Television Channel Critical Of Chavez Returns

Venezuela’s opposition-aligned television station, RCTV, resumed broadcasting via cable and satellite today after being forced off the public airwaves almost two months ago when President Hugo Chávez refused to renew its licence.

The return of RCTV - which previously enjoyed nationwide coverage and has since resorted to showing the latest episodes of its popular soap operas on YouTube - will be limited to the third of Venezuelan households that can afford cable and satellite subscriptions.

Mr Chávez’s decision not to renew the licence of Venezuela’s oldest and biggest private television channel, following its news coverage during a failed coup against him in 2002, met with widespread rejection both at home and abroad, provoking fears that freedom of expression was being threatened.

Mr Chávez has renewed the licences of other channels, such as Venevision, that were once also critical of him but, unlike RCTV, have since toned down their coverage.

“The position of a biased television channel doesn’t help resolve the conflict, rather it extends it,” said Gustavo Cisneros, Venevision’s owner, during an unusual televised address last week in which he emphasized that his channel aimed to present a “balanced” view and would not take sides in Venezuela’s deeply polarised political conflict.

“It is not easy to take a balanced position when some government officials want the television channels to report only the news that show the government in a positive light,” he said, adding that similarly the opposition wants the government portrayed only negatively.

However, RCTV chairman Marcel Granier vows to maintain his station’s critical stance of the government, while promising to continue his fight to regain access to RCTV’s former spectrum, which has been handed over to a new public service channel, TVes.

Although the nationwide protests that RCTV’s removal from public airwaves triggered appear to be quietening down, reverberations abroad continue.

A request by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, for the Organisation of American States (OAS) to lead a mission to Caracas to study the RCTV case was rejected by the Venezuelan government as “totally unacceptable” last Thursday.

Also, Venezuela’s attempts to gain full membership of the regional trade bloc, Mercosur, were complicated when Mr Chávez called Brazilian senators “parrots of Washington” after they questioned his handling of the RCTV affair, later threatening to withdraw from the group altogether.

Venezuela still needs the approval of both Brazil and Paraguay before it can join, and both countries have rejected Mr Chávez’s three-month ultimatum to accept Venezuela’s entry intoMercosur.

Nevertheless, despite the opposition in Brazil’s Senate that has been aggravated by the RCTV affair, Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, expressed support last week for Venezuela’s entry into the group.

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