The Devil's Excrement

In December President Hugo Chávez announced that the Government would
not be renewing the concession for TV channel RCTV, after more than 50 years in
the air. It was the end of years of threats against the media, including very
direct threats such as the day Chávez pointed a rifle at the RCTV camera and
suggested he could shoot the camera down at a large distance.

While I have outlined the legal arguments before, I thought it would be interesting
to go over them in detail in simple fashion, given the recent events against
the TV channel and the approaching date for the cancellation of the concession.

The Government argues that the concession of RCTV was renewed in 1987
for twenty years under a decree ( No. 1577) published in May of that year and
thus it can simply let the concession expire. This is the only legal argument
provided by the Government. However, article 4 of that same decree says
explicitly that after the first twenty years, the concession will be extended
for another twenty years “as long as the regulations on telecommunications
matters have been fulfilled”

Thus, not renewing the concession would require that CONATEL, the
telecom regulator, prove that RCTV did not fulfill all of the requirements of
the regulations and give RCTV the chance to defend itself. This has not occurred, nor has
the company been sanctioned for violating either the Organic Law of Telecommunications
or the Social Responsibility law.

In fact, application of the 1987 decree to RCTV can not be justified, if
it is not applied to all TV stations, since it should be equal to all of them
that the 20 years expire for RCTV, the Government’s TV station VTV or any other
station. It would also apply to all radio stations in the country. Why the
differentiation?

But on top of that there is the fact that a new Telecom law came into
effect in 2000, which required all TV stations to convert their concessions
before September 2002, by requesting the conversion in front of the regulator
and the Ministry. RCTV as well as all other TV stations submitted all of the
paperwork, but only one of them (Venevision) has been informed of the
conversion. However, they have all operated for four years, paid the required
taxes under the telecom law and has participated in all of the activities
required by CONATEL as a holder of a valid concession.

Fulfilling the requirements for conversion under the 2000
Telecommunications bill implies that RCTV’s concession was automatically
renewed for twenty more years or until 2002. Under Venezuelan legislation, since the change was manadtory, a reason had to be given for not coverting the title of the concession, thus not replying in itself could be legally interpreted as the change being approved, not only for RCTV but for all TV stations that did not receive a reply (All but Venevision).

Thus, the conclusion is very simple from a legal point of view, if
decree 1577 from 1987 is applied, there has been no formal proceeding against
RCTV that would justify not extending the concession and it is an outright lie
that the Government is simply letting the concession die. If, on the other
hand, the 2000 Organic Telecommunications Bill is applied, the Government has
allowed RCTV to switch its concession title not only by the fact that it never
responded to the company’s submission of the required paperwork, but also by
the fact that for four years after the deadline for the conversion, the
Government ahs recognized RCTV as having a legal concession.

Thus, the Government the decision by the Government represents a
violation of RCTV’s rights to due process, it is being discriminated against
and it represents a violation of freedom of speech as it represents an abuse of
official controls as typified in the Inter American Human Rights convention.

Thus, the Government of Hugo Chávez hides behind a smokescreen,
encouraging its hoodlums to attack that station as
detailed in Publiuspundit and even
“invites” them using the official TV channel to go and participate in these
acts of fascism.

No rule of law, human rights violations, no due process and state
sponsored fascist attacks on the media.

Not precisely the definition or hallmarks of a democratic Government, no?.

This entry was posted on April 5, 2007 at 5:20 pm and is filed under Venezuela.