Iniquitous Critics of Hugo Chávez

The survival of Hugo
Chávez' government in Venezuela, the popular elections of Evo Morales in
Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador and the campaign to restore Manuel Zelaya,
the democratically-elected leader of Honduras, to power following a right-wing
coup have all relied on solidarity at home and abroad and the courage to read
between the lines of the disinformation pedalled by corporate media outlets.

The British labour movement
has always played its part. From the Spanish Civil War, to the coup in Chile
and the apartheid struggle in South Africa, and now the solidarity campaigns
around Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela and Honduras, the British left has stood up
for democracy and justice. This makes the present media manipulation around
Venezuela even harder to stomach.

Against a background of
increasing anti-Chávez propaganda an attack on the British left's support of
Venezuela's revolution has emanated from Labour's benches in the House of
Commons. Denis MacShane's critique in The Guardian (3 August) must be
challenged. The Rotherham MP began with a call for all "Hooray Hugos",
presumably including more than 50 Labour MPs and many national  trade unions, to rethink their support for
Venezuela's leader.

According to Denis
MacShane: "While the left in Spain,
France, Italy and Latin America has always had doubts about the populist,
demagogic style of Chavez, he has had a free run in Britain. Ken Livingstone
organised meetings to worship him and got involved in a bizarre oil deal. The
NUJ [National Union of Journalists] and Labour MPs have made pilgrimages to
Caracas to buy the Chávez line."

It was a risible attempt to
belittle the work of the solidarity movement which arose in response to the
CIA-backed coup against a democratically elected Venezuelan leader, who has
made the alleviation of poverty a priority.

Denis MacShane's attack was
ostensibly in defence of free speech and independent journalists allegedly
under threat because: "Chávez has put before the
Venezuelan parliament a proposed law that would impose prison sentences of up
to four years for journalists whose writings might divulge information against
‘the stability of the institutions of the state'."

Yet Hugo Chávez has not
proposed any such law and no such law is in operation in Venezuela.  As the AFP Spanish language news agency has reported,
no such legislative proposal is being officially discussed in the Venezuelan
parliament.

What actually happened was
that, on 30th July, Venezuela's Public Prosecutor suggested a number of
proposals to the country's MPs that she believed should become law. There is no
broad agreement or consensus that they should become so. The proposals are no
more than her own suggestions. The public prosecutor is not a legislator and
cannot implement legislation.

Venezuela's Parliament has
certainly not agreed to the suggestions. Manuel Villalba, president of the
Media Commission in the Parliament explained: "We want to reiterate that it is
not true that in this House there is or was [such] a bill". There was merely
"the contributions of the Prosecutor". He insisted there is no consensus.
Further, senior representatives of the Chavez-led PSUV have said the party does
not endorse the prosecutor's suggestions.

As Washington academic Mark
Weisbrot explained: Venezuela's media "routinely broadcasts reporting and
commentary that would not be allowed under FCC rules in the US. And the vast
majority of the media in Venezuela is still controlled by the right-wing
opposition".

By any rational standards,
the actions of elements of Venezuela's media – such as its now fully exposed
orchestration of a military coup – are outside the normal role of the press and
should be subject to regulation. There is now an open discussion on how to do
this. The interpretation of this offered by various corporate media sources,
which has been amplified by the MP for Rotherham, has nothing to do with the
labour movement's tradition of informed and intelligent analysis.

What is more frustrating is
that a Labour MP who purports to have an interest in Latin America and to speak
up for journalists is silent on the murder and intimidation of journalists and
trade unionists in Colombia. In the past decade, according to the International
Federation of Journalists, "54 Colombian journalists have been murdered for
their work". And 606 trade unionists have been murdered since incumbent
President Alvaro Uribe came to power.

And there is a currently a
place in Latin America where basic rights are being rolled back. In Honduras,
the military seized power in a coup on June 28. Since then peaceful protests
have been violently repressed with killings and many wounded. The media has
been censored, independent radio and TV stations have been shut down. Political
organizers have been detained and intimidated and fundamental civil liberties
have been suspended. These abuses have been documented and condemned by Amnesty
International and other human rights bodies.

Yet Denis MacShane and
others say nothing about this, choosing instead to aim their fire at
Venezuela's elected government.

As Foreign Office Minister
during the military coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002, Denis MacShane described
Chavez in The Times as a "ranting, populist demagogue", comparing him to
Mussolini, words from an international minister that can only have been
received positively by the illegal military coup plotters. Not once in The
Times nor in his Foreign Office statement during the coup did Denis MacShane
call for elected President, Hugo Chávez, to be returned to power. [Instead
calling ambiguously for "swift return to a legitimate, democratic government in
Venezuela" following what he called the "departure" of Chavez]

It can only be concluded –
given the availability of credible information on Latin America – that this and
other articles which misrepresent the situation in Venezuela are part of a
politically motivated campaign with a broader, ideological agenda.

The author is a Minister of Parliament from the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.