of ensure the ongoing greatness of your newspaper.

Sincerely,

Andrés Izarra
Journalist
Minister of Communication and Information
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
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