Power without limits, front-page editorial in El Nacional
In the last few minutes of this night in May and with all of the musical notes of the “Gloria al Bravo Pueblo” of the National Anthem, Radio Caracas Television goes off the air. The TV station that for more than fifty years was one of the windows through which we peeked at our country and the world, will have been silenced. Tonight a fundamental stage in the history of our country’s communications will end.
A decision by the Executive branch determined the closure of RCTV, with the argument that “the concession had expired”. Behind the legal excuse, different factors are present. Beyond the rhetoric, it happens to be an eminently political decision with fatal future implications. Those capable of disagreeing or preserving their independence will have their concessions under threat and no new ones will be given to those that do not march at the rhythm of official ideology.
The measure shows a landmark without precedents in our country: the end of pluralism, on the one hand, and on the other, the growing monopoly of the information exercised by the audiovisual media in the hands of the State. That is what the shutting down of RCTV means. According to the Constitution, Venezuela should be a State with a rule of law, which “promotes the preeminence of human rights, ethics and political pluralism”. Today that is no longer the case.
The Devil's Excrement 
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